BMW e30 M3 DTM replica

Car: 1988 BMW M3 DTM Replica

Class: Weathertech International Vintage Challenge as well as BMW CCR and SVRA

Cage: The cage in this car was inspired by the 1992 Schnitzer DTM M3 BMW motorsport car. Due to the fact that is started life as a non-motorsports car, there are some slight differences. It is tied into the rear subframe mounting like the Schnitzer car, but at only 2 points vs 6 (this car does not have the modified subframe to allow for the additional 4 points). The rear down bars are also a little bit of a different configuration due to modern roll cage design. Its constructed from 1.5" x .095 DOM and fully tig welded.

Other Goodies: Although this car started life as a non-motorsports car, it has earned quite the pedigree on the track. The owner bought the car in high school, but by the late 90's, the car was seeing regular track use. The replica livery was done and the car was invited to the One Lap of America event in 1999. Through the early 2000's it was regularly seen at SVRA events as well as BMW CCR events. In 2018, it took 2nd in the Weathertech International Concours D'elegance show. The best part is this car gets driven hard, by a driver with many many hours of seat time in it. It has the original motor that has been built to the era correct 2.5 litres, and a full DTM exhaust and Carbon intake. Everything down to the correct coolant overflow has been sourced from actual DTM part out cars. It may be a replica, but this is one that has earned its stripes.

(NOTE: All Pictures Below can be Clicked to Expand. Press ESC to close.)

Part 1:

Before even getting started on the cage, we found there was a previous repair done years ago that had not been done correctly, to say the lease. After digging out a combination of rust, fiberglass and body filler, there was a "slight" hole right where the anti-intrusion bar needed to anchor to.

Part 2:

Original tin for this car is extremely expensive so a new floor board, inner rocker, and wheel tub portion were all fabricated, seam sealed and under coated.

Part 3:

Once all the tin repair was done, the provisions for mounting go in. DTM was one of many classes that struggled to deal with the weak unibody chassis from the 80s. One of the best ways to counter this was to tie the rear subframe mounting points into the cage. Also pictured is our CNC cut strut tower box. We use this style box to tie our down bars and rear strut tower bar into the upper strut mounts on many different style chassis.

Part 4:

It's very rare that we do an old school X door bar vs something coming out into the doorway, but it seems fitting on this car. Take a step back and its quite the jungle gym in this little car!

Part 5:

Here at PMF, one of the things that makes our cages stand apart from others is how tight they fit to the car. There is nothing worse than having a cage bar create a blind spot or worse, obstruct your head space. Depending on class rules, a lot of our cages are actually welded to the overhead unibody structure in multiple places.

Part 6:

We'll let the pictures do the talking from here, but if you would like to catch this car in action, check out the SVRA races at Brainerd or Road America, or any of the Northstar BMW cca meets.

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