Iīm sorry, that YOU ARE wrong but in germany the idea isnīt a new one.
Many people I know have put the E46 Coupe kidney in the E36. The only problem is that it only works with the E36 facelift, the older "nose" (I donīt know the word in english) is smaller than the new one.
Here is an example of an E36 Compact with the E46 kidney:
You can also ask in our Forum at
www.bmw-syndikat.de/forum.html