In January 2010, BMW tuning and racing specialists Turner Motorsport fielded its first GT racecar in the Daytona 24 Hour race. And despite a very short develop program, the BMW M6 completed the race to everybody’s delight. It proceeded to finish on the podium three times in 2010, including one win in the GT class.

Since then, Turner Motorsport has developed an appetite for the GT series. And while it continues to field a pair of very competitive BMW M3s in the Grand-Am Sport Touring class, it will also run this brand new M3 V8 in the Grand Touring class.

Like the BMW M6 in 2010, this new M3 for 2011 started life as a Riley tube-frame chassis. With six people working for two months, the build started after the last Grand-Am race in October 2010. By late December it was completed.

Incredibly, the team actually built two M3 GT racers, with a second car built for a customer at the same time.
The body is carbon/Kevlar, with many of the panels molded directly from a regular M3 street car. This means the lightweight hood, trunk, quarter panels, roof and doors will fit a street car.

Since Grand-Am regulations allow teams to extend the body up to one-inch, the front fenders and rear quarter panels are wider to accommodate racing slicks and to increase the track for stability. The bumpers were also modified to suit.

Powered by a M-Power V8 and using a sequentially-shifted racing transmission, the car is scheduled for shakedown tests January 4-5 at Roebling Road, before heading to Daytona Speedway for testing the weekend of Jan 8-9. It will then compete for the first time at the Daytona 24 Hour race on Jan 28.

Drivers for the endurance event will be BMW works team-mates Bill Auberlein and Joey Hand, as well as TMS regular Paul Dalla Lana plus a fourth driver yet to be confirmed.

This is the first time a BMW M3 has competed in the Grand-Am GT series. You can visit www.turnermotorsport.com for more details and video of this exciting car.