The link between race car and road car has always been intrinsic to BMW’s performance DNA – especially when it comes to the touring car and GT endurance racing campaigns that form the backbone of BMW’s motorsport philosophy.
The knowledge and experience gleaned from cars honed in the white-hot heat of competition and raced hard on Sunday has long helped BMW’s M division make ever-better road cars that you get to drive on the Monday.
The BMW M3 Competition and BMW M4 Competition (now available as a BMW M4 Competition Convertible) are the perfect case in point. Both models are thrilling to drive on the road and truly come alive on-track – where you can enjoy every ounce of their race-bred performance yourself.
The BMW M3 has long been an icon of BMW’s racing past. Now the BMW M4 has taken the mantle as the spearhead of BMW Motorsport’s sportscar endurance racing for 2022 and beyond – with the new BMW M4 GT3 race car designed, developed and tested directly alongside the road car to ensure that both learn from each other.
Learn more about the BMW M3 Competition Saloon or the BMW M4 Competition Coupé.
Driven by performance; driven to the track
Touring car racing and GT endurance racing have always had their roots in race cars that are derived directly from road cars. In fact, in the early days of the Le Mans 24 Hours, there were even regulations that required a GT class race car to have a volume of luggage space (usually enough for a weekend bag or two), just to prove they were capable of daily real-world use.
“In those days we drove the cars from BMW’s Munich workshop to the circuit without the aid of a truck or a trailer – we just went on the road,” says Austrian race veteran Dieter Quester, class champion for BMW in the 1968 European Touring Car Challenge and outright winner of the series nine years later in a BMW 3.0 CSL.