BMW Motorsport rolled out the M6 GT3 at M Night, a Friday night gathering for fans at the Nürburgring on the eve of the 24-hour race. The race car had been shown to BMW Motorsport customers two nights earlier, when they received detailed briefings on the car from engineers and drivers.
After Jörg Müller drove the car onto the stage on Friday night BMW Motorsport Director Jens Marquardt and Frank van Meel, chairman of the board of management of BMW M GMBH talked about the race car and its relationship to the street M6 line.
M’s van Meel, who focused on the parallels between BMW M and BMW Motorsport, told the group that in a new competition package in the M6 coupé, convertible, and gran coupé the engines “will produce 600 hp at 700 Nm in the future. This makes 0 to 100 km/h possible in just 3.9 seconds for the Coupé and Gran Coupé, and 4.0 seconds for the Convertible.”
The 4.4-liter turbo V8 in the race car generates over 500 horsepower. BMW’s release on the Friday night event says “The BMW M6 GT3 weighs less than 1,300 kilograms. The transaxle drive concept, six-speed sequential racing transmission and chassis, which was optimized in the BMW wind tunnel, ensure that BMW Motorsport will compete with a genuine racer in 2016. The reliability, efficiency and ease of maintenance of the BMW M6 GT3 have also been optimized for its outings at endurance races. The longer wheelbase significantly improves the car’s handling compared to the current BMW Z4 GT3.”
Marquardt told Sportscar365.com that “Whenever we tried improving the performance of the powertrain on the Z4, it was always packaging issues.”
Speaking of the M6 GT3, he said “We’re in position where we can package everything properly, with really safe measures, such as seat installation, roof access, the crash area in the front of the car.
“From an engineering point of view, it’s a better platform and much easier to get a very good solution without having to do loops and loops, which at the end of the day made things expensive.”
The entire sportscar365.com story can be seen here.
Meanwhile the Z4 GT3 will compete in the Nürburgring 24 hour race this weekend; Augusto Farfus has placed a Marc VDS Z4 on the pole.—Brian S. Morgan
