Some cars are rare. Some are special. And then there’s the BMW M3 GTR—so scarce it makes a McLaren F1 look like a fleet car. This thing is basically motorsport’s unicorn… if the unicorn also happened to be a steroid-pumped Bavarian that screams to 10,000 rpm.
In 2025, according to Thomas Plucinsky of BMW Group Classic USA, there are just three track-only GTRs left on Earth. The road-legal Strassenversion? Same story—only a handful exist, each costing €250,000 when new. At the time, that made it the most expensive BMW you could buy. That’s right: a quarter of a million euros, for what was essentially an M3 with a very bad temper and a wardrobe made entirely of carbon fiber.
Fast forward to the Petersen Automotive Museum’s 3 Series 50th anniversary bash. Seven generations of BMW’s bread-and-butter icon were lined up, from crisp classics to turbocharged tech-fests. But there, glowering in the corner, was the GTR—the only E46 to swap its silky straight-six for a 4.0-liter IndyCar-derived V8, known to fanatics as the P60B40. In 2001, this thing bulldozed the ALMS GT series, taking first and third in seven out of ten races. BMW basically turned up, shouted “Your rules are stupid,” and then won everything in sight.
Naturally, the rule-makers didn’t take kindly to being pantsed so thoroughly, and by 2002 the GTR was politely banned. BMW returned in 2003 with a smaller straight-six for the Grand-Am series, won the 2004 championship anyway, and then retired in 2006—presumably out of boredom.
But legends don’t like staying dead. In 2015, BMW resurrected the GTR in full 2001 battle dress: carbon panels, NACA duct to feed the driver something vaguely resembling fresh air, bespoke BBS wheels, and even the last hex nut ever installed on a BMW Motorsport car. The result? The ultimate “get stuffed” to Father Time.
And it almost didn’t happen. After its racing days, the GTR was stripped and scattered across storage bins like someone had accidentally hit “delete” on the car. It took BMW Group Classic USA and the original 2001 race crew a year and a half of hunting, bolting, and swearing to bring it back to life. Today, it’s the last operational M3 GTR in existence—a roaring, snarling, V8 reminder that sometimes, the good guys really do get the last laugh.
Source: BMW