BMW M3 in ATCC.

[chavez]

Incidentally, the Voight car, as raced at Surfers in '96, was fitted with the same rear wing as the Diet Coke 320i's, whereas the other M3's in the race retained the original Group A spoiler as on the Mobil BMW above.

Voight finished 10th in the 4 lap Saturday race.

[ian beckett]

I would not get too hung up on what colours the car is in now because over 12 years and who knows how many owners have had charge of the car since it ran in Australia.In the only picture of the car as driven in '96 by Hutchinson that I have it was fitted with what was almst certainly a 318 Supertouring type wing.Wings like the front air dam and wheels can easily be swapped around.Ian.

[xu1gtr90]

Just read this forum, Steve Voights Car was from Asia somewhere, the guy who owned it was a guy called Stefan Szelnik? (dont know if this is how to spell it).

I can remember going to his workshop on the Gold Coast (nerang or Mudgy) a couple weeks before watching Steve Voight at Indy and there was 3 other m3 shells in various stages of rebuild, and 2 production spec r32 GTR's (Jackie Chan used them in one of his movies, I am sure one of them was in mock taisan colour scheme).

Anyway back to the m3's, 1 was in what looked like the Watson’s Hong Kong scheme without the logos, We looked at the red one to buy for a while to run in QLD sports sedans, there was a container of EVO II gear with it, all carbon panels, 2.5L engines, the 18x10 (I think) DTM BBS wheels etc. as far as I know it all came from Asia, best bet might be to contact Steve Voight through www.sportsedans.com.au to get a better rundown on the history of the red M3.

[xu1gtr90]

Also, Steve Voights car finished just behind Brock in a couple of the races from memory. I am sure the later spec rear wing was used as the EvoII m3 wing was outside the maximum height specs for the flip-up or gurney flap style original wing. I am sure this is why the other same era M3's running in the 2L series ran the standard m3 spoiler minus the flip up part....

[Jesper OH]

Originally Posted by ian beckett

Hi Pete,thanks for the reply.My friend acquired the car via Singapore where it raced in'97.On the rollcage was a CAMS '96 scrutineers sticker which is why I made the connection to Graham Hutchinson.Is it possible you can dig a little further? The current plan is to restore the car back to its very original Bastos livery from '87.Thanks for the help,Ian.

http://lemansmotorsport.free.fr/spa%201987.htm

So this is how it looked in 1987? Look for car #59, as I can't link directly. As usual Frank has the result: http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...987%20Spa.html

Jesper

[ian beckett]

That's the one Jesper.The unusual clue to this cars origins lies in the two fuel fillers whuch were on the edge of the bootlid rather than between the indicators as on virtually every other Group A M3.The car in England clearly has the fittings for this type of filler.On a second car seen on a used car lot in the Far East these have been crudely plated over.Thanks for the continued help from the guys 'down under' .Ian

[Jesper OH]

Does the car have a chassis number?

Jesper

[E36ST]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

This one?

Yes thats the one. Here's another:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/warwick...on/2245476522/

[rdmdog]

I have some photos of the Diet Coke cars, but cant post them. I will gladly e-mail them to anyone interested.

[alfacors]

If you need somewhere to host them, email them to me and I'll put them online.

[David Towe]

Originally Posted by ian beckett

That's the one Jesper.The unusual clue to this cars origins lies in the two fuel fillers whuch were on the edge of the bootlid rather than between the indicators as on virtually every other Group A M3.

Try this one then Ian. Of the 5 Gardner built E30 M3s, 2 had the fillers through the bootlid and two between the indicators. Being as mine was originally a sprint race car and not used by the JPS for endurance races, I'm told that it may never have had external fillers at all, lift the bootlid to fill the tank. The two cars with the fillers between the indicators are the "Art Cars" and the other two are now in Perth and Melbourne.
Can you put up some pics throughout the restoration, I, for one would be interested to see them.

[ian beckett]

Hi everyone,is this the end of this thread or is there more yet to be discovered? Ian

[Jesper OH]

How many cars did various teams had at their disposal at any given time? This became a question recently when I checked up on my post ETCC Spa 24h file from these well travelled sources:

http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...989%20Spa.html
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...989-07-23.html

For the 1989 edition the 24h collided with rounds of both the Italian and British series being run on the same weekend, meaning that all three factory supported BMW teams did double duty: Schnitzer and Bigazzi in Italy and Prodrive in Britain.

Schnitzer only had a single car for defending race winner Roberto Ravaglia being joined by ’86 winner Altfried Heger and Schnitzer-DTM regular Fabien Giroix entered under the BMW Belgium banner:
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-07-23-015.jpg
Meanwhile at Misano Johnny Cecotto and Emanuele Pirro did fine and finished 1-2 in the second race. During the ’89 DTM Ravaglia and Giroix were regulars for all races while Cecotto missed 3 rounds due to commitments in the Italian series, where Pirro, Ravaglia, Giroix and Quester were supporting at various points over the season in a second entry. But clashing dates and 2 cars in each series on the same weekends suggest at least 4 cars in the hands of Schnitzer, but only 3 in action on this summer week?

Bastos Castrol Racing #17 and 18 – or Bigazzi – looked like this:
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-07-23-017.jpg
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-07-23-018.jpg
Local star Jean-Michel Martin joined regular Bigazzi drivers Jacques Laffite and Olivier Grouillard in car 17, while up coming F1 driver Gabriele Tarquini, rally man Bernard Béguin and touring car veteran Dieter Quester formed a very diverse crew for car 18. At Misano I can only find Gianni Morbidelli, while two cars seems to have been the norm at most other races. My record of the Italian series is far from complete, but still another 4 cars seems to been ready from Aldo Bigazzi at all times, but still only having 3 cars in action on this late July weekend.
Then I wondered about the tyres on the Bigazzi entries. The RSC site says Pirelli, while the pictures clearly say Yokohama.

Finally #19 and #20 for BMW Belgium – Fina sponsored Prodrive cars – looked like this:
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-07-23-019.jpg
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-07-23-020.jpg
Belgian rally/race driver Marc Duez would lead car #19 with Zakspeed-DTM driver Steve Soper and single seater driver Didier Theys joining. Jeff Allam would lead car #20 into action with Gregoire De Mévius and François Chatriot continuing the rally theme. Will Hoy was supposed to have driven this car but elected to join Porsche 962C-owner Jochen Dauer for his assault on the World Sports Prototype Championship at Brands Hatch.
Meanwhile James Weaver and Frank Sytner would have another go at each other in the BTCC support race at Brands Hatch, meaning another 4 cars for Prodrive. While it is quite clear why both Schnitzer and Bigazzi could use all four (perhaps even more) cars during 1989, I would think that four Prodrive cars was a bit of overkill …but then again Weaver and Sytner was quite hard on each others at times!

If nothing else, this should reignite the threat.

Jesper

[GTRMagic]