BMW Builds Need for Speed’s Iconic M3 GTR to Celebrate Series’ 30th Anniversary

[Famine]

This is the discussion thread for an article on GTPlanet:

BMW Builds Need for Speed’s Iconic M3 GTR to Celebrate Series’ 30th Anniversary​

A special collaboration between BMW and EA to mark the 30th anniversary of the Need for Speed series has seen the marque produce and exhibit a one-off BMW M3 GTR...

 

[05XR8]

It'd also be interesting to know how many "game" cars carme to life. Such as the real Gr.3 Beetle.

 

[McLaren]

Homologation rules of the time required that any car running in the series must be available as a road model on two continents, so BMW set about making the M3 GTR Strassenversion — a street-legal version of the car. Only produced in a run of ten cars, it combined a slightly detuned version of the engine with a six-speed manual instead of the sequential.

I didn't know they built 10 of them. Over the years, I've only seen 2 examples that BMW retains ownership of.

 

[PJTierney]

This is awesome, now the replica makers have the perfect reference.

 

[brockie]

Beast!

 

[-Fred-]

The article's title is a bit misleading, and I'm going to be very pedantic about it, but...

BMW itself has now embraced this connection by taking a genuine M3 GTR race car — which appears to be the ALMS-winning 2001 car of Jyrki Juhani Jarvilehto and Jorg Muller — and giving it the Need for Speed treatment, featuring a blue-on-chrome wrap to match the player car.

They didn't build the car to celebrate NFS' anniversary, they built the car 23 years ago to race in ALMS and other GT series around the world and annoy Porsche who ultimately got the thing banned. They just took it out of the museum and put a fresh wrap on it to make it look like the Most Wanted car.

 

[Famine]

The article's title is a bit misleading, and I'm going to be very pedantic about it, but...

They didn't build the car to celebrate NFS' anniversary, they built the car 23 years ago to race in ALMS and other GT series around the world and annoy Porsche who ultimately got the thing banned. They just took it out of the museum and put a fresh wrap on it to make it look like the Most Wanted car.

 

[Mafio]

Confession: I was never into that car. I always thought the graphics were corny.

 

[DK]

This is awesome, now the replica makers have the perfect reference.

BRB, I'm going to find a 2-series GT and give it this livery.

 

[Strittan]

For a second I was certain that the thumbnail picture was from a game. Says something about how far we've come I guess, lol!

 

[Sum1s2pid]

Iconic. 😑