The E30 BMW M3 didn’t gain it’s legendary reputation just from its performance on the street. Like many legendary sports cars, it’s considerable resume was developed on the track. The original Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft, or German Touring Car Series, began in 1984 and consisted of privateer racers, with factory backed teams joining later that decade. The year this M3 raced was the final year before FIA Group A rules were abandoned, allowing technologies such as carbon fibre, anti-lock brakes and four-wheel drive enter the mix.
This M3 for sale in Luxembourg was raced by British driver Steve Soper and represents a golden age in touring car history.
1992 BMW M3 DTM
BMW M3 DTM, Ex Steve Soper winning car.
In the mid 80s homologation purposes required a minimum of 5000 cars built to comply with the Group A regulations. Launched in 1986 and raced since 1987 this is probably the most successful touring car ever having won in every major races or championships it was entered. For the 1992 DTM season BMW pushed further the M3 development, actually only a few ’92 chassis were built among the estimated 260 built.
This actual car chassis 213 has been delivered to Team Bigazzi one of the two factory backed team with Schnitzer for the 1992 DTM season. Being an official car it received improved chassis specifications which were not available on private ones. It was very successfully driven by Steve Soper, as he remarkably scored two victories that year at Norisring and Berlin. In 1993 it was sold to Jens Venc a Czech driver via Mr Isert and raced again in 1993 DTM into “Kaucuk†colours, after that it only did a few races in Czech republic in 1994 before being retired and it was exhibited since 1998 in a Museum.
At our purchase the car was in original untouched condition, very authentic and still retaining all of its original parts including Steve’s specific steering wheel. The car was totally dismantled and restored in house from the chassis, a lot of attention was putted into keeping it as original as possible. Shortly after the restoration ended we organised at BMW Classic in Munich a reunion with Steve Soper, the Bigazzi Team and period BMW Motorsport heads who all have signed the car. This time wrapped M3 is a real piece of BMW history, being the very last BMW winner in DTM.
For most of us, cars like these are mere eye candy, leaving us to sit back and dream about what it must be like to pilot such an impressive machine built for competition. It’s hard to place a value on cars like these, as we usually only get a read on such vehicles at auction. However, at the equivalent of a quarter million dollars, only serious collectors and vintage racers with the means need apply. True, there are plenty of other awesome street and race machines out there for the price, but few went such a long way to help forge an image for an in-house performance brand such as BMW Motorsport.
Now that we’ve taken a look at one of the cars fielded for DTM in 1992, here is a trailer film highlighting the 1992 season, in which this particular car competed:
-Paul
A bunch of years ago when I first starting going to the track it was pretty popular for the instructors to buy ex-touring cars and import them – it was the time when they were not hugely expensive for what they were. I remember a Group A M3 showing up at the track – you had to warm it up on one set of plugs, then change to race plugs. Needless to say, running one of these cars is very expensive, but they are just incredible cars. I’d personally love to have one of the V8 quattro DTM cars, but short of being a multi-millionaire or swapping out all of the trick components for pieces not made of unobtanium, I’m not sure how you could possibly run one, and it would be too much of a shame to park it. I guess I’ll just keep saving to go to Goodwood again and hear these cars in full song.