Everyone in our circle is either an architect or a car designer, or both at once. Where does that leave me: I am both at once. But there is one thing I am late on, and that is a long-standing plan to redesign my F10.

The challenge is obvious: F10 is my daily.

So I am changing the design in parts, starting where results come fast, and keeping the whole structure in a state you can actually drive. Worth it.

Design notion has been sitting on my desk since last year. I did it for Bimmer Invasion, did it in a rush, and that is why I was never sure the final version was what I actually wanted.

I refused to redo the rear end back then. That was the wrong call. In architecture there are three things you can do with a house: tear it down and build new, restore it, or build around it. With cars these rules are even stricter. Half measures never end well.

So I let the design settle. It took almost a year. The rear end we ended up reworking together with my people: I had grown too attached to my own version, it needed outside eyes, and they worked.

The width I set at first made me genuinely nervous about whether the car would fit in a lane. She came out wider than Cybertruck. I ran the numbers, she fits, moving on.

Under the hood everything changes too. I love my N55, but new F10 is getting S85, the classic V10 monster. The engine has been sitting on the stands for a while, all that is left is to wash it and prep it for work. I could tuck it into the current shapes, but what matters to me is different: it should be seen. Part of the hood will be glass. On S85 the intakes are designed basically like lungs, and hiding that under steel would be a waste.

Then the work. I took my 3D model, built off a scan of the original body, moved it into an engineering version and split it into pieces sized for the printers at the shop: around 20 pieces for the big panels, 10-15 for the small ones. There is no untouched spot on this car, everything transforms, so there is a lot of printing ahead.

Front bumper went the classic route: glue [brand coming later] plus a chemical activator that grabs instantly. The glue is strong, but not road strong: heat and especially moisture will take it apart over time. For molds it is exactly right, and molds are the only correct ending here. The prototype has one job: fitment, sit it on the car, pull the mold.

Now the part worth knowing before you open the can. This glue is genuinely harmful, it hits the brain hard. Respirator rated for chemicals, strictly, not a construction dust mask. Gloves from 9 mil up: anything thinner it just tears apart along with your skin. I fought with this for weeks, and it is not an experience worth repeating.

The metal staples via plastic welding I added just in case, and honestly: nearly useless. The glue grabs harder than a staple with its single contact point, and the panels are hollow inside, prints are not solid, so the staple has nothing to hold onto. Do not bother. Fitment, car, mold.

After the glue-up, with glue running out of every seam, the whole thing gets sanded and prepped for epoxy. There is a fork here. Epoxy seals the small stuff and makes the surface denser, but sanding it is harder and pricier than filler, and for a mold, shaping with filler is simpler, so it is really a question of cost. I decided to try epoxy, we will see what I say at the finish line.

The hood goes last, and that is a decision, not laziness. I do not know yet how deep S85 will sit in the engine bay, or whether it will sit taller. I prepped the room for it, but the position of the glass window depends on where the engine lands: closer to the cabin or further out. Throwing the prototype on matters now, pulling the mold waits until the very end.

Then came fitting day. Bricks, driveway, F10 out of the garage. Here I have to confess: I recently did something dumb. Repainted the car for fun, the guys at the shop have a spray gun and a compressor, and I have some painting experience. Shot her light gray, wheels included. Came out practically white. Disappointment logged, will repaint later.

The fitting showed two things. First: it genuinely looks good. Second: I am pulling the shape in. Not because I cannot go wider, I already went wider, the front end exists and sits on the car. But because the truth is in moderation. F10 body lets you go wide without breaking proportions for a second, but there are lines where they do break, and I am staying inside the balance. It will be widebody, aggressive widebody, but without ridiculous shapes, of which the aftermarket has plenty already. The job is not to make it wide. The job is to make it right.

You can only pull back from extreme once the extreme is solved. A year on the shelf: it works.

Score is open. Bumper exists, hood waits for the engine, engine waits for a wash. To be continued.