Latest / The Car Nerd with Jason Hassett
BMW E30 M3: Mercedes Accidentally Created the BMW M3
In 1983, Mercedes built a car that BMW couldn’t answer.The 190E 2.3-16 had a Cosworth-developed cylinder head, sixteen valves, and a set of world endurance records before customers had even taken delivery.BMW’s chairman walked into Motorsport, turned to engineer Paul Rosche, and gave him one instruction: build a sporting engine for the 3-Series.Fourteen days later, the first prototype was running.What followed was not simply a faster E30. BMW cut apart an M1 cylinder head, bolted it to a four-cylinder block descended from an ordinary family saloon, redesigned almost every exterior panel on…
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