Did you know the E46 BMW M3 GTR’s V8 was designed by an ex-Porsche engineer?

“Paul Rosche thought we had a hick NASCAR team running our M3 programme.”

The words not of an observer or outsider, but BMW North America’s former head of product planning and strategy, Rich Brekus. To mark 50 years of the 3 Series, BMW USA has revealed Brekus’s fascinating motorsport experience from over 25 years ago, and it’s wild.

It concerns the development, deployment, and short-lived success of an ice-cold racer, the V8-powered E46 BMW M3 GTR, and the team that ran BMW North America’s (NA) M3 GT racing cars, Prototype Technology Group (PTG). And Porsche. And Schnitzer. But we’ll come to those later.

PTG already had a history of successfully campaigning BMW’s straight-six-engined star in the latter half of the Nineties, when it ran BMW NA’s E36 M3s and took three GT class titles between 1996-1998. Indeed, those E36s won half of all the races they entered.

Brekus however, thought BMW HQ in Munich had little time for PTG. “It was a constant refrain that BMW Motorsport [in Munich] should run it,” he added. With some support in HQ behind him, Brekus maintained his faith in PTG who continued to run BMW NA’s M3s.

Though in 1999, Porsche rolled out the 996-gen 911 and its water-cooled GT3R stablemate. Despite those now-ageing E36s taking a couple of early season wins, the 996 cleaned up and Porsche won the title.

So a better racing car was needed. And Brekus was well aware the then-new E46 M3 shared the E36’s limitations: a blocky front end and a 3.2-litre straight-six. Porsche’s six-pot was a 3.6-litre. “Restrictor racing is a displacement game,” Brekus said, “because the higher the displacement, the earlier you develop torque, and the faster you can come off a corner.”

So in 2000, when IMSA became ALMS, the E46 M3 GT got absolutely hammered by Porsche. Over in Munich, BMW Motorsport was also busy shutting down its prototype V12 LMR programme after being hammered by the Audi R8. And once again, Brekus and PTG would face internal opposition to their M3 racing programme.

Along with Gerhard Berger, Mario Theissen (pictured above) was then co-director of BMW Motorsport. “Thiessen was very much of the opinion that sales subsidiaries like BMW NA should only market motorsport, not run it,” Brekus said. “I basically said we’re not going to do it that way. We have a great race team, and I don’t like the way you guys run racing.

“You basically freeze everybody out, and you’re not very good with fans,” he added. With a little support still left inside HQ, Brekus was able to secure PTG’s M3. But it needed something with a little more bite.

Enter Reinhard Könneker, an ex-Porsche engineer who’d worked on the all-conquering 917 and other projects under the late, great Hans Mezger while at Weissach. At BMW, he worked on the F1 engine, and designed the ‘P60’ V8 that’d find its way into the nose of the E46 M3 GTR.

It was designed to allow for more torque, and its compact size versus the S54 3.2 it replaced allowed for better cooling. So designed, it punched out 493bhp at 8,000rpm, and 354lb ft at 6,500rpm. Game on.

Not only against Porsche and that 996 GT3R, but also… BMW Motorsport’s own Team Schnitzer M3 GTRs. “Thiessen had agreed to do the V8 M3,” Brekus said, “but he didn’t think PTG was capable of developing the car and that Schnitzer need to run it.” So Brekus petitioned BMW HQ to supply PTG with exactly the same V8 M3s campaigned by Schnitzer.

“They agreed, and so did Albert Biermann, who was responsible for all non-F1 racing,” Brekus said.

The 996 GT3Rs of Alex Job Racing won the first three rounds of that 2001 season while the V8 M3s were getting up to speed, but then Schnitzer won the next two rounds equipped with the new engines. PTG took the win in Portland, though Schnitzer won the next three rounds.

Did Brekus think Schnitzer were tampering with their V8 M3’s ECUs? “I don’t think so,” he said. “A lot of the difference in performance between the two cars was the tyres. Yokohama was a fantastic supporter of ours, but for sure the Michelins were better.”

The last race of the season at Road Atlanta very nearly didn’t happen, following the September 11 terrorist attacks. It went ahead in the end, but every car featured an American flag sticker to show solidarity with the USA. Being an American team, PTG decked out their whole car to look like a 493bhp rolling US flag.

PTG would eventually win the race, but Schnitzer took that year’s title, and despite the in-season rivalry, both BMW teams would congratulate one another.

But that was the end of the line for the M3 GTR. The ACO said the P60 V8 would be illegal unless BMW made 1,000 road-going examples. Despite a €250,000 M3 V8 road car announced during the season, and ten prototypes built in anticipation of a limited production run, BMW couldn’t feasibly build the full 1,000 required.

Still - and in perhaps an unsurprising revelation - PTG driver Bill Auberlen reckoned it was a gem. “The M3 GTR was the best-handling GT car ever,” he said. “The engine was so light, and so small, and the way it put power down was exactly matched to the tyre.

“You were right on the edge of adhesion all the way up the powerband, and it drove away like a rocket.”