Place Your Bets On How Much The First Ever BMW M Car Will Sell For

With 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 have the internet now, finding recent auction values is just a matter of looking them up, and you can do it in moments from anywhere you can find a data connection. At least if you’re talking about something normal, like a BMW Z3 M Coupe or a first-generation Audi TT. This 1972 BMW 3.0 CSL Werks development car being sold by Dylan James, however, is no normal car, so good luck guessing how much it’ll eventually go for. 

That’s because this car, chassis E9/R1, is a development car that BMW used to develop the 3.0 CSL race car that famously hit the track in 1973. And while BMW’s racing program made use of 21 different Werks cars, this particular example was the first, arguably making it the first BMW M car ever built. Without it, we may not have ever 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 had to also give up the F87 M2?

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

Sadly, chassis E9/R1 never won a championship, but it was used to develop the 3.0 CSL’s iconic Batmobile Aero Kit, which is still pretty cool. Although, as the listing tells it, getting the aero kit onto the car before its first race did come down to the wire:

The CSL ran the beginning of the 1973 season without any aerodynamic aids, the initial FIA regulations stipulated that BMW must produce 1000 road going CSL models in order to homologate use of the CSL in competition with the homologation of their ‘Batmobile’ modifications sanctioned on July 1^st and were comprised of high downforce front and rear spoilers, fins on the bodywork and new 3.5L engine

On 30^th 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 dealership and worked throughout the night to upgrade both with Batmobile bodywork and 3.5L engines, cutting it so fine that one of the mechanics drove it back the circuit on the road just before the race was due to start!

At the end of the ’73 season, BMW sold chassis E9/R1 to Hurtig Team Libra to use in the 1974 IMSA championship, and the auction even includes the original sales invoice for 99,000 Deutsche Marks, which works out to about $31,000 in 1973 dollars or $227,286 today. But what will it sell for when it finally goes to auction? I’m no expert, but something tells me the first-ever M car is probably going to go for a good bit more than a quarter million dollars. Beyond that, though, I’ve got no clue. 

What about you, though? Place your bets for the final price down in the comments below, and let’s see who ends up the closest. There’s no actual prize for winning, but you’ll have a fun story to share, and isn’t that what’s really important here?