This Essex-based BMW specialist may be renowned for its styling enhancements, but a change in premises and a dedicated department to look after the track and tuning market meant that TBMW was overdue a visit...

Words and Pictures:   Adam Tait

When Total BMW last visited M Style, it resided in a smaller premises next door to the current unit and showroom, but despite the doom and gloom of what seems to be an infinite recession, this Essex-based BMW specialist seems to have brushed off the financial woes that stare the motor industry in the face.

Head honcho, Paul Emmerson employs seven full-time staff, who work in the mail order outlet, showroom sales and a flurry of mechanical work that goes on out back. These hands are all kept busy with the BMWs that fill the Monday to Friday diary, while the spray guns found in the insurance-approved bodyshop deal with the styling transformations that have etched M Style’s name into the BMW market.  

On the workshop ramp, when we visited, was an E60 530d which was undergoing surgery to have all the visual cues of an M5, just without the associated running costs. Next door to that, also perched on a ramp, was a Dakar Yellow E90 having an Eiesenmann exhaust system fitted, along with a carbonfibre rear valance. Sitting faceless in the bodyshop was an Alpina B10 3.2 that was in to have its stone chips taken care of.

The other portion of the unit is run by Paul’s father, Barry, who takes care of MoT testing. And it was this father and son business ethos that inspired Paul to launch M Style when he saw a gap in the market for styling products and conversions some 10 years ago. “I started the business because we already had the facilities to fit parts, and more recently we have been branching out into the track and tuning market,” explains Paul.

Which explains why there’s an orange track-prepared E46 M3 sitting outside, among a demo car line-up that mainly promotes M Style’s styling exercises. M Style uses the M3 on-track to demonstrate the parts it supplies – by inviting the customer along, they can witness how useful the upgrades are within the safety of a circuit before purchasing, or on the rural sections local to M Style’s premises. This car is about to receive a power hike though, with the aid of a supercharger.

Contact

M STYLE
Unit 2
Northgate Park, Collier Row Road, Collier Row, Romford, Essex, RM5 2BG
Tel: 020 8598 9115
www.mstyle.co.uk

To read more about M STYLE see the January 2012 issue of Total BMW.

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