No motorsport series does ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday’ quite as well as touring cars. Presumably, anyway, because they’re the closest thing to a proper road car-based category short of the EnduroKa championship (in which PH’s own RacingPete recently scored a top-five finish in his first 24-hour race). Just think of the amount of Honda Accords, Renault Lagunas and Vauxhall Cavaliers that have been bought on a whim after a drizzly weekend of door bashing at Brands Hatch.
Admittedly, the touring car scene is a little dry these days. The BTCC grid is a little threadbare this year owing to the cost of the expensive hybrid systems, and while TCR is popular around the world, its UK showing (for obvious reasons) won’t be giving Britain’s premier touring car championship a run for its money any time soon. Then there’s the DTM, which a few years ago transitioned into yet another GT3 series. Except for TCR, which hasn’t been going for that long, all are a far cry from their respective heydays, when manufacturers spent millions on developing special models to get a leg up on the competition - just like the BMW M3 you see here.
Built to satisfy the DTM’s Group A regulations in the mid-1980s, BMW’s M division left no stone unturned when bringing the E30 3 Series platform up to competition spec. The bonnet, roof and sunroof were the only bits of bodywork carried over from the coupe, with flared arches, chunky air dam and boxy rear bumper bringing aerodynamic gains. As did a small spoiler, which was mounted onto a boot that sat visibly taller than the base car’s to help bring down drag over the standard 3 Series. So slapdash were the boot modifications that the trailing edge didn’t sit flush with the rear bodywork, which just proves how focused on performance M was at the time.
As you might expect, much of the E30’s underpinnings were stripped out for shiny motorsport-grade items, such as redesigned control arm bushings for greater caster angle adjustment and beefier strut tubes. Six-cylinder models were available on the standard 3 Series line, but BMW opted for a high-revving four-cylinder motor for to keep weight as low as possible for the race car. At launch, the road car produced around 200hp, but the S14 grew both in size and output for the numerous iterations and special editions that peppered the E30 M3’s five-year lifespan.
Among the most sought-after are the Roberto Ravaglia and Johnny Cecotto specials, but the holy grail for any M collector has to be the final Sport Evolution model. Informally known as the Evo III, the Sport Evolution brought E30 M3 production to a close in style with a larger 2.5-litre engine developing 238hp, plus a bunch of aero upgrades plucked from the touring car such as an adjustable front splitter and rear spoiler. It was lighter, too, with a revised boot, thinner glass for the side windows and redesigned bumper mounts bringing its kerbweight down to just 1,200kg. Adding to its immense desirability is a limited production run, with only 600 examples produced over a four-month period.
That means they’re worth a pretty penny, with the going rate well north of £100k these days. But this isn't any Sport Evo, as it has just 2,810 miles on the clock. Funnily enough, it’s covered far more ground in transit than it has on the ground, having started life in Austria before being shipped off to Taiwan in 2005. Its latest owner recently came to live in the UK, passing the car off to Munich Legends to bring it up to ‘concours condition’ ready for sale. And if you think that sounds expensive, you’re darn right: £299,000 is the asking price, which must make this the priciest E30 M3 out there. There’s another Sport Evo going for a smidgen less, albeit with more miles on the clock. Much like the golden touring car era the M3 was built for, the days of the sub-£100k Sport Evo appear to be a distant memory.
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