Legal For The RoadĪt the time, requirements by the ALMS governing bodies stated that a manufacturer must produce a minimum of 10 examples of the road-going version within 12 months of its debut.īMW would satisfy these requirements – just barely – with a commitment to sell 10 street legal versions of the M3 GTR, thus giving birth to what BMW would dub the M3 GTR ‘Strassenversion’, or ‘Street Version’ when translated from German.
#M3 BEAMER SERIES#
This meant that it would not satisfy homologation requirements to race in the ALMS GT series unless BMW produced and would go on to sell street legal versions of the car. The M3 GTR competed in a production-based racing class, however its engine wasn’t fitted in any production version of the M3 meaning it fell more into the prototype category than anything else. Simply reimagining the production car powerplant – which was perfectly capable in its own right – was not deemed adequate, so BMW created the 443-horsepower P60B40 engine for the GTR, which by all accounts was engineered with the sole purpose of being used in a race car – and therein lies the issue as to why we don’t see as many on the road as we would have liked.
Their most formidable weapon would come in the form of its engine, with a 4.0L V8 rather than the 3.2L straight-six used in the road-going version. While the M3 GTR certainly wasn’t the first M3 to be used by BMW for competition racing, it was remarkably unlike any of the previous iterations in the most notable respects.īMW knew that if they were going to have any chance of a score over their rivals, they would need to bring some giant-killing arsenal to the game. In 2001, the race-appropriated E46 M3 was ready to compete for the start of the 2001 season. It would be assigned with the laser-focused mission of taking on the dominant Porsche 911, which had won 11 out of 12 races that same year in the GT class. The conception of the M3 GTR coincided with the introduction of the new of the new E46 generation of the BMW M3 in 2000. The BMW M3 GTR Strassenversion can trace its roots back to competition racing in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS), where the race car it is based on – of the same name, minus the ‘Strassenversion’ – competed in the GT class.
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