Advertised in RaceCarsDirect.com, the car was purchased for £4,500 in Fort William, Scotland in July 2020 as a part finished race car originally destined for the BMW 330 Challenge series. This series was cancelled in Scotland however and the car subsequently was never raced. This was the 3rd build for the original owner having formerly built 2 BMW Compact Cup cars and he was an engineer so a good sign. Based on a 2002 BMW 330Ci Sport with just over 100,000 miles, it had all the main safety items fitted including a cage, extinguisher system, and race seat, but it lacked suspension, rain light, decent tyres, and bonnet catches to make it race ready.
Big ticket receipts included £1965 for roll cage, Ram Air kit and Klarius race exhaust. The professional install of the cage and rebuild of the Quaife ATB differential alone cost £2250! Tegiwa splitter and rear wing were £400, New differential was £966, TTV clutch £720, Lexan windows £332. These alone well exceeded what I was paying for he car! I was effectively getting it for free. It was a ‘no brainer’ decision since the car was rust free and straight and even had an MOT lasting about 8 months.
The deal was done and the car was driven 470 miles home, mostly in the wet, which in an unfamiliar car without ABS or traction control (both deactivated) was pretty terrifying! It showed how much work would be needed to turn it into a bona fide club racer.
Here she is as we got her home:
Here’s the original advert link or in case it gets removed here is the file as a PDF
When I got home I counted up the receipts that came with the car and it came to £9837.69 not including the original purchase price which I suspect was at least £2000!
Buying a race car in any guise, be it part built or finished, will always represent much better value than buying a road car and converting it from scratch.