2010 BMW M3 by Brabham Racing First DriveWe'll get to the driving hilarity in a second.
After all, the stunning 494-horsepower, 2010 Brabham Racing BT92 is
based on the stunning 414-hp 2010 BMW M3 Coupe, so it's automatically a
thrill and a half.
There's a lot of intrigue surrounding this car, labeled the Brabham
Racing BT92 by its creator, Michael Trick. You might remember Jack
Brabham, the three-time Formula 1 driving champion, who had nothing to
do with this car and is monumentally p.o.'ed (in the form of his sons,
IMSA racing champion Geoff and ALMS racing champion David) at this
co-opting of the family name by some German upstart. And BMW itself was
a little miffed over this new company's impetuous use of the BMW badge
on one of its early Web sites, as if this were a BMW-certified project.
So we've had our doubts about this non-Brabham Brabham Racing BT92
thing ever since the car appeared last fall at the 2008 Essen Motor
Show, Germany's equivalent of SEMA. But it turns out that the Brabham
family had not nailed down any rights to the Brabham trademarks
worldwide in recent years, so they were fair game. And that thing with
the Web site and the BMW roundel was resolved when company owner Trick
ordered the site killed.
Driving and touching and feeling tells the ultimate story about this ultimate M3.
And the 2010 Brabham Racing BT92 is tremendous from the driver seat.
Despite all that has been altered, however, it still basically looks
pretty close to an M3, and we immediately wonder, therefore, about the
plausibility of its asking price of nearly $310,000.
Having the Best Costs Dough
Once we sat down with Brabham Racing's Michael Trick and other members
of his team in southern Spain, we gradually came around to seeing the
2010 BMW M3 by Brabham Racing for what it is: a really ambitious piece
of work that any driving enthusiast will be proud to own (if they can
afford it, of course).
The people behind this thing are peerless. All engine work to the
4.0-liter BMW S65B40 V8 over the past two years has been handled in an
exclusive deal with longtime BMW engineering pro Oliver Nowack, whose
father was mentor to "Camshaft" Paul Rosche, himself the father of BMW
Formula 1 racing engines. Technical chief to the Brabham Racing project
is Andreas Hainke, the former tech boss of Volkswagen Motorsport.
The BT92's M3 engine has been upgraded to racing specification in
almost every respect. The dimensions of the cylinders are now
93.3mm-by-80.2mm against the original 4.0-liter V8's 92.0mm-by-75.2mm,
yielding a displacement of 4.4 liters. A forged crankshaft has been
carefully balanced and the camshaft profiles are new, while the
cylinder heads have been machined for bigger valves and the pistons
have been given a low-friction coating. Naturally, the all-new intake
and exhaust systems have been optimized for more power, some 494 hp at
8,300 rpm and 354 pound-feet of torque at 5,700 rpm.
Another aspect to the expensive, 20-day process that converts an
ordinary 2010 BMW M3 to the Brabham Racing BT92 is the use of a full
complement of carbon-fiber body panels (the M3 roof panel remains, of
course). The result of all the carbon fiber is added structural
rigidity, together with a weight loss of 110 pounds in the body alone.
The engine can still be serviced at any BMW-certified shop, and it's
still compatible with the existing six-speed manual gearbox The
standard M3's factory-estimated 4.5-second dash to 60 mph is improved
by the BT92 to 4.1 seconds (3.9 seconds with the latest dual-clutch GK
gearbox that's being developed as an option, we're told), though the
real leap forward in performance comes at higher speeds. Now that the
electronic speed limiter has been disabled, the new engine's redline of
8,550 rpm allows a v-max of 188 mph.
Sound and Color
We accentuated our driving experience by keeping the Power button lit
most of the time for the full 494-hp output. Even with it unlit,
though, the customized dual-tip exhaust system developed in
collaboration between Brabham Racing's Nowack and exhaust experts
Stüber is a bleeding cannon. Stüber has specialized for years in making
those motorcycle exhausts that drive people in gated communities nuts,
so the bark of this exhaust over 2,500 rpm sounds like the wrath of
engineering being visited on Mother Nature. That is, it's pretty damned
loud. When we said this to Trick, he answered, "Yeah, actually it's not
yet quite loud enough."
This is a reminder that the Brabham Racing BT92 is not a BMW Alpina
exercise in padded refinement and effortless momentum. Brabham Racing
wants to, well, race.
As we were photographing the BT92 (the name is simply the conflation
of the traditional Brabham "BT" racing designation with the BMW's E92
model label) among the hills of Andalusia, the car's Brabham Blue
exterior played visually entertaining games with the light or lack
thereof. At one moment in the hard, low winter sun, the car was
screaming bright blue. The next moment, some cloud cover transformed it
into a deep, dark, bruised blue. Bernd Paetz, the project's paint
expert, refused to divulge the paint code for this magic job, but all
Brabham Racing cars will wear it.
Better Than an M3?
For all that money and paint and fury and emotion, is the BT92 really
better than an M3? Yes, it is. It freakin' well better be. Fifty buyers
total (that's the production run for this limited edition) are bound to
find this out, too.
The six-speed manual transmission really seems suited to this
lighter, more hard-core version of the M3. With the factory 2010 BMW
M3, we prefer the effortless action of the dual-clutch seven-speed
transmission and its shift paddles, yet we had a brilliant time slicing
and dicing the empty two-lanes all over this part of Spain, with our
right arm getting a workout and the gears engaging like buttah.
Weight transfer while slaloming between rock outcroppings is really
quick and crisp, as the adjustable coil-over dampers are very nicely
calibrated to the BT92, which weighs 330 pounds less at the curb
compared to the conventional M3.
These wild two-piece, forged 19-inch wheels (one-piece versions are
promised soon) with their nonfunctional dabs of carbon-fiber veneer are
a little over the top, but the added feel they deliver to the steering
wheel cannot be denied. The 10-inch-wide front rims wear 265/35R19
tires and the 12-inch rear rims carry 315/30R19 rubber, both of the
Dunlop Sport Maxx GT persuasion. Brabham Racing also creates its own
high-performance brake sets, and the BT92's floating calipers stop
things better than the standard Bimmer items.
It's not a full interior job in the BT92, but we did feel the
pleasures of the reupholstered blue seats and thick-rim steering wheel.
The high-bolstered sport seats are naturally very supportive, and that
always helps things during the wilder moments of rural road racing.
What's the Point, Really?
Much in keeping with the hard-bitten perfectionism of those two racing
characters from Australia, Sir Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac (the "B"
and "T" in all the BT designations), Michael Trick and his band of
Nürburgring merrymakers have a lot personally invested in this deal.
"We could have easily just dropped a V10 BMW engine into the front of
this like everyone else does," says Trick, "but our point is to create
truly deep and expert engineering statements."
Again in keeping with some of the old Brabham mojo, Trick tells us
that the real inspiration for the entire project came, he says, from
"falling in love with the BT52 F1 car in 1983 when I was younger and
being really moved by the sound of the BMW turbocharged engines in the
Gordon Murray chassis back when Bernie Ecclestone owned the team."
This is a valid point made with some honesty, and it's crucial to
the BT92's future. In fact, Brabham Racing intends to break the lap
record at the Nürburgring Nordschleife for modified production cars,
set at 7:20 by a 2009 Dodge Viper ACR
last summer. It will be done with the Clubsport version of the 2010
Brabham Racing BT92, which has been the real goal of the little
company's whole M3 project. In fact, Michael Trick wants to take
Brabham Racing into real motorsport with a team of BMWs in the World
Touring Car championship and even one day (why not dream big), a team
of BMWs for the DTM in a collaboration between Brabham Racing, Alpina
and Schnitzer.
A Brabham car in racing again? That sounds good.
The manufacturer provided Edmunds this vehicle for the purposes of evaluation.
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drives/FirstDrives/articleId=144406#6 - more pics of the Brabham M3 from edmunds.com
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