When Passion Turns to Project

The BMW E30 M3 has been the car of storied drives and certainly one that even at its onset in the first generation was considered to be one of the best cars to ever make it on the road.  What happens when you meet up with an old British General who is hell bent on bringing back the E30 as a car that can be driven for fun once again?  You certainly gain the passion of a man on a mission and with this military background the results should really be legendary considering a military person’s mindset to see the mission through to the end.

The British General in question is one Simon Lord who actually intended to begin this project in 2004 when the sight of an E30 M3 caused him to cancel his order for a brand new E46 M3.  Unfortunately his orders came in sending him to Asia for ten years and he eventually sold the E30 M3 he had spotted on that fateful day, but he never forgot what he had purchased and decided to begin the process of modernizing the E30 M3 so that a new generation would have the ability to enjoy a car that was the perfect driving machine.

As luck would have it, Lord had the connections he needed in the Army with a mentor of an organization for veterans who were in pursuit of entrepreneurial activities was a former marketing director for BMW during the E30 run.  Another that joined the team was an ex-BMW CEO, a former F1 team owner, a British Touring Car Champion who had driven for BMW during the E30 days.  With this team assembled Lord went to work to see what he could make of the E30 M3 and how he could improve the car for modern times.

In order to do this others joined the team including Clive Hartley who was an automotive designer with a very long resume, along with Toby Mellor and Bujar Muharremi who both had been designers.  Add in Johnathan Gould who had designed the last Rolls Royce built at the Crewe facility and you have a serious team of automotive experts to help make this dream a reality.

The new E30 M3, or newly designed with a modern addition of technology is being marked as the Redux Leichtbau and the details are not being released as of yet.  Even so, some of the information has been revealed to let us know what Lord is planning.  This includes the new 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine that has been bored out form the original in order to give the car more power, up to 300 horsepower is the plan at the moment, but it might go even farther than that.  This engine will include a custom turbo set up in order to be in line with today’s turbocharged world.

The chassis for the redux car will bring in custom front and rear anti-roll bars to give the car a more stable platform.  The brakes will be upgraded to AP Racing brakes with six pistons in the front and four in the rear.  The steering system will also be upgraded to give a much faster response and put it on par with current Group A Touring Car racers.

Every car that is brought in for this redux build will be completely redone stripped down and rebuilt.  Overall the goal is to build E30 M3 cars that are able to be race car inspired but made to run out on the streets of the world.  The cost for one of these is going to be nearly as much as a new Ferrari, so it’s no cheap venture, but it can certainly be worth it if you love the E30 M3.

Right now only nine of these are planned to be completed but more could be done if the demand comes to the table.  What this amazing British General has done is create a desire for a throwback car that has been redone to modern specs, something we see from large companies on a regular basis.  All of this born from the vision of a man who enjoys the perfect driving machine, the first generation BMW E30 M3.