1990 | BMW M3 Sport Evo

BMW Motorsport supplied various Works teams, such as Schnitzer in Germany and Prodrive in the UK with race-ready Group A body shells that were prepared for racing by Matter in Germany.

They were built to FIA Group A Touring Car regulations and all cars had to be homologated with a minimum production run of 500 road units which meant cars like the Ford Sierra Cosworth RS 500 and Mercedes Benz 190E Cosworth Evolution and the BMW M3 Evolution were produced and sold in batches of just 500 cars. These iconic cars were raced in domestic national touring car series throughout Europe and the M3 was extremely successful in its class, winning the German Touring Car Championship, the British Touring Car Championship and Italian Touring Car Championship as well as the European and World Touring Car Championship of the period.

One of only 55 periodMotorsport factory Group A race cars,chassis number M3 1165 was sold new to BMW dealer, Godfrey Hall, who campaigned the car in the 1989 British Touring Car Championship (Class B) before selling it to fellow BMW dealer, Nick Whale, who campaigned the car in the new 2.0-litre format of the British Touring Car Championship in both 1990 (with Pyramid Motorsport) and 1991 (with Techspeed Motorsport).Backing came from Midland Autotrader Magazine (today Autotrader.com) and the enthusiastic David Owen-Smith and his staff who supported the car with corporate hospitality at all rounds and in fact went on to sponsor the overall series outright, maintaining their involvement in British Touring Cars for over a decade. It was a very competitive time for the series and the manufacturers all had 'Works' deals with the major tyre suppliers, so privateers - such as Nick - raced predominantly against each other rather than the Works teams, as they could not access the same tyre compound.Nevertheless, at Donington in May 1990, Nick and Dutch Works driver, Gerrit Van Kouwen, notched up a 3rd placewhich was the highest place of any privateer in that 2.0-litre era of the BTCC.After Nick's two great BTCC seasons with the car, it was sold to Geoff Finlay for a couple of seasons racing in lower formulas, who then sold it to Nigel Moseley late in 1994. Transferring all the running gear to a new Works Group A 'Matter' shell it was then sold to Denis Compton who painted the car in Hillside Garage colours, modified it and raced it in the Northern saloon car series. He also fitted a faster and more powerful 2.5 Group A ex-DTM engine, before finally selling it to Mark Astall who returnedthe car to original Group A spec and campaigned it on track days and in races predominantly based at Cadwell Park. He chose the famous Watsons watercolour scheme and there is an article and track test ofthe car in the history file by 'BMW Car' magazinewritten in September 2013, just before Nick repurchased it.On finding the car again late in 2013, Nick was keen to race it with his son, Harry, who had been a child of just 2 or 3 years old when the car was originally raced and both held fond memories of it. So Amspeed of Brackley was employed to completely strip, restoreand rebuild it to current FIA Group A regulations for Historic Touring Cars. The car holds current FIA HTP papers for class 'CT44 period J2 - 1986-1990' valid until 31-12-2027. They also returned the car to its original colour scheme as raced in the BTCC. There is another article in the history file by BMW Car magazine from October 2015when they tested the car as raced by Nick and Harry.Success on track came straight away with Nick and Harry becoming a formidable partnership in historic touring car racing and many class wins and overall wins have followed ~ including twice outright at the Silverstone Classic, as well as Donington Park, Brands Hatch and Oulton Park. Last time out the car won its class and the Touring Car race outright at Spa, with the Motor Racing Legends Historic Touring car series in September 2019.Since then, Mike Jordan of Jordan Sport, who took over the running of the car in 2017, have fitted new Ohlins dampers all round and rebuilt both the gearbox and limited-slip diff.

Sold to Germany at the end of 2020. Then maintained by Britec Motorsport in Germany. Raced 2021 with Nick Padmore and Markus Schenkl in Hockenheim at the Touring Car Classics with success against the 1992 DTM M3s.

After upgraded with Group A sway bar adjust lever and a brand new 2.5L engine completely rebuilt by JC Motors to Group A specification again.

> 2,5 engine with original Wethje carbon airbox from 1992 with 8 injectors!
> 6-Speed Getrag Gearbox with Samsonas short shifter
> Air Jacks
> Center lock hubs
> Short DTM Steering Rack
> Many original Group A parts
> Race Logic vBox
> With current FIA HTP valid to 2027 and DMSB Wagenpass.

The car has already been fully prepared for the 2022 season, where the car should race in the German TOURENWAGEN CLASSICS. In December, the series was then bought up at short notice by Gerhard Berger's ITR / DTM and is now being integrated into the race weekends of the current modern DTM. Unfortunately, most of these dates don't match the dates of the other events in historic motorsport that I'll be attending in 2022. So it's not possible for me to start in this series. This is the only reason why the car is now for sale after a lot of money has just been invested in the car. A good opportunity to purchase an original top BMW M3 Group A!