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Motorsports Monday: 2008 BMW M3

Motorsports Monday: 2008 BMW M3

Published June 22, 2015 by Carter

A truism of motorsport is that to make a small fortune in racing you need to start with a large fortune. Building race cars is very expensive; strange, considering that there is much less of them when you’re done than the road car that was started with. If, for example, you wanted to go racing in the GT3 class, the ostensible car to get would be the multi-class winning Porsche GT3R. Smart choice. Now, fork over your half a million hard-earned trust fund dollars, since before you turn a key the GT3R stickers at 429,000 Euros plus taxes. Run a race weekend, and presuming you don’t crash or have a mechanical, you’ll be several tens of thousands of dollars more in the hole, since race cars consume consumables at an alarming rate. Tires, brake pads, clutches – you name it, it’s expensive if it’s top-tier racing goods. And then come the realities that after a staggeringly short amount of time, you need to completely rebuild your race car. According to the Census Bureau, the average American spends 50 minutes a day commuting in their car. In race car terms, that would mean that after a little over a month you’d have to completely rebuild your car. Nuts, right?

But you still want to do it. Okay, a much more affordable way to go really, really fast is to buy a last generation car. Just past the current vogue, they tend to be considerably more friendly on the wallet. Yet, top tier cars are still very, very expensive to run. Perhaps, then, a smarter choice would be to look at a car based upon more pedestrian internals:

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1973 Opel Manta Blue Max

1973 Opel Manta Blue Max

Published June 11, 2015 by Carter

As with every automotive enthusiasts, I’d like to believe, I have some amnesia about some periods of automobile history. Show me a 1985 and 1986 Audi 4000 side by side, and I can rattle off the subtle changes between model years; but show me some 1950s American iron and outside of the real standouts, they’re all a bit vanilla to me. I can’t tell you the difference between, for example, a 1955 Pontiac and a 1955 Mercury – I guess, if I go and look at pictures, the Mercury had slightly pointier headlight surrounds, but generally the way that I tell the difference between those cars is to walk up to them and say “Oh, this is the one that says ‘Mercury’ on it”. I’m sure it’s one of my many shortcomings as a person, though just as I can identify that NASCAR and NHRA racing takes a fair amount of talent, it’s not the talent I’d prefer to explore. People who can identify those cars and all of the specific model year changes are, to me, semi-Rainman-esque in their ability to memorize and quickly recount every single 1950s cars. Of course, to them I bet every single car from the 1980s looks exactly the same. Line up a Fiat Dino, an Audi 100 Coupe S and an Opel Manta (along with a handful of other cars that share the same basic silhouette) and I bet they’d be doing the same thing as me – walking up to this “blue one” and proclaiming “Oh, this is the one that says ‘Opel’ on it”:

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Coupe Week: 1989 Audi Coupe GT

Published February 12, 2015 by Carter

It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve just passed 1,000 posts on this site, yet when I click on my history here that seems to be what the computer indicates. During my time here, I’ve been fortunate to be afforded the opportunity to shed some light on some cars that I think would probably go unnoticed by many. In some cases, that could be a good thing arguably, but in particular I hope that I’ve helped to raise some awareness of some Audi models that go unappreciated. To me, while they may not be the fastest or flashiest cars that have ever come out of Germany there is an enduring appeal to the 1980s Audis; a time when the company definitely stood apart from its countrymen. So, to unofficially commemorate my 1,000th post, I couldn’t let Coupe Week go without an homage to one of my favorite Audis – the Coupe GT. In period, it was judged by many to be one of the best GT cars available – but as I’ve said previously, in the public sphere there seems to be at times collective amnesia regarding 1980s Audis, which are lumped in with earlier models and claimed to have excessive electrical and running problems. Having owned six of them over the past few decades, I can say with a fair bit of confidence that reputation is unwarranted. My 1986 Coupe GT has tackled everything I’ve thrown at it; long road trips, treks to work through blizzards, and many, many trips to the track. Those track adventures have been a continuous attempt to pass every car I can if for no reason other than to show drivers that the supposedly nose-heavy, understeering one-wheel drive wonder is, in fact, quite a competent driver (which, incidentally, just passed their self-proclaimed ‘ultimate driving machine’). But while I could sing the praises of the GT for long enough to put all of you to sleep, finding a good one today is hard – very, very hard. Compared to the multitudes of W201 and E30 models that we see daily, good clean B2 Audis are virtually non-existent in the U.S., so to find a nice example often requires looking to the Fatherland where there tends to be a greater appreciation for Audi’s models. This particular example stood out to me; in rare Flamingo Metallic paint, this is one of the last Audi Coupe GTs ever produced:

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1985 Audi Coupe GT

Published January 22, 2015 by Carter

To me, the Audi Coupe GT is probably the most unappreciated German car of the 1980s. That crown could really be shared by many Audis that suffered the stigma of poor reputation left over from the 1970s problems and the late 1980s scandals coupled with mid-80s Volkswagen-era build quality, which admittedly wasn’t the best. Although the Audi products were generally engineered to a higher standard than most of their VAG counterparts, the company connection in the public’s mind leaves a scarlet letter on the Audi nameplate. Even though compared to contemporaries the Audi Coupe GT fared well in testing, the general attitude towards the model is that it was an underpowered, overpriced and heavy Scirocco. But those that know the model share the joy of a hidden secret; a fine handling GT, a composed tourer on the highway that is equally at home being flung around twisty backroads, a trusted companion with startling longevity that never failed to bring smiles on a regular basis. If you like the Audi Coupe GT, you probably like doing things a bit differently. And to pay nearly $7,000 for a nice condition one, you’d have to really want it and nothing else – but the chance to stand apart may be worth the price of entry:

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1981 Porsche 924 Carrera GT

Published January 19, 2015 by Paul

At first glance, you might mistake this Porsche for a 944, but it is in fact an early Group 4 homologation special for Le Mans. The 924 Carrera GT was one of the first glimpses as to the performance potential of Porsche’s new front-engined, four-cylinder wonder. The folks at flüssig magazine gave us a nice retrospective last year with regards to the development of competition 924s that would go on to influence the 944. With 210 horsepower on tap, the 924 Carrera GT was a considerable step up in performance from any 924 that had previously been seen. Only 406 examples were produced, making this wide hipped 924 quite the rarity. This example for sale in New York is certainly going to get fans of the early water-cooled models excited.

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