Aftermarket shop Kies Motorsports invested five years and a whopping $175,000 to build this wicked BMW M3 (F80) project car. When time came to part ways with the super sedan, the New Jersey-based company had it listed for less than half, at $75,000. That sounds like a screaming deal, right? The person who "purchased" the car must've thought so, too.
However, things went south four days after the transaction took place. Even though the bank had verified the check before the car changed hands, the money was ultimately withdrawn from the seller's account. It turned out the cashier's check was fake. Consequently, Kies Motorsports' CEO Bryan Kiefer was in quite a predicament as he was left without the money and the car.
Bryan gave the buyer the benefit of the doubt and called him to ask to return the car. Predictably, he didn't show up at the arranged meeting. That's when the police were brought in to handle what was at that point a scam and a theft. The officer got in touch with the individual and asked him to leave the car with the keys inside at an exit on the New Jersey Turnpike. The "buyer" had to text Bryan with the car's address and then be done with it, without any legal repercussions. Once again, he didn't show up.
The tricked-out M3 with four-digit horsepower was supposedly in Long Island at that point, but this is where the story really gets interesting. An alleged accomplice texted Ryan to tell him he was driving the car from Virginia back to New Jersey to drop it off. Unsurprisingly, that didn't happen either. That's when Kies Motorsports decided to shoot the video above and ask for the community's help to find the car.
Thankfully, there's a happy ending. Attached below, a follow-up video posted on Instagram shows the M3 is once again at Kies Motorsports. The identities of those who helped the shop get the car back have not been disclosed for privacy reasons. Ryan says they found it at a "dark address with the car on the side of a building. Very sketchy."
As for the car itself, the F80 is painted in a Ferrari-esque Individual Rosso Corsa and has a carbon fiber roof. The fully built engine packs a monstrous 1,001 horsepower at the wheels and delivers 809 pound-feet (1,097 Newton-meters) of torque. It’s a 2016MY with 65,000 miles (104,607 kilometers) on the clock. However, the engine has only about 2,000 miles (3,219 kilometers) after getting a new block, forged pistons, forged rods, and other upgrades.
