The Z4 GT3 was one of the coolest, if not exactly within the spirit of the rules, ways to go racing a decade ago. BMW’s aging M3 proved highly uncompetitive in the GT3 class by 2012, and the new-shape Z4 didn’t have enough motor to compete either, so the company combined the two, shoving the M3’s V8 into the little roadster body. The best of both worlds, a Teutonic Shelby Cobra Coupe in a way. BMW has rarely built so cool a race car, and certainly Turner’s is the best livery of them all, so this is the one to have, even if it never won a thing.
Turner Motorsport, as with all things BMW, took to the new car like a duck to water, and immediately began racing them here in the U.S., first in IMSA (at the time Tudor United SportsCar Championship), then in the hotly-contested Pirelli World Challenge. In 2014 the team entered a single car in a single round of PWC for the man who would become a champion, young Dane Cameron, though it did not fare well, finishing 18th. The 2015 season went a little better, but while Cadillac, Ferrari, Porsche, Nissan, McLaren, and Acura were fighting at the front, Turner’s pair of Am-class drivers Bret Curtis and Bill Ziegler were fighting for their lives to get finishing positions in the high teens and low 20s. Only once in the season did Curtis find himself finishing 10th, and ultimately finished 22nd on season points.
Meanwhile, over in IMSA, with the same spec of car, Dane Cameron led the team to four victories and two podiums to take the 2014 season GTD title. The car fared far worse in 2015 in IMSA, though it still managed to win the Lime Rock Park round, and found a second podium in Austin. It was still a winning car in the hands of the IMSA driving team, though fewer and farther between.
If you want this bizarre footnote in BMW’s motorsport history, you can bid on it during RM Sotheby’s upcoming Dare to Dream Collection online auction, kicking off on May 31 and running until June 1. The car’s pre-auction estimate puts it somewhere between 140,000 and 180,000 American dollarydoos. That seems like a fairly reasonable number of dollarydoos to pay for a 12-year-old GT3 machine that didn’t win anything, right? At least you can still use it to be the absolute boss at BMWCCA track days. Which, in my opinion, is the best way to use this car. Go rip it up, chief.