Timm's BMW E63/E64 - Fitting a Sports Badge
Surely it can’t be hard to find a Sports badge for the 650i - can it?
Although a trivial thing, I’ve always wondered why BMW didn’t add an ‘S’ suffix to the model designation on the boot of the Sports models.
Huge sums are spent on designing stiffer suspension, engine upgrades and lovely sport seats and what do we get on the boot? Nothing! The
M models get a shiny ///M badge, but my car isn’t an M model and sticking an M badge on a non-M car makes you look like a pillock. Those
who don’t know what the M means don’t care, those that do, laugh.
The only model that does get an S is the E38 318is - and even then the designation is contentious. For instance, the E38 740i was available in
both standard and Sport variants, and only enthusiasts know the difference between them (explained here). The Sport 740i got a higher stall-
speed torque converter, a shorter final drive ratio, sports seats and stiffer suspension, was a darn sight faster, and still no ‘S’ on the boot!
My 650i is the Sport variant and I decided to do something about it - and this is what I ended up with:
The ones above were just a few of the contenders I bought to try and all of them were useless, especially the cheap plastic ones that
disintegrated when I sawed the ‘S’ off. The only one that stood a chance was the badge from the E36 318is
Use a junior hacksaw to remove the ‘i’ and round the cut
Trim the backing paper flush with the outer edges
use 300-grit paper to remove the smooth top-face finish
Mask the sides with masking tape
The paint I’m using (from the left) is Body Fill 961, BMW Chilli Red
851 (usually used on Minis) and Clear Coat. As I’m only using a
small amount of paint I warmed all three in a sink full of hot water -
that allows the paint to obtain a good spray pattern immediately
Start with a fine spray of Body Fill 961 - allow to dry for 5 minutes
A quick blast of Chilli Red 851 - allow to dry for 5 minutes
And a final coat of Clear Lacquer, to get a really smooth finish heat
it up with a hair-dryer, it will expedite the drying and smooth the
face
And that’s about it - allow it to dry overnight to harden the paint and
then remove the masking tape
There’s no room for the ‘i’ after the ‘650’ as the boot has a pretty
sharp curve towards the edge. So, the ‘i’ has to come off - the easy
way to get it off is with dental floss - it won’t scratch the paintwork
but will leave a small amount of the foam rubber - get that off with
surgical spirit. Finally clean the surface with fresh spirit and you are
ready to apply the ‘S’.
Not to everyone’s taste, and the purists won’t like it I’m sure, but it will do nicely for me!
All done, time for a Cup Of Tea!
I tried loads of different badges from all sorts of cars but none of them looked right, too big, too small, the wrong font and the wrong angle
Although the ‘i’ was miles to big, the ‘S’ was exactly right in font, angle and size, it just wasn’t red. So, out with the junior hacksaw and off
came the ‘i’, a quick blast on the linisher rounded the edge smoothly. Now to get a red face and silver sides.
