I’ve had the F13 BMW 640i on the brain quite a bit recently. The long, sleek shape, good performance, nice interior; it seems like a solid used European luxury bargain. I personally favor the two-door coupe more than the four-door “Gran Coupe” solely based on the fact that it better resembles its very distant sibling: the M6 GT3 race car.
The BMW M6 GT3 is on the verge of being put out to pasture by both BMW factory racing and various teams around the globe. It’s been around for a long time, and while it’s still pretty darn capable, the M8 and now new M4 have taken its place as the Bavarian brand’s entry into global GT3-or-similar racing. Most notably, what we know in the US as IMSA GTD, or, GT Daytona.
Again, the M6 is still quite up to the task, and some awesome footage I happened upon YouTube recently certainly drives this home. This was posted last year, which in the grand scheme of things is still pretty much within the tail-end of the M6’s regular appearance in pro racing.
I’ve written in the past that I’ve gotten more than my share of YouTube Nürburgring footage and not much impresses me anymore. This video however actually does!
Driven by UK pro race car driver David Pittard in what looks like a Nurburgring VLN endurance race, the sights and sounds are quite incredible.
The M6 GT3 is above is a stripped-down, caged-up version of the road-going M6. I do mean stripped down: they can be as light as 2,900 pounds depending on where they’re racing and how the rulebook reads. Its twin-turbo 4.4-liter S63 V8 cranks out as much as 585 horsepower (again, figures vary by where they’re racing), and features a dry-sump oil system for optimal lubrication during high-speed cornering. The rubber meets the road via RWD hooked up to a sequential rear transaxle for better weight distribution and optimal power transfer. Suspension is often a set of motorsports-grade three-way adjustable coilovers, settled into a complex web of fully independent suspension at all four corners.
The video is so wild. Pittard tears through the track as if its a qualifying session, making risky quick-reaction passes and at times using all the brakes to keep from flying off the track. What’s wild is he eats up so many presumably-same-class Porsche 911 GT3s; while the M6 GT3 is probably of the same power-to-weight ratio, it’s still dimensionally bigger than its tiny-prancing-horse rival. The ‘Ring is an old and narrow track, too; I’m surprised there’s enough room at times. Or rather, I’m impressed with Pittard’s courage to drop a wheel off track while squeezing past at such a clip.
As the title reveals – this amounts to 54 passes! Sure, not all are in the same class, but still, what a hell of a lap!
