BMW Manufacturer Profile & Rally History
BMW Home Country: Germany
It somehow seems tempting to compare BMW’s rally heroics to those of Alfa Romeo. Both makes had their rally programs always overshadowed by their love to touring car racing, both makes came into rallying at roughly the same time and with cars of similar character and abilities. Although the Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA was a coupé compared to the BMW 02-series that was more a sporty saloon car. Both these projects were as well inspired by touring car programs.
But in order, the BMW 1800tisa (comparable to the 5-series in modern times) was a hugely successful touring car and it looked far from dull on rally stages as well. The big 2800CS coupé was also tried in rallying, but both these cars were semi works efforts at best. It has to be noted though, that none other than Rauno Aaltonen had an extensive ERC program in 1972 using the 2800CS M-AH 1072 & M-AH 1079. When the 02-series (comparable to the 3-series of modern times) came, it was smaller and lighter than the 1800 and that it had smaller engines at first didn’t seem to matter for rallying. We soon found many 1502 and 1602 models with engines of a size according to the model name. But then came the 2002tii, which not only was smaller than the 1800tisa, but as implemented by the model names had a bigger, more powerful engine. It was that time that even BMW Motorsport found interest in rallying as the car’s successes could no longer be ignored. The most famous drivers of works supported BMW 2002 were Tony Fall, Achim Warmbold and occasionally even Björn Waldegaard. The biggest success was when Achim Warmbold won the WRC event Austrian Alpine in 1973. Actually as famous was the
BMW victory in Portugal 1972, although this was before the WRC was created.
Interestingly the
BMW 2002 was as well the first road car that explored Turbo engines, but unfortunately the 2002 Turbo came at a time (late 1973) when the big oil crisis broke out in Europe and we can’t find records of this car ever being rallied, leaving the first turbo laurels to Saab. Again similar to Alfa Romeo, from here BMW became a loved, mainly French inspired privateer effort in rallying. When the 3-series came out and the 320 became a hugely successul touring car, Timo Mäkinen was found in a French importer 320 in the Rallye Monte Carlo and Ingvar Carlsson used a 320 and later the bigger engined 323i in the Swedish Rally. It was actually the German tuner Hartge to prepare a big 633CSi MZG-EA 67 for Jean-Claude Andruet in French rallies while one of the most spectacular rally cars ever was created by French lunatic Hughes de Chaunac, when he turned the M1 into a rally car. The next big story about BMW in rallying came when Prodrive got involved with a BMW touring car program with the
M3 – a very different top version to the 3-series. Prodrive tried to rally it and soon showed the incredible quality of this car: designed mainly with Irish, French and Belgian tarmac rallies in mind, the BMW M3 turned a winner on the first
WRC event it ever competed in, the Tour de Corse 1987!
For the next 3-4 years the M3 was a well loved car for exactly these Irish (Bertie Fisher, Austin McHale), French (Bernard Beguin, Francois Chatriot) and Belgian (Marc Duez) championships, winning many titles. But in WRC terms without turbo and 4x4 it soon struggled to keep up with the ever more evolving Lancia Delta.
COLOURS & TYRES:
BMW is a car manufacturer with a really strong identification, whithout continously changing their minds as so many other, mainly Japanese brands seem to do. BMW's house colours always were a combination of blue, purple & red stripes on white ground. However there was one exception and that was right on their most official program, the works 2002, as Aaltonen's 2800CS, were white cars with a light blue top. With future projects being all privateer efforts, sponsorship came into the frame. Hartge, who ran the M3, Carlsson's 320 & 323i, as well as the 633CSi used their own house colours being two shades of blue on white. Hughes de Chaunac’s M1 was sponsored by Rothmans as well as French oil company Motul and featured a white and red colour scheme (unusually for Rothmans no blue). This was very similar indeed to Prodrive’s M3 from 1988 onwards with Bastos and Motul sponsorship, however when they won the Tour de Corse in 1987 they were in full Rothmans colours. One exception is Marc Duez, probably the busiest M3 driver in the WRC, who brought in Fina sponsorship. Two of the most exciting colours: In Belgian championship events Marc Duez also had phone manufacturer Alcatel sponsoring a white-grey-orange M3 and Ari Vatanen couldn’t hesitate to compete on the 1988 Rally Finland in a Prodrive M3 and this car featured writing “the milkman” – a real fun entry! In terms of tyres BMWs seemed to be on Pirelli throughout, with the 2002, the M1 and the M3. Only exception was 1987, the year they won the Tour de Corse, they were on Michelin.
REGISTRATIONS:
Indeed in the 1970s BMW was a full works operation. And as most people know, BMW is based in Bayern's capital München, which is one of the biggest cities of Germany. Such works BMW display reg plates with M as the area code, mostly followed by 2 letters and a 4-digit number. Then the big BMW operation with the BMW M3 was in the hands of Prodrive. Interestingly when Prodrive cooperated with Porsche, these cars were registered in Reading. Just like Porsche, BMW's UK importer is based in Reading. However for some reason the Prodrive BMW were usually registered in Ireland! Again the game with the 3-letter-block, 2nd & 3rd of which identify the area. Strangely these M3s were only found with area codes DZ Antrim or XI Belfast, even though both these places have far more codes. To add to head scratching, in the end 4 M3s of equal works status appeared of which 2 were registered in Northampton, 1 in Nottingham and 1 in Birmingham! When Hughes de Chaunac played with the M1 in rallying, 2 such beasts were built, he found support by BMW France and such the cars were registered in Versailles with the reg plates ending 78. This is not to be mistaken with the 54 registered car Hartge had. German MOT rules are so strict, that it is difficult to have rally cars internationally competitive. In fact most works Toyota don't have a German MOT approval stamp, are insured in the UK and may run into problems with the German police running their German plates in Germany. For Hartge, the French city Nancy "54" is just across the border and so he had some of his cars registered there. Hartge is based in Merzig, Saarland, a small German town just 5km from the French border. So as long as the German MOT did not object, Hartge cars are identified with the Merzig MZG area code before the dash. Just for a little side info, Hartge nowadays turned their attention to Mercedes tuning and changed name. Although Rolf Hartge still owns the business, non other than former Swedish rally star Ingvar Carlsson is involved in the business and gave the firm its new name.
Championship Standings List :
Yr Pos. Manufacturer Class Events
1991 8th. BMW (6pts) Group A 14
Season Summary | Season Points | Events Calendar
1990
9th.
BMW (14pts)
Group A
13
Season Summary | Season Points | Events Calendar
1989 7th. BMW (37pts) Group A 13
Season Summary | Season Points | Events Calendar
1988
7th.
BMW (25pts)
Group A
13
Season Summary | Season Points | Events Calendar
1987 8th. BMW (20pts) Group A 13
Season Summary | Season Points | Events Calendar
1985
15th.
BMW (9pts)
Group B
12
Season Summary | Season Points | Events Calendar
1974 12th. BMW (4pts) Open 8
Season Summary | Season Points | Events Calendar
1973
8th.
BMW (28pts)
Open
13
Season Summary | Season Points | Events Calendar
In "BMW Rally Cars"
M
Model & Evo. (Activity)
[email protected]
RPM Torque
(Nm)@
RPM Length
Width
Height Weight
(Kg/BPM
Ratio)
Trans.
(W'base)
2002tii 16V (73-0) 230/7800 240/6000 4250.1590.1390 1050 (4.6) Rwd (2500)
2002tii 8v (69-0) 195/7000 210/5500 4250.1590.1390 1050 (5.4) Rwd (2500)
3-series (E21) 320 (80-0) 185 0 4355.1610.1380 1000 (5.4) RWD (2563)
3-series (E21) 323i (81-83) 205 0 4355.1610.1380 1020 (0) RWD (2563)
325 (E30) i (86-55) 171/5800 238/4000 4325.1645.1380 1180 (6.9) RWD (2570)
325 (E30) iX (88-55) 171/5800 238/4000 4325.1645.1380 1290 (7.5) 4x4 (2570)
633CSi (E24) _ (76-77) 286/5500 340/4250 4755.1725.1365 1450 (5.1) RWD (2626)
M1 (E26) _ (82-83) 430/9000 390/7000 4360.1925.1110 1150 (2.7) Rwd (2560)
M3 (E30) _ (87-0) 295/8400 285/6500 4355.1680.1350 1025 (3.5) Rwd (2565)