Group 5 BMW 320's. - Page 2

Adrian B · 21 Nov 2005, 03:04 (Ref:1466081)

The car mentioned above has been restored and I have recently purchased it as a rolling chassis. I plan to fit a M12/7 F2 motor as it originally ran in the 70's. The gentleman I purchased it from also has some knowledge on the car from Finland.
The car is at present all white.

cybersdorf · 21 Nov 2005, 05:30 (Ref:1466133)

It is difficult to say "where the cars are" as many were built by private teams from production shells or upgraded from Gp.2 cars, even after the end of Gp.5 as such. A few were "re-shelled" with E30 shells to create newer specials. Post-1976 Gp.5 cars are hardly ever allowed to race anywhere so these cars don't show up in historic racing much.

driftwood · 29 Nov 2005, 22:37 (Ref:1473450)

The 320 Bmw Cars Ran The 2 Litre F2 M12 Engine In Europe In Dtm And Group 5 Races With The Group6 Wsc Races The Bmw Team Had Petersen Cheever In The Junior Team In Usa They Ran Turbo 1.4 Engines
I Recall Gerry Tyzac Sprinting Group 5 320 Bimmer In The Late 70`s

Chatfield Raced His Bimmer In Thundersaloon And Coombe Gt Races
He Shared His Car With The Greek Guy And He Has 320 As Well He Claimsto Be The Sheckter Car In His Garage In Greece
Ive Seen Some Cars For Sale But Most Are In Collectors Hands And Race In The New Timer Races In Germany

Dan Rear · 1 Dec 2005, 10:45 (Ref:1474551)

DW, the original Junior Team 320s in '77 were for Surer, Cheever, Winklehock (Manfred). Ronnie wasn't a 'junior' by then !

ian beckett · 1 Dec 2005, 11:20 (Ref:1474575)

As Dan mentioned earlier today,the Junior Team created for the 1977 German series comprised of Eddie Cheever,Marc Surer and Manfred Winkelhock. They perhaps showed a little too much enthusiasm and a lack of experience in the early season races and to curb some of this 'macho' behaviour, the BMW management put Hans Stuck,Ronnie Peterson and David Hobbs in the three cars for the Diepholz round where would you believe,Peterson crashed out! This trio were named the Gentlemens Team by the management! Stuck won the race and Hobbs was fifth. The cars were then passed back to the Juniors for the rest of the season and all three went on to race 320's the following season for different teams before moving to F1 and sportscars.

driftwood · 1 Dec 2005, 11:31 (Ref:1474584)

Dan i was a junior when the lads where racing i saw cars at BH 6 hr races !!
cheever was 17/18 at the time when he raced the cars

jimclark · 1 Dec 2005, 19:00 (Ref:1474953)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carlos Guerra

The first appearance of a 320 turbo in US racing was at Road Atlanta, April 1977, 3rd round of the IMSA series. Hobbs finished 4th o/a in the main race. Its blown 2-litre engine was developed by McLaren Engines in the USA.
Another 2-litre 320 turbo was seen at Brands Hatch and this was built by BMW Motorsport in Munich.

Hmmmmm...'not positive, but I attended the 24 heures of Daytona (first race of the IMSA season) in '77 and I seem to recollect Hobbs starting a 320it..didna finish tho'...

Ahh-ha! T'is so (Hobbs, Posey, and Peterson; 40th)... http://www.wspr-racing.com/wspr/resu...msa1977.html#1

ian beckett · 1 Dec 2005, 19:22 (Ref:1474987)

The first race of the '77 IMSA season was indeed at the Daytona 24 hours and Hobbs together with Ronnie Peterson and Sam Posey drove the car but retired. In Jeremy Walton's Unbeatable BMW book a photo caption does state that the turbo engine made its debut at round three-Atlanta and the 1978 IMSA yearbook states that at Daytona the car ran with a standard 2 litre motor which left it way behind the turbocharged Porsches. This lack of power seems to have accelerated BMW's decision to go down the turbo route themselves some time before they did so in Europe. In the US,Mclaren Engines prepared the motors while factory built units were used elsewhere.

enduro81 · 2 Dec 2005, 23:38 (Ref:1476055)

Hi, it's great to see there is still interest in the G5 era. Can anyone point me towards some good books on the cars or championships? Were any yearbooks ever issued perhaps for the DRM?
I am slowly building a collection of reports programmes etc on the 76-81 era - does anyone know where I can get hold of the timing sheets, hourly reports that were issued at the races? Would the race organisers have records of these?
Sorry for all the questions!!
Regards
Geoff

driftwood · 2 Dec 2005, 23:44 (Ref:1476061)

i bought a book on bmw cars in german good fotos f2 and Gp 5 cars
rolf heggen
fazination rennstruccke
isbn 3430 141958
i found it thru abebook.com
rare book so get yr weekly beer money out and brace yrself!
im sure the germans have year books if u look on some websites u will see results

**skycafe** · 3 Dec 2005, 01:29 (Ref:1476090)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ian beckett

The first race of the '77 IMSA season was indeed at the Daytona 24 hours and Hobbs together with Ronnie Peterson and Sam Posey drove the car but retired. In Jeremy Walton's Unbeatable BMW book a photo caption does state that the turbo engine made its debut at round three-Atlanta and the 1978 IMSA yearbook states that at Daytona the car ran with a standard 2 litre motor which left it way behind the turbocharged Porsches. This lack of power seems to have accelerated BMW's decision to go down the turbo route themselves some time before they did so in Europe. In the US,Mclaren Engines prepared the motors while factory built units were used elsewhere.

Correct, it was the atmo engine at Daytona and Sebring.

ian beckett · 3 Dec 2005, 10:47 (Ref:1476220)

In fact the 320 did not race at Sebring in 1978 presumably because they were converting the car from 2 litre to the turbo engine. The track at Sebring was known to be a car breaker and not really suitable for a vehicle in its infancy?

**skycafe** · 3 Dec 2005, 13:24 (Ref:1476278)

I thought I recalled seeing the car there and went and looked at wspr-racing.com. They show 320i with Hobbs, Klauser and Minter in 38th position? That was the same McLaren entry that was entered at Daytona 24?

robert

ian beckett · 3 Dec 2005, 13:42 (Ref:1476284)

There is a confusion of years here! The season we are discussing is 1977 and the Citibank 320 did not race at Sebring. The following year they were indeed 38th in the hands of Hobbs/Minter/Klausler.

**skycafe** · 3 Dec 2005, 14:49 (Ref:1476309)

OMG! Thanks, you are correct, I was all over the map on the year

robert

ian beckett · 9 Jan 2006, 14:33 (Ref:1497876)

Happy New Year everyone! I am hoping to build a model of the 320 sponsored by JPS which raced in Australia in the early '80's. Does anyone know of sources of photo evidence which would be helpful to me? Thanks in advance Ian Beckett.

driftwood · 9 Jan 2006, 14:57 (Ref:1497897)

the team was run by frank gardener
1st port of call will be any Ozzie touring car year end book bathurst books and the ozzie year end annuals
try collectors car books at silverstone chris has many books
if your really stuck there are 2 or 3 shops in Oz i bought some books in 1990 in sydney after i had been to bathurst
PM me and i can get my buddies down there to sort this out

there may be an ozzie touring car website woth fotos off hand not come across any
i have been to FG musuem in Brisbane now sold school to Merc benz he may own museum still i will ask my brizzy mate who took me there

Steve Holmes · 9 Jan 2006, 20:19 (Ref:1498080)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ian beckett

Happy New Year everyone! I am hoping to build a model of the 320 sponsored by JPS which raced in Australia in the early '80's. Does anyone know of sources of photo evidence which would be helpful to me? Thanks in advance Ian Beckett.

Ian, try here (about midway down the page).

http://www.autopics.com.au/cache/sea....html?cache=no

I seem to recall the JPS team having a second car which appeared in 1982-83, driven by Jim Richards, which was turbo charged and raced in Sports Sedan events. I think Richards was leading the '83 championship before being involved in a massive crash moments after the start of the Adelaide race. Then the same car was rebuilt and raced at Sandown in '83 as normally aspirated when the World Sportscar championship visited Aus.

There are no photos of the Richards car (or is it the Grice car with different bodykit?) for some reason on the Autopics site, but email them and they might have some photos which could help.

I have several photos of the car(s) from my Australian Motor Race annuals, but I don't have them here. I'll get them in a couple of weeks from storage and let you know.

Steve Holmes · 9 Jan 2006, 20:41 (Ref:1498094)

Steve Holmes · 9 Jan 2006, 21:15 (Ref:1498115)

cavvy · 10 Jan 2006, 22:11 (Ref:1498952)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Holmes

Ian, try here (about midway down the page).

http://www.autopics.com.au/cache/sea....html?cache=no

I seem to recall the JPS team having a second car which appeared in 1982-83, driven by Jim Richards, which was turbo charged and raced in Sports Sedan events. I think Richards was leading the '83 championship before being involved in a massive crash moments after the start of the Adelaide race. Then the same car was rebuilt and raced at Sandown in '83 as normally aspirated when the World Sportscar championship visited Aus.

There are no photos of the Richards car (or is it the Grice car with different bodykit?) for some reason on the Autopics site, but email them and they might have some photos which could help.

I have several photos of the car(s) from my Australian Motor Race annuals, but I don't have them here. I'll get them in a couple of weeks from storage and let you know.

Looked in the annuals - one car went to (Beric?) Lynton & when raced the rear guards differ from the car as it arrived from the US.
There is a photo of the Richards car at Sandown but it is side on & black in colour so very difficult to pick - maybe the Richards book has something - anyone?

ian beckett · 9 Feb 2006, 13:20 (Ref:1518827)

Hello everyone, just to try to keep things from dropping off the radar, I wondered if anyone had had any sudden flashes of inspiration regarding my original requests on these cars. Certainly enough interest has been generated by the number of folks who have visited the thread but things have gone a little quiet! All for now Ian.

Don Vito · 21 Sep 2007, 18:29 (Ref:2019957)

A very old topic but still.... Actually there was three group5 320s in Finland.
That BMW Motorsport jr.team car (driven 1st by Tuisku Urpiala) is/was said to be ex-Ronnie Pettersson and was finally sold to some collector or such in UK along with the 3rd car. That one came from Sweden without technics and was paired with Volvo B23 in here. As said, it went also to UK
The Schnizer Turbo (driven here by Nicke Wiik) is somewhat questionable, but at some point it was rebuild to original shape by MAT (Mäkelä Auto Tuning) and as far as I have been told, then sold to USA. Maybe to same address as ex-Bächi Sauber BMW M1 (original !!). The buyers are very much bussiness secrets and untill the owner comes to publicity himself, it will remain more or less mystery what actually happened to those cars.

Alex E · 21 Sep 2007, 19:01 (Ref:2019991)

Hi Don,
I can confirm that all 3 of the Gp 5 320`s came to England. For your info see below;

1/ The ex Schnitzer 320 turbo car you describe (chassis # I have somewhere...) was bought by someone here in England who then sold it to me & I then sold it to Steve Elliott (no relation to me...) who sold it via auction to a dealer in France. My investigations showed that it was a real car that Schnitzer built in late 1976 (must be the first one they built...) & they used through a period of a few years on & off before selling it to Albrecht Jrebs. He had Warsteiner as sponsor in 1979 or 80 (?) It still had the Wagenpass but I don`t know how accurate it was.

2/ The `ex BMW Junior Team` 320 chassis # E21 R1 22 actually wasn`t. Although it was built in early `77 there was no trace of BMW actually using the car in that season. It is possible it was loaned to another team, HAT, Faltz, etc....but it was then sold to BMW Sweden who raced the car in the World Championship in `78. The car is still here with me waiting for restoration.

3/ The last 320 was a mystery to me . I bought the car from John Westman,
When I got the car it had an old Schnitzer 16 valve engine from a 2002 rally car. I assume this was the car that had the Volvo engine ? I found pictures of the car racing at Spa when Kenneth Liem & Christer Simonsen owned it & it had a Schnitzer engine back then, 1982 I think. Eventually I found that it was once painted gold & also found that it was built by GS Tuning. This led me to Jorg Obermoser who confirmed that GS Tuning built his Warsteiner 320 in 1977. So I am thinking that it must be that car. It is still sitting here waiting for some attention !

i hope that solves some mysteries.

Regards Alex.

Don Vito · 21 Sep 2007, 20:59 (Ref:2020085)

Very big thankyou...

May I ask if you could provide me some photos of those cars (2 and 3) for my net project (www.geocities.com/supersaloon2000).

Did the car number 2 also came from Westman ?

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