Place your bet on how much the first ever BMW M car will sell: Jalopnik

At most auctions you may not be able to predict the exact price a car will sell for, but you can at least get a pretty good idea. Since we now have the Internet, finding recent auction values ​​is just a matter of looking them up, and you can do this in moments wherever you can find a data connection. At least if you’re talking about something normal, like a BMW Z3 M Coupé or a first-generation Audi TT. This BMW 3.0 CSL Werks development car from 1972 sold by Dylan James is not a normal car though, so good luck guessing how much it will ultimately fetch.

That’s because this car, chassis E9/R1, is a development car that BMW used to develop the 3.0 CSL racing car that became famous in 1973. And while BMW’s racing program used 21 different Werks cars, this particular example was the first, making it perhaps the first BMW M car ever built. Without this, we might never have gotten the E30 M3 or really any of your favorite M cars, whether we’re talking about the E39 M5 or the G09 XM. Okay, so maybe most enthusiasts would prefer if the XM had never existed, but would it really be worth it if you also had to give up the F87 M2?

But before you even get to the road you can buy cars that you couldn’t buy, but let’s also not forget that there was an entire racing program that didn’t exist before this car was built. According to the ad, this car was “extensively tested by Hans Stuck and Harald Menzel at Paul Ricard and Hockenheim in the winter of ’72, prior to the start of the new ETCC and DRM championships.” It was also taken as a reserve/test car to the European Touring Car Championship race in Monza and later driven by Stuck and Menzel in the DRM Championship.

The CSL ran the start of the 1973 season without any aerodynamic aids. The original FIA regulations stated that BMW had to produce 1000 road-going CSL models in order to homologate the use of the CSL in competition with the homologation of their ‘Batmobile’ modifications approved on 1 July.^st and consisted of high downforce front and rear spoilers, fins on the body and a new 3.5 liter engine

On 30^e June at the DRM Mainz-Finthen race E9/R1 qualified without the Batmobile Kit and at midnight the FIA ​​homologated its use and the factory engineers immediately took the Werks cars to the local BMW dealer and worked through the night to upgrade both the Batmobile body and the 3.5L engines, making the car perform so well that one of the mechanics drove it back onto the circuit just before the race was due to start!

At the end of the ’73 season, BMW sold chassis E9/R1 to Hurtig Team Libra for use in the 1974 IMSA Championship, and the auction even includes the original bill of sale for 99,000 Deutsche Marks, which works out to about $31,000 in 1973 dollars or $227,286 today. But what will it be sold for when it eventually goes to auction? I’m no expert, but something tells me the very first M car will probably cost well over a quarter of a million dollars. But other than that I have no idea.

What about you though? Place your bets on the final price in the comments below, and let’s see who comes closest. There’s no real prize for winning, but you do have a nice story to share, and isn’t that what’s really important here?