Group A BMW M3 E30 - General info and history

[ian beckett]

To Blinkybm;Hello.I am having trouble with this one!! I have correspondence from Schnitzer datedMarch '89 and they simply say that M3/1-57 was built in October'87 and sold to ABE/IPA in November '87.I took that to be the car which was airfreighted out to Bathurst to replace M3/1-42 which Ravaglia stuffed and was subsequently repaired by the Tafe crew.The team donated M3/1-42 to Tafe for their efforts.The replacement car would then have been used at the Calder/Wellington and Fuji WTCC races and then sold to this Japanese team rather than it being returned to Europe.This was typical of Schnitzer also with 635's and 320 supertourers.Several teams ran M3's in '88 so give me a little time and I will come up with some possibilities.Ian

[ian beckett]

To Grelley,having closely studied the material I have on your car the only difference I can see is that in '90 they always used gold BBS wheels and in '91 only black ones. In terms of size,they both look the same diameter and the tyre walls look to be the same thickness. Logic would suggest however that the change of colour could equal a change in size?? Ian.

[ian beckett]

Here is my attempt to trace M3/1-57 which is not looking too good but it does open up some more chassis numbers for the thread.Schnitzer sold the following cars to Japanese teams apart from 57.1)Autobureaux raced M3/1-54 bought from them in July '87 until'93.Car was yellow;2)Advan bought M3/1-18 in November '87 and in October '88 M3/1-73,Both were black and red;3)Volk Racing raced Schnitzer M3-34;4) Cosmo ran a car,black,no chassis known;5)Team Noji ran a car in 'Schnitzer 'colours,no chassis known.The chassis we are looking for could therefore be either 4)or 5) but due to the language difference being so enormous I am unable to clarify this.This info' is accurate as it was provided to me by Charly Lamm at Schnitzer.After 1988 even more M3's came into Japan and the situation has proven impossible for me to unravel over the past 18/19 years!! I have lots of snippets of information as well as pictures and race results but that is as far as it goes!! Ian.

[Jesper OH]

Originally Posted by KA

National championships- Heaven only knows how many, but I've been able to find the following so far

DTM

• Zakspeed- 2 cars for Marc Hessel & Eric van de Poele
• Alpina- 2 or 3 cars- Ellen Lohr, Andy Boevensiepen and possibly van der Poele
• Vogelsang- 1 car for Harald Grohs
• Isert- 1 for Olaf Manthey

From the results archive on the DTM website, other M3s appeared for

• Fabien Giroix (is this his regular Garage du Bac car, or an appearance for one of the German teams- possibly Alpina?)
• Volker Strycek
• Thomas von Loewis of Menar
• Robert Walterscheid-Muller
• Josef Gerrold
• Jurgen Matschull
• Manfred Niederhof

Some notes to ad: Alpina entered a maximum of two cars per race. Bovensiepen for most of the season, while Fabien Giroix and Ellen Lohr was added or replaced Bovensiepen for the last four rounds.

Can't find Volker Strycek M3 bound untill '88.

Kurt König replaced his 635CSi with an M3 from the fifth round. Entered as AutoMaas, which I believe was his own team.

Thomas von Löwis could be the Schwaben Motorsport car entered for a few WTCC races.

Robert Walterscheid-Müller raced Mikael Krankenbergs black and yellow MK Motorsport M3 at the Spa 24h in 1987. Mario Ketterer drove this car at a late season non championship '88 preview race at Hockenheim.

Add Jürgen Weiler for two rounds. Team not known.

Mattschull, Arnold?

Overall 14 drivers drove one of at least 11 M3s during the 1987 DTM.

...and than the rest:

At the final ETCC round at Nogaro a third Linder car was entered for Christian Danner/Mikka Arpiainen.

The Jens Winther WTCC Silverstone car started life in Finnland as chassis 003 (from a Finnish source) and was given it's "Danish" debut at Ring Knutstorp (Sweden) on August 2 in the hands of Per G. Hansen, who drove the car at a few other meetings during the remainder of the year.

Jesper

[Alex E]

Hello Ian / blinkybm,
# I was involved with M3 # 57 some years ago & did some research on it. Schnitzer actually built it for a team in Japan and never actually used it themselves. Ian, your info that it was built and sent to Japan in consecutive months is correct I think.
Hope this info helps. Alex

[Alex E]

One other bit of info, M3 # 54 was also built by Schnitzer for a Japanese team. As Ian says it was yellow & eventually ended up being used in a Jackie Chan film called Thunderdrivers (?) in which it was fitted with an a large steel tube through the roof in order to place it upside down on top of another car as part of a high speed racing crash scene. It was abandoned in Hong Kong before being unearthed & brought to England.
Alex

[blinkybm]

To Alex: Schnitzer have confirmed to me that Motorsport Chassis 1-57 was the car flown out to Australia to replace 1-42, car #46, crashed at Bathurst.
It then competed at Calder, Wellington, & Mt Fuji before being sold to the Japanese "ABE" team.
Do you know if 1-57 was pretty well fully assembled when it came to Australia?
Is it possible that it was originally built for the Japanese team to run in their GroupA championship, but had to be brought out here earlier because of the crash?
Do you know any other history re 1-57?
Cheers
Bill

[blinkybm]

I'm looking for logbook information to differentiate M3/1-42 and 1-57.
Would anyone know if the FIA kept records of the logbooks?
How were FIA logbooks issued - surely a logbook was specific to a chassis number, so that each car could be identified?
Thanks folks
Bill

[malscar]

Here is a shot of #46 at Calder for the WTCC '87. Also a couple of others.

[Brickyard]

I can add that some M3's were raced here in Portugal from 1987 to 1995.

the first two cars arrived here in early 1987 to "Team Baviera" (J. Petiz and Pequepe)

Pequepe ran at least four or five between 1987 and 1989. One of his 1987 cars went to "Camac Racing" for their 1988 ETC season and 1989 National Championship season. Another one went to Jorge Felix by 1990 and latter to "Real Vinicola Racing Team", other was destroyed or severely damaged in 1989. Somewhere between those years some cars could have been rebuilt after some bad crashes, but I supose they've keep their chassis numbers.

Jorge Petiz drove his car from 1987 until 1994 or 1995, first with "Team Baviera" and from 1988 with "S.Conrado Comp."

All those cars were Schnitzer cars imported by Baviera.

Sorry but I have no chassis numbers.

Regards
Luis Mateus

[anthony81901]

9 times Bathurst winner driving an M3 across Mt Panorama in 1988.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nE_6...eature=related

[drbob]

I would be grateful for any help in identifying what is said to be a Group A M3
It has been in Singapore since 1996 and raced in Malaysia in '96,'97 Supposedly it raced in Asia also from about 1990
I assume it had some European history before that
Chassis # is + 4274 1953 (5)
Hopefully the photo below will be posted

[drbob]

Its 1952 not 53

[drbob]

What is the history on the Schnitzer M3 chassis number M3-1-128 said to be the Wellington 500 winner driven by Ravaglia and Pirro. I think it was built in Feb '89. It was also said to have raced in the Italian and German TCC in '89 and later sold to Asia where it raced at Macau.

[ian beckett]

M3/1-128 was built by Schnitzer in March 1989 and was used in the Italian series.The car was then sold in July 1990 to Charles Kwan for use in Thailand and Macau.

[drbob]

Thanks Ian
Do you know if 128 was the Wellington 500 winner in '89. What Asian/Macau races did it do, do you know.
Is was said to have raced in the DTM as well with Ravaglia and in particular the 24 hour Nurburgring Is that correct
Ian can you decipher the other chassis number I posted +42741952(5)

[Alex E]

drbob, that number is not a chassis number but a body number. This did not appear on motorsport chassis which really means that this car is a privately built chassis. If you bought a new M3 (series..) body from BMW (non Motorsport..) it would have this body number, but no chassis number.
It is likely that chassis 128 raced at the Nurburgring 24 Hours, but not certain.
Alex

[drbob]

Alex here are some other pictures. It looks like where the chassis plate goes has been blanked off (I'm just guessing here)
It otherwise looks like a Group A car

[AxelF]

@Alex: the film is named "Thunderbolt", produced 1995. One of the expensivst productions from Hong Kong.

I found the scene on Youtube, and the car appears for a few seconds, as a competitor lands on the m3s roof and stays there until the next corner.
You can see also the sportevo-flaps...
Most of the other cars were streetcars, i cannot understand, why they destroyed this racecar...or is it still alive?

@drbob: i would die for finding such a car even in that condition! Is it for sale and where is it located?

Christian

[David Towe]

Originally Posted by brown dog

Just watched footage of most of the race, car 57 which was the John Sax/Graeme Gulson car ended up park quite heavily into a concrete slab, .

What part of the car hit the wall?

[brown dog]

Originally Posted by David Towe

What part of the car hit the wall?

left front corner, quite a decent hit David!
cheers Conrad

[ian beckett]

Hello again,I just thought I would bring this thread back to everyone's attention! Anything new going on in the world of M3's? Ian.

[KA]

Been looking through some old pics, so might have a few M3 shots to post once I've done a bit of scanning...

[Badgerness27]

Hi Guys

Thanks for this thread, very informative - been reading through all the info. Regarding the yellow film car that ended up on the roof of another, I believe the chassis ended up back in Europe (Milan), and was rebuilt into a Gr. A spec racer. There're still holes in the roof where the attachment equipment was positioned

My particular interest is the E30's that campaigned in the 1988 ETCC season, as well as winning the Spa 24hrs of that year. Wondering if anyone had any more info?

[KA]

I attempted a very basic overview of 1987 WTCC/ETCC entries early in the thread, and was going to try to do the same for '88 but never did...

Looking at the '88 entries, a few questions come to mind...

The first thing is something touched on in another thread ages ago- at the 1988 TT, the European regulars were joined by no less than three 2-car teams from the UK:

Prodrive's regular BTCC pair of BMW Finance/Mobil 1-backed cars for Frank Sytner and Mike Smith, joined by Will Hoy and Marc Duez
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-09-04-066.jpg
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-09-04-088.jpg


A pair (#s 87 & 89) entered by 'John Clark Holdings' for Clark sharing with Andrew Jeffrey and Vic Lee/Dave Coyne. Looking at photos, the two plain white cars seem to have been leased from the French SDA Sport team (notice SDA Sport decals on the front bumper and sunstrip of the #89 car)
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-09-04-087.jpg
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-09-04-089.jpg
Was this a one-off deal? I think Clark appeared in an M3 in the BTCC during 1989- was this one of the same cars used at the TT?


and two from John Maguire Racing (#s85 & 86), with sponsorship from FFB Electronics. One was presumably Godfrey Hall's regular BTCC car, joined by James Shead and Barrie Williams,
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-09-04-086.jpg
plus a second car for Tim Harvey/David Sears. Sears appeared in the second car in at least one of the remaining BTCC rounds as well- Donington I think?
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-09-04-085.jpg

I'm curious about is that second Maguire car- Was this a new-build by the Maguire squad, or was it bought/leased from one of the European teams? It cropped up in a thread on the John Maguire outfit a while back and it was suggested it was maybe leased/bought from Germany