A rather unusual listing popped up online this week. There’s a BMW M3 DTM race car shell on sale today in southern Germany and this seems like a really good offer for someone looking to built a track-only car. Especially if you’re using an E92 M3 chassis.
Back in the 1980s and even part of the 1990s, the cars competing in the DTM were not exceedingly different from what you could buy and use on the road. The BMW E30 M3 used in the DTM is a perfect example, most of the changes being done inside – stripping the car of what was not needed and inserting a roll cage – and on the technical side of things. But when it came to the appearance, excluding the livery, everything looked the same.
Later on, the rules of the competition changed and that’s how race cars today became vaguely related to the road-going models. Nothing but the name is being shared between them most of the time, the race cars being basically aerodynamic shells that resemble to some extent the road-legal versions, placed on top of a lightweight chassis. That’s what you can buy now, from Race Cars Direct.
The ad says this was a presentation shell for a show car and has a sort of supporting frame underneath. It is said to be closely related to the real deal and, if that’s the case, it should fit on the chassis of an E92 M3 which was just 1 centimeter off from the race car spec.
There’s no mention as to what was used to create the shell in the first place though and details are scarce, but I’m sure no carbon fiber was used in the process, as it would be the case on the real deal.
