Munich, Germany - BMW's latest customer racing car is going to rev up the GT4 production based sports-car class when it goes into action at the start of the 2018 season.
The successor to the current M3 GT4 will be joining a growing class of privateer racing, that's close enough to standard to be (relatively) affordable, yet sufficiently track-focused to provide seriously exciting racing.
And it'll be ready to race, out of the box; BMW's Motorsport skunk works is planning to complete shake-down testing on its new customer racer by the end of this year so that they - and the first few customer teams - have a whole year to develop it before it makes its racing debut at the 24 Hours of Dubai in January 2018.
The engine, gearbox, final drive and electronics have been lifted straight out of the M4 Coupé, and the carbon-fibre bonnet comes from the limited-edition M4 GTS. The brakes, as well as the racing seat and adjustable pedal box, have been sourced from the M6 GT3 parts bin - but the racing exhaust system, the special front splitter and the rear wing are unique to this car.
It'll be eligible for GT4 racing series throughout Europe, North America and in Asia. While it has no plans to field a factory team in the class (that really wouldn't be fair!) BMW Motorsport plans to retain a few cars that it will use to bring talented young drivers into GT racing and prepare them for the flagship GT3 class.
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