If you want a car for track days you can’t go wrong with an E30 M3, but if your wallet is a little larger, why not go for a racer? And if you’re going to do that, you might as well get one of the best. Don Grice has done just that and now owns this beautiful ex-factory DTM car – BMW Car
For BMW fans, touring car racing hits its peak back in 1991. All over Europe one car was dominant, irrespective of the rule difference of the individual countries, and that car just happens to be one of the best looking race cars ever built. The E30 M3 competition car, more than any other, proved the mantra that if a car looked right, it was right.
Some may argue that the winged Batmobile CSL had more drama in its lines, but for us the pure, focused, workmanlike E30 has it licked, with just enough aggression in tis stance and the toned muscle of the flared arches and the simple, yet effective, wings and spoilers. In the UK the late Will Hoy wrapped up the BTCC title, where the front rows of the gird were always the sole preserve of M3s.
The winning had begun almost as soon as it arrived back in 1987. Zakspeed won the German championship that year, while Wilfried Vogt bagged the European title, and the car conquered the championships in Holland, France, and Portugal too. This success coincided with the rise and rise of touring car racing, with massive crowds and millions watching on TV. The wins continued and in Europe in 1990 the 2.5 litre Sport Evolution ensured that the E30 stayed at the head of the field (in the UK cars were to be restricted to 2.0litres). In racing form these engines actually ran a slightly larger capacity than the road car, 2493cc as opposed to 2467cc, increasing performance especially in the mid-range. These were the best of the best and if you want to own one today, these are the cars to seek out. With all this success there were quite a few out there, around 350 competition E30 M3s had been sold, at a cost in 1991 of almost £150, 000 each. Of course, only a handful of those were works cars.
Don Grice is a very lucky man and he knows it. This ex-works car is his and he can’t talk about it without a huge smile breaking out across his face, and who can blame him? Gleaming in the Oulton park sunshine in Marlboro colours, it looks at least as good as it did the first time it turned a wheel in the Dutch Touring Car Championship a dozen years ago. Back then it was raced with considerable success by Car Euser; in fact, he won the championship. At the end of that year he also raced the car at Donington in a round of the DTM, before the car competed in that series full time in 1992, piloted by Swedish driver, Peggan Andersson and running under the colours of Mobil.
Andersson competed in the two Grand Prix support races held in the UK in 1993 (Donington and Silverstone), before taking the car back to Sweden in 1994 to compete in the Nordic version of the championship. From there, according to Grice, the history of this car gets a little hazy. It went out to Macau to run for several years in the Macau Grand Prix support races and the South East Asia Touring Car Championship and there it was raced by various drives and in various liveries. In fact, by the time the car arrived back in the UK in 2000, it had been painted a horrible shade of turquoise and came complete with orange wheels. This is when Grice first saw the car. It was a dream for him to own of these cars, as it is for many of us, but it looked so poorly he rejected it at first. It was only some time later when looking at the car a second time in more detail that he realised the potential underneath. Despite all the racing over the years and the door handle rubbing with the other lunatics, the car was properly straight. It was soon evident that this car has escaped it all without serious chassis damage.
Grice bought it and immediately set about restoring it to its former glory and he knew just the man to do it. Grice himself had begun racing BMWs at about the time this car was competing at the highest level. Over the years he teamed up with Alex Elliot of Rondell Racing, a man equally passionate about E30s and with the skills and knowledge to be able to carry out a project such as this. The car was stripped back to the shell, resprayed and then carefully and lovingly put back together. The whole process took almost nine months, but the results make all that effort well worth it. The car is simply stunning.
Elliot used many new parts, most of which are still readily available from BMW Motorsport, though the engine and gearbox required nothing more than full servicing. The engine itself was built to sprint racing specification rather than the endurance spec that the long distance racers used. This means that Grice has 360bhp to play with and, in a car weighing in at around 960kg, it’s not going to hang about. The downside is that this engine will require more regular rebuilds, but Grice has thought of that and has another complete engine for back-up.
The detailing and the level of finish is superb, you could be forgiven into thinking that this was a brand new car that had spent the last decade in a museum. The dash is about the only road car item inside the cockpit and it has been liberally sprinkled with a multitude of dials. It all adds to the analogue feel of the cockpit, there is no laptop downloadable data to acquire here and no electronic gizmos to improve your lap times. The speed comes from the driver alone and his ability to interpret what he feels and what is happening to the car – it’s how it should be.
Grice is still competing today, but not in this car; it’s obvious that this is his pride and joy and he would be devastated if anything were to happen to it. He even admits to regularly popping out to the garage just to look at it – well, you would, wouldn’t you? That doesn’t stop him driving it on track days though and he drives it with relish. I ask him to do half-a-dozen laps for the camera and before I’ve finished the sentence he’s already climbing on board. Such is his enthusiasm he catches his mechanics on the hop, who rush around the car, frantically checking tyre pressures before Grice heads down the pit lane. A couple of minutes later a flash of white and orange charges up over Deer Leap and down the pit straight. The sight is mesmerising, as is the sound, it’s mainly raw induction roar, rasping high in the rev range and giving the noise meter man cause for concern. Fantastic!
It looks so different to the current crop of big touring car machines. It looks lithe, darty and conductive to close racing, an observation Grice confirms when he comes back into the pits. “It’s a real racing car,” he says, “and it needs to taken by the scruff of the neck and driven hard. Steering inputs are minimal compared to modern tourers and it is electric on turn-in. When driven this way it is a very positive car to drive and hugely satisfying.”
“The fact that it’s smaller than the E36 car that I race and the accuracy with which you can place it means you have more road to play with too. The steering is packed with feel and gives you a lot of confidence in the way the chassis behaves. But the best bit about it all Is that you’re driving a DTM car – it’s an awesome experience.”
And that is all without having spent much time getting the car set up. Grice is still a racer and that means most of his track time is spent making his race cars go faster and, for most of the day, the E30 sits under the awning doing nothing other than drawing admiring glances from anyone who happens to walk past. Grice is saving this car for later, he tells me it will be his track day car when he retires from racing. If you are bitten by the motor racing bug it is very hard to ever give up, but if anything may dissuade you from continuing, then the thought of a motorsport legend waiting for you may be just the carrot…
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September 29, 2008
2000 - 2008, Articles