A reminder of how race cars are unleashed beasts compared to street-legal vehicles, this BMW E36 was conceived as a time attack weapon. It started out in life as a 320i before Team Vego Motorsport turned it into a hardcore machine with 600 horsepower on tap. It’s rocking an S14 engine borrowed from the 320is E30, but with a Garrett turbocharger thrown in for good measure.
The whole car weighs around 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) and has a stripped-out cabin with just the driver’s seat. The only thing bigger than its rear diffuser is the gigantic wing as part of a wild aero package with huge canards and a front splitter. From the centerlock wheels to the side exhausts, it’s fair to say this isn’t an ordinary E36.
The team behind this untamed 3 Series installed a GTR-like vented hood and went as far as to chop off sections of the fenders to cool the brakes. It’s a proper race-spec E36 with a six-speed sequential gearbox, a full roll cage, and polycarbonate windows to shave weight. It is safe to say it doesn’t get more Coupe Sport Lightweight than this.
This E36 Is Not For The Faint-Hearted
The adjacent footage was recorded at the end of October but published only today. We see the E36 at full tilt during a test event organized at the Adria International Raceway in northern Italy. The widebody racer looks quite intimidating to drive what with 600 hp in a car as light as a Miata. We can only hope these vehicles will live on in the inevitable electric world.
How could such a thing be possible? Well, some automakers are spending R&D resources to perfect synthetic fuels. Meanwhile, other companies are making efforts to develop hydrogen-fueled combustion engines. It’ll certainly be a sad day if this soundtrack will be considered vintage in the silent EV era coming toward us.
Source: MattyB727 – Car Videos / YouTube
