BMW motorsport does not expect the new M3 to win races next year. Says motor sport engineering chief Thomas Ammerschlager – who came to BMW via Ford’s Zakspeed Capri and Audi four-wheel drive work – “l don’t think we will be able to win overall with the M3″, A pause. “We do think, however, that it will be very competitive in it’s class, “Pause two, “And we can also win the World Championship this way.”

But with the big 635CSi coupe winning Eurosaloon series counters this year and bound for the new World Group A series next, does BMW need another overall race victor? There is a thought in BMW’s slick, separate Motorsport Gmbh operation on Munich’s Preussentrasse that if the twin-cam, four-valve M635CSi supercar takes off in the United States, then that too might finally be homologated in Group A, Selling the necessary 5000 of the near-£40,000 car in Europe in 12 calendar months has defeated BMW in the past, but if the US will take up the slack in sales, then, for 1988, BMW can hit the opposition with an M6-M3 one-two.

So this £17,600 BMW M3 appears to be what used to be called an homologation special: a pejorative term coined to dismiss hard-riding, torque-less, noisy, limited-production machines aimed solely at letting a manufacturer chisel its way into international motor sport. Not true, BMW believes that final M3 production over the model’s unspecified lifespan will total 13,000, much more than the 5000 required to give the car a Group A homologation number and a free passage onto the starting grid. And, naturally, the M3 is closer to being a pedigree machine than simply a crude raiding of the company parts-bins in the name of sporting glory.

For a start, it looks radically different to any other yuppie-dream three-series. Steel wheelarches with quattroid flares are designed to mask racing tyres up to 10in wide. There is a deep front airdam, complete with blanking plates over brake cooling ducts. A neat, surprisingly low-key rear wing echoes back to 1973’s BMW 3.0CSL, the first European production-based race car to up the aerodynamic ante.

Even the rear window is raked an extra 3, and the plastic bootlid raised by 40mm for aerodynamic gain. Add into that mix front and rear screens which are bonded directly to the bodyshell to slick out the airflow and up chassis stiffness and BMW’s intentions look a shade more serious, in the windtunnel, the drag factor drops from Cd 0.38 to Cd 0.33 with a front/rear lift coefficient of 0.12/0.04. While the rival Ford Sierra RS Cosworth creates negative downforce at all speeds, the M3 is only a jot less efficient: yet neither car has a rear aerofoil with an adjustable centre blade to finely trim downforce from track to track.

Thomas Ammerschlager’s men have worked long and hard on the road car suspension. At the front end, castor angles have been tripled over three-series norm to dial some steering feel into the M3. Beefier five-series wheelbearings are used in now stub axles. Thickening the anti-roll bar, pivoting it on the outside of the strut and altering the mechanical advantage of those pivots has effectively doubled the roll- stiffness of any previous three-car. By contrast, save for the same twin-tube shocks, super-duty anti-roll bar and 25% locking factor limited slip differential, the rear axle of the M3 is much closer to off-peg BMW. Larger diameter and thicker ventilated discs hide behind 15in BBS alloy wheels and come with ABS anti-lock as standard.

Ammerschlager would like to see the M3 suspension become available across the three-series range as a factory option – which immediately highlights just how supple the ride on 205/55 low-profile rubber is. “It depends if the sales people can sell it for what it (should) cost” he says, “its brakes, suspension, struts and steering, “Ammerschlager smiles, “It isn’t cheap. It’s not just changing shocks and fitting shorter springs, you know….”

If the suspension and brakes sound good, then the new M3 engine should be even better, To pigeonhole it a little too neatly, this 2303cc four is simply two-thirds of the glorious twin-cam, 3.5-litre, 286bhp straight-six previously employed to leer butchly from the engine bay of BMW’s labeled M1, M5 and M635.

Why a four and not a unit based on the 325’s smooth-as-Jeffrey Archer six? A shorter crank lets the race engine scream at 9000rpm with a projected 10,000rpm maximum and there is, claims BMW, more torque pumped from down below from four big 93.4mm pistons. The block is the BMW 1500 heart from the ‘sixties which was the high-boost core of Nelson piquet’s 1983 World Championship-winning Brabham BT52B-BMW.

Unlike the gear-driven cams of the M12/13 Formula One engine, the M3 unit uses a duplex chain to rotate the twin overhead cams. Valve sizes are 37mm inlet and 32mm exhaust with a central spark-plug in a clean, pent-roof combustion chamber. Four throttle butterflies each feed an individual inlet tract with a Bosch Motronic engine management system monitoring the mixture and all other vital functions.

In line with the new German motoring morality-high performance is almost acceptable while exhaust pollution certainly isn’t – the M3 is available in two versions. With and without an exhaust-cleaning catalyst. The cat-car loses 5bhp from the free-breathing specification’s 200bhp at 6750rpm and has 7lb/ft trimmed from the cat-free’s 177lb/ft at 4750rpm torque output. On the road, the comparable 0-62mph times are 6.7 seconds down to 6.9s and top speed is reduced from 146mph to 143ph.

Two factors emerge from this backhanded acknowledgement that Germany’s environmentalist Green Party might just have a point. Firstly, with the catalyst in place and having sophisticated plastic bumpers which meet all worldwide requirements as standard, the M3 can be exported to America to dawdle musclebound in a 55mph world. Secondly, it proves that for fresh-air reasons BMW will ease back on the M3’s power output a little.

Now, eventually, the M3 will go to right-hand drive Japan but not to right-hand drive Britain. Why not? Because in Japan driving a European quality left-hooker confers a certain status: in Britain left-hand drive cars, however rare, are a fiscal disaster when finally traded in. And Ammerschlager reckons that unknitting the exhaust manifold on this angled engine – to feed a right-hand drive steering column through – would slash horsepower. “Technically speaking, anything is possible, of course. But a substantial docrease in engine power in right-hand drive form would distort this car’s character. “How much power would any British-market car lose? “About 15.20bhp, l’d say.”

On the road, the M3 chassis immediately excels while the jury is out over the ultimate engine performance. Compared to a standard three-series, the M3 underpinnings lose nothing and gain everything. The ride/handling manifesto is a marvelous compromise, with a supple ride being matched by a consistent grip. Turn-in is neat and tidy, the ABS-brakes are phenomenal, right up there in the Sierra Cosworth bracket, yet without even the slightest hint of that car’s steering-wheel tango under hard usage. Indeed, the overriding feeling issued by the M3 is one of thoroughly engineered quality: even the engine mounts are hydraulic to damp the four-pot buzz from perculating into the cockpit. The whole car feels solid, beautifully finished, clean and somber and crisp. It feels, well, like a BMW.

On the track, the road car reveals a gentle oversteer which can be provoked on the throttle and an easy-going understeer through slow to medium-speed turns. Firm and understated driving brings out the best in the chassis: sideways is slow in this car.

Looking at the power and torque curves for the M3 engine they seem meaty enough. But on the road, there is little effective power below 4000rpm. This is an engine which has to spin to deliver, and all from 4000rpm to the cut-out at 7250rpm. Keep the engine alive on the throttle and the car becomes quick rather than staggeringly fast, but it is a technique which places demands on the driver. There is little about getting the most from this engine which is easy or relaxing: yes, it will pull from 30mph in fifth gear, but that is not the point. To go quickly the gearbox must be used, the right ratio found at exactly the right time.

And that gearbox has a racing gate, with first opposite reverse and the top four gears filling out the H. Ratios are close, top is direct rather than overdrive and the shift can seem clonky thanks to insipid spring loading across the horizontal plane. You need closer to three days than three hours to begin to suss out the M3. A long, hard journey would answer all the questions over whether or not you could live with the peaky power band and the stolid shift.

Chances are you could. Chances are you’ve been spoilt by a succession of blandly obsequious user-friendly cars, and to use this real driver’s car on real driver’s road is, initially, enough to send your system into sugar-shock.

Right now, race prototype one, the muletta, has spent 2000 miles being pounded around Italy’s Mugello circuit by Austrian saloon ace Dieter Quester. He says it is going to be a great race car. “It’s much more neutral than the road car” he confirms as he chauffeurs you around the superbly challenging Tuscan track in a fine whistle or road M3 Uniroyal-squeal. “But this car is good for a road car, no? “he says as he uses the kerb to straighten out his corner exit. Next lap he turns-in earlier to compensate for the rear tyres going off a fraction. Tomorrow he will be back in the muletta, working on 1987.

BMW won’t run a works M3 team next year. Instead, Quester and Ammerschlager’s army will work on producing a Group A racing specification for any race team to buy. “There will be an engine kit, suspension, wheels, even the fuel tank” says Ammerschlaer. “It will be like a CKD (completely knocked down) kit in a box, “Charley Lamm’s Schnitzer team will get to open the M3 box along with a host of teams contesting both the World and various national European Group A series. Except for Britain, of course: BMW GB won’t race a model that is not sold in this country.

A 300bhp 2.3-litre BMW M3, even though Ammerschlager promises the car will be on the 960kg class weight limit, won’t be able to hold the turbo-torque of, say, a 400bhp 2.0-litre Ford Sierra RS Cosworth on the race-track. But when you ask BMW Motorsport what they learned most about developing the Formula One engine since 1981, the reply does not centre on materials technology, Bosch Motronic programming, fuel chemistry or valve timing. No, says Ammerschlager, what BMW learned about is turbocharging. Does this mean BMW Motorsport’s future might include a turbocharged car? A turbocharged M3, perhaps? Ammerschlager says, carefully, “that it’s a bit premature to talk about any projects we envisage for the future. But it’s possible, yes”.

And rallying? There is a four-wheel drive 325i in the BMW brochure now. Would that driveline fit snugly beneath an M3 to produce a Ford Sierra XR4×4-beating, 4wd Mazda 323-pummeling loose-surface rally star? Ammerschlager worked on engineering Audi’s Quattro-system to its more prosaic models and building on the all-wheel drive future: privately he can talk of a day, 10 years hence, when torque-split changes progressively through a corner from turn-in power on. But a 4wd M3?

“I’m pretty sure that this won’t become a four-wheel drive BMW, because the engine modifications to get the system to fit would be so substantial that they wouldn’t be worth it….”so BMW Motorshport does not want to win rallies, does not expect to win races. A World Championship, saloon car style, would do nicely instead. And so, even more than it appears initially, the BMW M3 will become the definitive class act.

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The BMW M3 is a classic. First released in 1987 as a race homologation special for the European Touring Car Championship, the 16-valve, 240bhp road-going race car was one of the most desirable and relatively affordable sports cars of its generation. It placed exceptional handling and power within the grasps of the not-so sublimely rich. It was, and remains a legendary performance car.

Which is why, as we hurtled along Bruntingthorpe’s two mile runway with the speedo needle off the scale and the outside world zapping by ever faster, I couldn’t shake one thought out of my head. Why the hell would you throw away the engine and replace it with a V8 from a Range Rover?

“It’s what I had available at the time,” explained owner Wayne Greatrix, over a quiet coffee. “I used to run a Range Rover on track days. I lowered it nine-and-a-half inches on Leda suspension and had the engine professionally modified – and had a lot of fun on it. The traction out of the corners was amazing.”

He brought the Range Rover in 1992 and in 1997 took the engine out and had it worked by Birmingham based tuner Anthony Murray. The standard cams were replaced with 324 profile cams and the cylinder and valve heads were worked to free up breathing and venting. The compression ratio was also raised to 10.5:1.

The crank was upgraded to a cross-drilled, stainless steel JE unit which was then lightened and balance – and forged pistons replaced the originals. Under the original electronic fuel injection, the V8 struggled to make 300bhp so Wayne scapped it and opted for 48mm Dellorto carbs and downdraft tubes to squeeze more juice and air in to the engine.

The work extracted 362bhp from the engine, with a massive 440lb, ft torque which Wayne used to devastating effect during track days. He ran the modified and lowered Range Rover for a couple of years before a friend spotted an early M3 at a local salvage yard. Mechanically sound, the car had extensive panel damage – lots of little dents everywhere which looked like someone had set to the car with a baseball bat.

“I’d always wanted an M3 but never really had the money. It’s a classic shape, classic car – and this one just came up at the right time for the right money. It was in a right state though.”

He took it to a friend who specialised in body repairs and had the exterior restored to its former glory. He also had the leather interior reupholstered.

“I used it for general driving for a couple of years and really enjoyed it. The handling was superb and the engine was great – but I never took it on the track. I didn’t know that history so didn’t really want to risk it.”

As the M3 clocked close to 110, 000 miles, Wayne felt it was time to either replace or rebuild the engine.

“The belts tend to go around that time and not knowing that history, I wanted to do something about it. But at around £1500 to replace them, I got to thinking that it would be better to just replace the engine with my V8.”

Wayne had tired of the Range Rover on the track: a high centre of gravity meant the body roll was horrendous, particularly at speed, but he didn’t want to sell the engine having spent so much money developing it.

“It’s a very strong engine. Very, very torquey. To get that same level of performance out of the M3 engine. I’d have had to spend a packet. It didn’t make sense.”

As it turned out, the match was relatively straight forward, though minor under bonnet modifications had to be made to mount the aluminium engine. The Rover V8 is lighter than the M3 engine it replaced – but it’s around the same length so it slipped nicely in to the bay. The gear lever even slotted through the same hole that original did.

The M3 engine was cradle mounted but this was removed so that the Rover could be chassis mounted – for rigidity. Sump and engine mounts had to be designed and fabricated by DJM Motorspot to make the work possible. The stainless steel tubular exhaust headers had to be modified to fit by Milton Keynes based company Exhaust by Design – but the toughest part of the engine conversion was positioning the left-hand drive steering column around the engine. A larger Rad-Tech radiator was also installed which meant the brake servos had to be relocated.

Mating the Rover transmission to the BMW prop-shaft was simple; Wayne used a knuckle to link the two to transmit drive to the rear diff, though a shorter prop-shaft was needed to accommodate the knuckle.

With so much power being transmitted through the engine and gearbox, a heavy duty clutch was needed. Wayne found the ideal component from AP which was designed for the Lamborghini Countach. It has helped cut down on the number of gearboxes he is wearing through, and at £680 a throw (he’s blown three over the last 1000miles) any saving there is a welcome relief.

The original discs and callipers were replaced with AP racing components. Bigger 360mm front disc are clamped by four pot AP callipers, while the rear disc were left alone.

“I’ve never had problems with them over heating; it’s the front ones which seem to get all the work, so the rears didn’t need upgrading at all aside from new pads.”

Ride height was lowered by 40mm front and rear but Wayne retained the factory spring and damper settings with new fixed rate Bilsteins. He also upgraded the track control arm and anti-roll bar bushes to Group A touring car spec ones.

Power is transferred to the ground through 17 inch BBS rims – 8inch wide at the front and nine at the back – which are clad in Falken JRB rubber.

“I’ve used Falken tyres for 10years and never had a problem.”

Wayne says the engine and suspension work has transformed the performance of the M3. Where he felt himself wanting for power out of the Range Rover, the lighter body of the M3 almost feels as though it’s picked up and hurled down the road.

“It pulls like a train in every gear, and the torque is amazing. You can start off in fourth gear – but you can also be reaching to change for fifth at 150mph. It’s really incredible,” he said.

“The engine is slightly lighter than the M3 and it really pulls the weight – it’s as smooth as silk.”

Power to weight ratios are where the improvements really begin to show. By transplanting the worked Rover V8, Wayne has dramatically increased that ratio because he’s effectively chopped the vehicle’s weight in half. Where the Range Rover gave him around 170bhp per tonne, the M3 now delivers around 285bhp per tonne – for a fraction of the cost of tuning the original engine.

It also means the engine acts much differently now. Where the weight of the Range Rover would bog the car down down, the M3 launches itself with a hefty shunt in the back and a rorty, rip-snorty roar from under the bonnet.

“The first time out a Castle Combe was brilliant. It’s so quick in the dry that people can’t believe it’s an M3. In the wet, it’s a different story. It’s so twitchy that I don’t bother. You really need to get out and give it a good go in the dry.”

With his foot firmly planted during a brief test session at Bruntinghorpe, Wayne displayed just how impressive that power is. He fired the M3 around the shortened top part of the test track while snapper Harmer panned and clicked. With more than 350bhp under the right foot and masses of torque, the Rover could be prompted to stick its tail out when needed. Careful right foot contemplation was needed to hold it there, and Wayne seemed a bit worried about holding his car in a controlled four-wheel drift. We didn’t have time to test drive the car ourselves – Wayne had to get back to Birmingham to collect his kids from school.

Outwardly, the car appears to sit nicely on the road though it tends to push on through corners if not driven hard. Right foot control is where the secret to driving this car quickly lies. Overstep the mark and it’ll let you know. Learn to tame it, and it’d make any track seem a lot shorter. But that’s how this engine responds. Just look at its derivatives; early TVRs, the TR8, Marcos, Morgans….they all need to be mastered.

Wayne says the car probably owes him £18,000 all up – £10,000 for the car, parts and labour and £8000 for the engine work. But he sees it as money well spent. That said, he’s already contemplating new projects and would like to sell his M3 to help fund them.

He’d like to drop a 440bhp 4.5 litre Cerbera engine in to a 206′ shell to drive the rear wheels. It’ll be a ground up build and it will be built specifically for track days – it won’t have a scrap of non-functional interior trimming. First off though, he needs to track down an outfit which prepares the shells for rear-drive running gear. He’s promised to keep us posted.

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