Ex-SRV man collects stuff quickly
The fleet of former SRV man Arie van de Voet is erratic, always in motion, varied and special. He has the most beautiful BMW M3 E46 in the Netherlands (in his own words), but also has an exclusive Renault Wind in the warehouse. In addition to a Volkswagen Golf II G60 and a Renault Clio RS, a Kawasaki GSXR600, a scooter and a Nissan 350Z. Previously, two BMWs 2002 Tii, another BMW M3 (E30), an Alfa Romeo Giulietta, a Porsche 911, a BMW 330 ci, a BMW 323i and a Golf GTI. For the overview we now zoom in on the M3 and the Wind. And that Wind is of course one with the Twingo RS block.
Arie bought the BMW M3 in 2018 from a private individual in the Netherlands. “The car had 252,000 on the clock at the time, the owner drove to his house in Germany every weekend and that is why there were quite a few kilometers on the clock,” says Arie. “It was a neat car. The bearing shells in the engine have been replaced, but that was a factory recall at the time.”
Arie went to work on his bridge in his shed and made an M3 bottom that you only see on new ones that have just come from the factory. So as new. “Once you start, you have to do it right. And I don’t like half measures,” he says. This M3 is never going away, at least that’s what Arie says now. “I also had a BMW M3 E30 and I regret getting rid of it. I won’t make that mistake again,” said Arie. This also applies to speeding. Arie was clocked at 177 km/h, together with a buddy in a Golf R32 behind it. “We had to prevent it. My buddy first and he got a €500 fine. Then I had to. The judge asked why I had been driving so fast. Then I said that I used to have plastic arch supports, but now had steel ones and that was why the pedal had been pressed so deeply. Then I received an additional €100 fine: €600.”
The sharp sound of the M3 is addictive. Arie has to drive back and forth for some photos and although speed is not important, Arie seizes his opportunity and pulls the BMW along nicely. The older, the crazier!
Renault Wind was an exclusive opportunity
What do you do with a Wind again? “Well, I ran into it. It was supposed to cost 6,500 euros, but I ended up buying it for 4,200 euros. The car was like new and was located in Essen, Germany. The owner had to get rid of it, because it was his wife’s second car at home,” says Arie. But, Arie explains, when the owner was on holiday in Spain, his wife got stuck with a Spanish waiter. He returns home alone and therefore away with that Wind as soon as possible. Arie was interested in it, because a Wind with a 1600 RS engine is scarce and makes the car much more fun. Moreover, the car was like new with few kilometers.
Arie drove his SRV car around Slikkerveer, a district of Ridderkerk, for more than 45 years. That didn’t happen fast enough for this car and motorcycle enthusiast. He compensated for that electric bump with a cascade of nice cars for himself. The former SRV man of seventy-plus turns out to be a mega-petrolhead.
As an enthusiast, he drives anything that drives, preferably a bit smoothly. He also likes the game, negotiating, buying a nice car, having fun with it for a while and then selling it on. Arie is just a huge rule-breaker, and a smart one. Nowadays he buys cars for his own cousin’s car company. “Then I’ll go out with the car ambulance. It is important not to come home with rubbish, but now I have an idea of it and I can feel and hear whether a car is something or not.” During the interview, a BMW Compact 325ti stops, the driver of which honks the horn and waves at Arie. “A customer of mine. I sold him the Compact with a six-cylinder engine and he is very happy with it,” says Arie. “Give it full throttle!”, he then shouts to the customer, so that we can also hear the sound of that six-cylinder engine. Arie also likes the game, negotiating, buying a nice car, having fun with it for a while and then reselling it.
This is a shortened version of the story about Arie van de Voet in AutoWeek 50 2023
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl