The cult following of the BMW E30 3 Series has been growing steadily over the last decade or so. The older it gets, the more popularity it seems to gain and there’s good reason for that. One of the biggest advantages the first 3 Series has over modern cars is its versatility. You can basically fit any engine under its hood, from 2-liter four pots to even V10 units.
The car in the video below started life as a 325ix model which, back in the day, was extremely close in performance to the E30 M3. It also had all-wheel drive which was extremely rare back then. Under the hood, the E30 325ix hid an M20B25 engine, the straight six 2.5-liter mill making 169 HP. However, this little beast, as you’re about to see, is anything but stock.
The M20 unit was swapped for an M50B25 according to the video description, which means the displacement remained the same, at 2.5 liters as well as the engine architecture. The big difference though is that the M50 received a PT6765 turbo and an Autronic SM4 ECU. According to the owner, during the race, the boost offered the BMW E30 a total of anything between 700 and 750 HP to play around with. Considering the car only weighs under 1.3 tons, that’s enough to turn it into a supercar killer.
The M6 it’s going up against though, is not stock either. We’ve seen it earlier racing against a Porsche 911 Turbo S Convertible, but this time the gods of drag racing weren’t so kind to it. Under its hood lies a 5-liter V10 otherwise known as S85. It used to make 507 HP when brand new but today, thanks to various upgrades is closer to 550 HP. Even so, it doesn’t stand a chance against ‘the little E30 that could.’
