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I still remember the first time I went to the track and saw the notorious M3 Lightweight. I had read about it coming in the BMWCCA magazine and it looked exciting. Sure, it still wasn’t the full bore M3 that the rest of the world got to experience, but if you were a track junkie it was a recipe made in heaven. With less weight and some trick aerodynamic aids added to the already stout out-of-the-box E36 M3, it was no surprise that several of the BMWCCA instructors who had other 3-series dumped them to get the Lightweight. They were also a hit in Club Racing, where they were turned up a few notches to make a serious track weapon. Today one such club racer is for sale from the seriously BMW-savvy group at Fall-Line Motorsports:
There are very few race cars that I instantly fall in love with. A vast majority of them I see as very cool or with unique aspects, but often I’m left feeling as though I would do something – or many things – very different than the builder. But the moment I laid my eyes on this Rabbit, I fell instantly in love. Now, truth told I had already been thinking about an early Volkswagen race car – this time around, my thoughts lingered on some of the Scirocco SCCA racers. Hunkered down with all-too-awesome gold BBS magnesium wheels and a deep air dam, they just look spectacular to me. That feeling instantly transferred to this Rabbit. One of the earliest imported to the U.S., it’s the desirable Swallowtail model which looks much closer to the original Giugiaro design than the later U.S. built examples. There’s something that’s so pretty, so delicate about the early Golf/Rabbit design. It was refreshingly different from what Volkswagen had produced up to that point, but it was also purposeful in its design. With light weight and a dose of sport, these early Rabbits paved the way for what would become the performance arm of Volkswagen, centered around the A1 based GTi. But even before the GTi hit these shores there were plenty of racers that saw the opportunity to race the Rabbit on a budget. This early build was competitive right through the 1980s; in fact, I bet with the right driver it would still be close to the front today:
If the 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera posted earlier was still a little too rich for your blood, we here at GCFSB feel your pain. While there is a simply joy to seeing Porsches race, the reality of buying into and maintaining a Porsche race car can be a little too much to take for most hobby budgets. What’s the solution, then, if you’ve got the desire to hit the track? Well, for not much money there are many racing BMWs that can be had. From 2002s to E36s, just like Porsches, there is a devoted fanbase of enthusiasts who take otherwise good road cars and turn them into race cars so that you don’t have to:
If this morning’s Quattro was a little too expensive and sacreligious for your taste, there’s a way that you, too can experience the 5 cylinder…
I’m not going to mince words here: I think this car is fantastic. Not in that high-dollar super-car performance sense of the word, but for…
