I Found My Mom's Long-Lost BMW 540iT and Someone Made It Even Better

“I know this is a long shot,” I began a DM to a total stranger, after 10 p.m. on a Saturday, no less. “My mom ordered an ‘01 Electric Red 540iT back in the day, and I’m wondering if yours is the same car.” I attached the VIN, an iPhone shot of the window sticker, and a blurry copy of a photograph from 2001, pressed send, and put my phone down.

Two minutes later, it buzzed. “It appears it is your Mom’s car.”

Have you ever scoured the internet with hopes of finding a long-lost car, only to turn up dead end after dead end? So it went for me and my Mom’s beloved red station wagon, with every search uncovering more maddening roadblocks and question marks, until I finally struck unexpected gold last weekend.

The History

My mom wouldn’t call herself a car enthusiast, but she knows her way around a clutch pedal and even earned a byline on this site. After learning to drive on a 1972 Datsun 240Z, she owned a third-generation Honda Prelude (manual, of course) and an original Land Rover Discovery, both in red. But with two kids—four-year-old me and my sister barely one—and two large dogs, it was time for something practical that combined hauling ability with her unique flair.

After test-driving a handful of Volvo and Mercedes-Benz station wagons and finding them a bit dull, there was only one car that fit the bill: the E39 BMW 540iT. BMW offered the E39 wagon with a 4.4-liter V8 from 1999 to 2003, and they sold a total number in the low four digits as the new X5 took buyers’ attention away from wagons. According to BimmerForums, seven 540iTs were ever painted Electric Red (also known as Japan Red or Japanrot, in BMW speak), and my mom special-ordered one of these seven.

She went to four or five dealerships, most of which flat out denied her request to order a bright red station wagon. They were afraid she’d refuse delivery, and they’d be stuck with a car they couldn’t sell because it wasn’t silver or black, or an SUV. Finally, Long Beach BMW reluctantly agreed to the deal, and my parents ordered the wagon with a tan interior and just one option: the sport package.

Several months later, the car showed up. I wasn’t even five years old at the time, but I remember going to pick it up. There it was, sitting in the showroom, behind some ropes—my mom’s beautiful, bright red V8 station wagon. It was perfect.

My sister and I grew up in the back seat of that car, going to school, sports practices, and on road trips. The Counting Crows album Hard Candy will always conjure memories of sitting in back on a long, sunny highway, staring out the window at the Southern California landscape passing by. We kept it a decade, and it was the only one of my parents’ cars to ever earn a nickname, albeit an uninspired one—Red Rocket. I still wear a small scar on my left middle finger from an errant hatch slam, so you could say it left a mark on me.

Near the end, I begged my parents to keep it until I was old enough to drive—only a couple of years away at that point. But as it aged, its maintenance bills crept up, and they sold it. My mom made my dad trade it in alone because she was afraid she’d get emotional saying goodbye.

The Search

Several years later, in college, I became mildly obsessed with tracking the car down. I got a friend to pull a CarFax report, which told me the car was still registered and on the road near Atlanta. Score! It listed recent service history at a Georgia BMW dealer, which I called only to be told that it (understandably) wouldn’t provide customer contact information. I had hit my first dead end of many.

I set up Google alerts for the 540iT’s VIN and saved Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace searches in the Atlanta area, which I revisited weekly, and then monthly, with no success. I scoured forums and Facebook groups, only to run into more dead ends.

Then, life happened. I met someone, graduated, and got my first full-time job and first apartment. I didn’t forget about the old, red BMW, but I moved on, resigning myself to the fact that I’d probably never see it again. Every once in a while, my fianceé and I would be walking somewhere and I’d see an E39 wagon, or an early 2000s BMW in red, and it would stop me in my tracks.

Last week, I got the DM. From a mutual acquaintance in Atlanta, it read, “Could this be your mom’s old whip?” Attached was a Peachtree BMW CCA Instagram post with a photo of—you guessed it—a red 540iT with some tasteful modifications.

I didn’t get my hopes up. What were the chances? But a red wagon near Atlanta was worth a message, so there I found myself at 10 p.m. on a Saturday typing one up, prepared to be disappointed once again. Until I wasn’t.