Forerunner?
We all know the story: Bob Lutz joined BMW in 1972 and one of his first official acts was to hire Jochen Neerpasch, who he poached from Ford and made head engineer of the newly founded Motorsport GmbH. The first M project was the E9, which was to put the Ford Capri in its place as the 3.0 CSL. The production CSL based on the E9 was initially (1971/72) equipped with a 3-litre engine that produced a not-exactly-wild 180 hp and 255 Nm of maximum torque at 3700 rpm. This was followed in 1972/73 by a 3-litre engine with a new 3003 instead of 2985 cm3, 200 hp and 272 Nm; from 1973 to 1975 it was finally a 3.2-litre with 206 hp and 286 Nm maximum torque at 4300 rpm. The successful racing version introduced in 1973 had a displacement of 3498 cm3 and produced 440 hp at 8500 rpm – you can see the potential that this inline-six had. Later, BMW also experimented with four-valve engines and, in particular, turbocharging, with outputs of up to 900 hp. But the real stars are the ‘Batmobiles’, which were good for victories until 1978 – we show example #2275997 below.
But now, chassis number #2211343, built in 1971, has turned up at RM Sotheby’s for the auction in Paris in February 2025. This vehicle is said to was one of two prototypes that BMW sent to Broadspeed in England in September 1971 to be converted to Group 2 specifications – and two per cent faster per lap than the Capris of the time. With the help of Cooper, the E9s were lightened and stiffened, given a Bilstein suspension, but during winter testing at Paul Ricard with John Fitzpatrick and Dieter Quester, they were not fast enough for BMW’s requirements. The contract was cancelled again, but apparently that did not stop Broadspeed from pushing ahead with development, for example by engaging Niki Lauda for test drives. In April, John Fitzpatrick took third place in a race for the European Touring Car Championship in a Broadspeed-BMW with chassis number 2211343 (labelled as 2800 CS…) behind two Ford Capri. It had a displacement of three litres, probably around 340 hp (significantly more than the Capri…) – and finished ahead of the E9 BMWs that had been prepared by Schnitzer and Alpina. After that, the vehicle is said to have come to the factory in Munich – and to have been the first racing car ever to receive the famous M livery. In June 1973, when the official M programme with the E9 was already running, this vehicle was then sold to Vasek Polak in the USA, where it apparently also won a race in Riverside; it was only in America that it was given the typical rear wing.
Well, we don’t know any better. This is partly because there are apparently no records kept by M GmbH of which works cars were used where and when. But that’s just the way it is with racing cars in general: consistent stories are rather rare. There are pictures of what the Broadspeed BMW looked like in 1972, which is quite different from today, but that doesn’t mean that the story is not true.
We have more interesting cars in our archives.
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