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Old 05-30-2008, 06:14 AM   #1
netsfr
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Default How many Californias? and hello, I'm new to BMW, new to 318ti.org :-)

Hello fellow 318 drivers. I am new here and just acquired my first BMW, a 1996 318ti California edition. First of all, I didn't know anything about the California edition, and knew very little about 318's. I was originally in search of a 328is, but kept seeing this cute little 318ti posted week after week on craigslist. I finally said "well, lets go look at it". When we made the deal, I didn't know at the time how somewhat rare car may be. I spent the last few nights searching Google, Yahoo, blogs and books looking for production numbers for the California edition/package and have come up with 3 numbers quoted: 300, 600 and 800.

I figure the difference in numbers may be the sum of different years with the top... My question is: Does anyone know how many 318ti Californias were produced? I know the top was an option for several years later, but the "package" was 1996 only. Is there way to find out what production numbers were for what colors? I also have a 1982 Corvette Collector Edition, which there is only 6000 or so around. But production numbers for Vettes are easy to find. I can find how many for each color, and each option for any year back to the 50's. With BMW's, I am not having such luck in the numbers department. Just curious to how rare these cars are. I have read the posts here and see the 600 number and others asking the same info, but not really any hard core footnotes to say how many there really are. Looks like there are many of them right here on 318ti.org!


Thanks to everyone for such a great site - I have already spent about 8 hours here reading along.
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Old 05-30-2008, 02:47 PM   #2
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i wish it were easy to find exact or close to exact production numbers.

many say bmw north america can help you figure out some numbers on the matter but still no one has come bac with hard facts or good back up.

i believe from what i have read there are about 600 true cali package ti's and who knows how many optioned cali tops.

fyi they made cali tops all the way up to the last year of the ti (1999)

there is a lot of good info for the cali tops on this site including repair and maintainence of it.
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Old 05-30-2008, 06:52 PM   #3
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Having owned 2 cali top Ti's, my guess is 5% (maximum) of production 1996-99 were cali tops. This is based soley on casual, but persistent searching for the cars and my own observations here and on the street.

Not sure but I think 1998 was peak production year and roughly 22,000 Ti's were made (or imported?) total.
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Old 05-31-2008, 06:38 PM   #4
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welcome fellow cali top owner

the sa755, or open air option was a more expensive version of a compact available from BMW, it did cost more to have a base version open air compared to a base version with sunroof as the whole roof skin is different.

the sa337, or Mtech package was dependant on region with regards to build year. Of course it was also an option available fro the dealership

i wish i could get a run list of each moedl, but its imposible sorry
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