The Real Deal

A few months ago our roving reporter Robb Pritchard found a Group 2 Schnitzer 3.0 CSi in Ecuador that had been made into a gorgeous Group 5 replica. As special as it was though it wasn’t quite the real deal. This is 

- Robb Pritchard

This is one of the four works 3.5 CSLs driven in the 1976 World Championship for Makes – it won both of the 1000km races and was the highest scoring BMW. Only four of these cars were ever made, three still exist, two run and only one is a matching numbers car. This one. It’s currently for sale and although most of us couldn’t afford it we can at least chronicle its life story.

1976 saw big changes for the touring car based series as the fourth Generation Group 5 regulations allowed manufacturers a much freer rein to develop high-powered beasts with so many added aero parts that they bore only a passing resemblance to the road cars they were based on. This is why they were given the name silhouettes. Only the bonnets, roofs and doors had to be the same as the road cars which is why the body kits were so boxy… and why the CSL became known as the Batmobile.

BMW committed to the series late though, only deciding in December the previous year to compete with the CSL which had finished its production in the summer of 1975. It wasn’t until February that four cars were ready to run which left precious little time for testing and development. One car was to be run by the Alpina-Faltz team, another by a British team called Hermetite and the third in green Gösser Beer livery, was run by Schnitzer. (The last car was retained by the factory being developed to run with twin turbos and was due to be released, or unleashed, later in the year).