BMW M3 E30 - Group A/DTM 1987-92

[brown dog]

Okay this could be a biggie! With over 300 "kits" produced by BMW Motorsport between 1987 and 1992, (270 Group A and 60 Group N according to BMW racing team manager Karsten Engel) and "works" cars being run by Schnitzer, Zakspeed, Bigazzi, Cibiemme and Linder, amongst others, this could be one very big jigsaw to piece together by anyones standards. What I would like to do is try to get together a list of all the cars that were supplied new as "kits" by BMW Motorsport, not just the ones assembled by the works supported teams. These Matter prepared shells carry a chassis number beginning "M3 1-xx" with lower numbers being earlier cars obviously. I am hoping for a reply from BMW Motorsport in the next week or two, hopefully they may be able to shed some light on who some of these cars were delivered to.
It is ONLY these cars I am interested in, as the number of M3's that have been turned into race cars over the years would probably run into the thousands by now. Once we have a few chassis numbers up I will sort them into order. If you have one of these cars, or know of someone who does, please post details of the chassis number up, along with any known history of the car. To all you Brits who are worried about scammers or thiefs who might read this and want to come over and nick your car, I don't want your address or contact details, but the counrty where the car lives now would be good. Also, info on any cars that were destroyed would be useful to fill in the gaps.
Over to you guys!

[brown dog]

Thinking some more about this in the shower (where all of my best thinking gets done!) I realised that the above criteria is a bit limited. You Aussies like a bit of DIY as we all know, and the Frank Gardner team built a number of (historically very significant and stunning looking) M3's which must be included here- one of which won the first race for an M3 (after the works cars were all disqualified in Macau or somewhere for illegal parts)
I think the CibiEmme cars may have been built in-house too, so these should be included as well.

[grelley]

Chassis no M3 1 177 (Reshelled Chassis no.) Supplied by BMW Germany to BMW France as parts for 220000 Euros.(1 of 4 cars purchased and the last one existing) Prepared by Team Mirabeau for French Super Tourism Series. Run by Horizon Garage for Michel Ferte . 2nd 1990, 5th 1991. Damaged at end of 1991 season and rebuilt using new bodyshell (M3 1 177)

[blinkybm]

I have some information from Schnitzer Motorsport which lists Works cars Chassis numbers 1-34, 1-18, 1-15 as being built up for/during the 1987 season, and midway (June) also chassis 1-42, which was car #46.

[blinkybm]

And Chassis M3/1-57 replaced M3/1-42 (car #46) crashed at Bathurst by Ravaglia in Practice.

[Revmaster T]

Hello, my name is Thomas and live in Tampa Florida.

I just purchased a gr. A M3 chassis # M3 11260 I have been told that makes it the 126th car.
The car was raced in Macao, owned and driven by Kevin Wong and Charles Kwan in 89,90 not sure about 91. The car is painted white now but used to be yellow.
Team name was something like Tech one or Auto Tech the guy I bought the car from has a hard time remembering the details.

If anyone has any information about this car I would greatly appreciate it.
Some pictures would be fantastic form the early days I would love to see what the car looked like back in the day.

Thanks Thomas

[ravaglia]

Originally Posted by Revmaster T

Hello, my name is Thomas and live in Tampa Florida.

I just purchased a gr. A M3 chassis # M3 11260 I have been told that makes it the 126th car.
The car was raced in Macao, owned and driven by Kevin Wong and Charles Kwan in 89,90 not sure about 91. The car is painted white now but used to be yellow.
Team name was something like Tech one or Auto Tech the guy I bought the car from has a hard time remembering the details.

If anyone has any information about this car I would greatly appreciate it.
Some pictures would be fantastic form the early days I would love to see what the car looked like back in the day.

Thanks Thomas

Thomas, I guess the name of the team should be TEAM TAKE ONE right??

[John Turner]

Welcome, Thomas!

Come on folks, there must be a substantial amount of info out there to develop this thread!

[Revmaster T]

Thank you John. Let me post up some pictures this might help.









Thanks Thomas

[collector]

In the Spezial-Tourenwagen-Trophy we had:

Jürgen Meyer (96-98): M3 1-209
Richard Weber (01-now): M3 1-231
Klaus-Peter Preuss (sold to Switzerland): M3 1-205
Werner Lenk: M3 1-196

This season Michi Besler races the ex-orange Mario Ketterer M3. He bought the the car in 2005 from Kurt Distler.

[Jesper OH]

Originally Posted by collector

In the Spezial-Tourenwagen-Trophy we had:

This season Michi Besler races the ex-orange Mario Ketterer M3. He bought the the car in 2005 from Kurt Distler.

I have found information of Mario racing a Udo Wagenhäuser/Jägermeister M3 in the Avus and Mainz-Finthen 1988 DTM season, which must be the car in your picture.

Jesper

[Zmann42087]

Just wanted to clarify on some false speculation in here. It's a couple years old and you guys might have figured it out, but I can say with relative certainty that despite having been yellow, Revmaster T's Group-A car is not the AutoTech E30 M3 that raced in the JTCC (All-Japan Touring Car Championship) in the late 80's / early 90's. AutoTech never campaigned more than one E30 M3 and that particular car still resides in Japan. Furthermore, the AutoTech E30 M3 saw its first JTCC season in 1988. However, according to the information you received from Schnitzer, your car wasn't sold until 1989.

Now all that said, I might have some information about your car you might find interesting. It looks like your car did infact participate in the JTCC under the ownership of Kevin Wong. He raced in the 1991 JTCC season (maybe more) with team "OVER TAKE". Here is a link to some race results and his car and name come up. 18th place finish, but he is there! 1991 JTCC Results - InterTEC Race at Fuji Speedway

[ian beckett]

Hi ZMANN,welcome to this thread.In fact the Autotech did have and race two identical cars,both in yellow in the Japanese series.Ian.

[Revmaster T]

Is this the E30 with a V8 in it ?

Thomas

[collector]

Yes, the M3 has the V8 engine of the M5.
But there is another M3 with V8. This car was driven by Artur Deutgen at the Nordschleife.

[Revmaster T]

Does anyone have the contact information to Schnitzer Motorsport ? I believe they might be able to give me some of the info I need.

Thanks Thomas

[KA]

Originally Posted by Revmaster T

Does anyone have the contact information to Schnitzer Motorsport ? I believe they might be able to give me some of the info I need.

Thanks Thomas

Team Owner: Herbert Schnitzer
Team Manager: Karl Lamm
Technical Director: Andreas Schallinger
Race Engineers: Jacques Hendrikse and Michael Kölbel
Media Contact: Heike Bartsch (heike.bartsch@bmw.de)
Address: Görlitzer Strasse 2A, 83395 Freilassing, Germany
Telephone: +49 8654 4950
Fax: +49 8654 66318
Website: www.schnitzer.de


http://www.fiawtcc.com/fiawtcc/teamnews_tea6148.shtml

Charly Lamm has been Team Manager at Schnitzer for over 25 years...
http://bmw-motorsport.com/ms/en/fasc...roes/lamm.html

[Revmaster T]

Hi KA, thank you very much I'll contact Schnitzter and I keep you posted on what I find out.

Thomas

[Alex E]

Revmaster T, yes youir car is ex Schnitzer & was built in December 1988 for the DTM. Don`t know what races it did but judging by the red interior colour it was probably ued by Schnitzer rather than built for a customer. They also ran cars in Italy in `89 so that is a possibility too.

Hope that helps, Alex

[Revmaster T]

Hi Alex, when I flew out to California to take a look at the car I found that the car was repainted, it used to be yellow also the previous owner confirmed this.
The car was shipped to Asia after its build. I am still trying to find out more but time is not on my side at the moment.

Some people think it might be this car which Fujimi made a model from.
I was not able to confirm this so time will tell.


Thanks Thomas

PS if you like to see more about the car there is another thread on my forum
s14power(dot)com you will have to sign up to have access.

[ian beckett]

Hello Thomas,I have been doing some work on your car and discovered the following...It is in fact chassis M3/1-26 built by Schnitzer in February 1989.They ran it in the Italian championship for the whole season until it was sold in October of that year to Hong Kong business man Kevin Wong. He raced it at the macau Guia race if that year,coming 10th,he was 7th in 1990,was injured in a support race for the '1991 event and could not start,he was 6th in1992 and also in 1993. The wheels on your car in the photo are exactly as run during the later Macau races where the car was white with black and red panels and stripes.I think the idea of your car being yellow is odd,There were two yellow cars which ran in the Japanese series up until 1993, they were a team called Autotech (a large Japanese car accessory concern).The cars were running at the same time in different places within Asia.I hope this is of interest toyou. I will post another reply shortly with a site where you can find pictures of your car at Macau.Ian

[ian beckett]

Hello again Thomas,try this www.home.macau.ctm.net/~eddytang Scroll down to the bottom,click on History of Macau Guia race.You will then find the races when your car appeared.It may be a little slow!! Enjoy.Ian

[Revmaster T]

Originally Posted by ian beckett

Hello Thomas,I have been doing some work on your car and discovered the following...It is in fact chassis M3/1-26 built by Schnitzer in February 1989.They ran it in the Italian championship for the whole season until it was sold in October of that year to Hong Kong business man Kevin Wong. He raced it at the macau Guia race if that year,coming 10th,he was 7th in 1990,was injured in a support race for the '1991 event and could not start,he was 6th in1992 and also in 1993. The wheels on your car in the photo are exactly as run during the later Macau races where the car was white with black and red panels and stripes.I think the idea of your car being yellow is odd,There were two yellow cars which ran in the Japanese series up until 1993, they were a team called Autotech (a large Japanese car accessory concern).The cars were running at the same time in different places within Asia.I hope this is of interest toyou. I will post another reply shortly with a site where you can find pictures of your car at Macau.Ian

Hi Ian, thank you for all the info I very much appreciate it. I found a lot of yellow paint on several body panels. The hood, the doors and the trunk where yellow at one point. Here are some pictures :





The info I have from the previous owner is little or next to none but he did tell me that the car was owned by Kevin Wong. Ian do you think that Kevin owned more then one M3 back in the day ?

Thanks Thomas

PS the link you posted does not seem to work for me.

[ian beckett]

Hi Thomas,glad that the info' was of some help.try this on Google...www.home.macau.ctm.net/~eddy tang This should then show only one site.....Macaus Candy House. Click on it and scroll to the bottom of the page and then click on History of Guia race.This should then open up the various years there are photos for! You will see the large numbers of M3's racing over the years.The cars also raced in local championships in Thailand/Phillipines/Malaysia etc and their histories are completely intertwined with cars which also ran in the larger and more prestigious Japanese series.Because of the language difficulties I have found it at times almost impossible to follow the cars as they changed owners or had different sponsors and colour schemes.I am at present trying to unravel the histories of the cars along with Alex Elliott and will keep you posted as I discover anything new.You are correct about the yellow paint and that has rather thrown me! The Autotech team had two cars which ran in the Japanese series up to '93 when they replaced them with the 320 Supertouring car.Eddy Wong did own more than one car so further digging is required.I just wish I could read and Japanese because I have several race programmes which are fabulous for the photos but not much use for the text!! Any more photos would be helpful because I may spot other clues.What are your plans for the car? All the best Ian.

[Revmaster T]

Hello Ian, thank you kindly for all the help and keeping me in the loop
To answer your question I want to drive the car on track days and after the car is sorted the plan is to do HSR events. My goal is to rebuild the gr.A car mechanicaly first but with the intend to keep the car as original as possible.
With that in mind in a few years the body will get a ground up restoration, hopefully by then I know what the livery was. I wonder how the car looked like when it was raced in Italy this may make a difference to me since I want to have the car the way it was built. I like the car in the Schnitzer colors red inside and white on the outside it would be great to know who the sponsors were back in the day.

Here are a few mor pictures.

It ran with side exhaust which I got also with the spares package.



Fitting for the air jacks.