BMW is developing the successor to the M3 GT4 race car.
Starting with the 2018 race season, the BMW M4 GT4 will replace the current M3 GT4 on race tracks worldwide as a close-to-production car based on the BMW M4 Coupe. The newly-developed GT sports car will complete its first tests at the end of this year so that customers will have a technically perfected race car available at the start of the 2018 season.
The entire drivetrain, including electronics, will be taken from the standard production M4 while the carbon fiber hood will be from the BMW M4 GTS. Helping to get it into race trim will be carbon fiber doors, a special motorsport front splitter and rear wing. It will sound the part too, thanks to a racing exhaust system.
The seats, the brakes and the pedal box will be carried over from the current BMW M6 GTS.
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The company will make the BMW M4 GT4 open to customers around the world, with Germany, Europe, North America and Asia all having hosting racing events for these types of cars. The first cars are expected to be delivered to customers in the second half of 2017, with the first possible race appearance at the 24 Hours of Dubai in January 2018.
“The GT4 category is currently experiencing a boom,” said BMW Motorsport director Jens Marquardt. “It offers affordable motorsport with cars of technical high-quality and, therefore, attracts a wide target audience. We see enormous potential around the world for privateer BMW teams for whom the BMW M4 GT4 is an option. Developing a classic customer racing car such as this and offering it to privateer teams has always been one of BMW Motorsport’s core competencies. This also was the case with the predecessor model, the BMW M3 GT4, which is still in action in international race series today. The BMW M4 Coupé provides the ideal basis for our new GT4 model. This is a strong base for our engineers to close the gap between our customer racing spearhead, the BMW M6 GT3, and the BMW M235i Racing for newcomers with a car that is extremely sporty in its production version. The BMW M4 GT4 is designed perfectly for simple use by privateer teams, who can celebrate successes around the world as ambassadors for BMW Motorsport with this model.”
