Somewhere around 200 years B.C, Archimedes is quoted as saying, Give me a lever long enough
and I can move the world. It was a bold proclamation, but he was right with the right tool, with a big enough hammer or a sharp enough blade. Humans can be capable of anything. It's these tools that we create that separate us from mere animals. And that connection between man and his machines is the story of how we overcame every limitation imposed upon us. In 1986, that connection was made absolute in an era of turbo powered monstrosities tearing up gravel roads,
Japanese technology dominating on a global scale. A few engineers in Germany had something to prove with finesse and balance. They could combine man with machine in such a way as to be unstoppable. They created something groundbreaking, engineered to be perfectly balanced and capable of anything from tight corners of city streets
to the long banked curves of the green hell. It was unbeatable. What was created was quite possibly
the greatest driver's car ever built, and it was called M three. Emblazoned across the hood of the finest
German cars is a small round emblem, a circle filled with blue and white, evoking the image of a white propeller
spinning against a blue sky. There's a reason for that. In the 1920s, BMW made airplane engines the kind of airplane engines
that were the envy of the world. Yep. Get ready. I'm talking about planes again. Among the ranks of engineers at BMW
was a man named Willy Messerschmidt. In his spare time,
Wyllie designed a record setting gliders. He wanted to do so much more, though. He wanted to conquer the skies. So in the 1920s, he told BMW to get bent
and started his own airplane company. Luckily, well, maybe not luckily for everyone... at the time. some a-hole had taken power in Germany
and wanted to conquer the world and that Jerks military
held a design competition for new aircraft that would help lead Germany to victory. Young Willy saw his chance to forge a path
and carve a name for himself. The problem was this competition
they had entered had a lot of rules. Rules? Rules are often seen as the enemy. And after reading a lot of your comments,
I can tell a lot of you really hate rules from the group A restrictions placed on the R 32 GT-R To Le Mans basically outlawing
the 787B after its win in 91. Rules on the surface appear to hold us back. But you see where we find constraints, we usually find innovation. And so with the rules laid out,
the task at hand was set design a single seat highly maneuverable mail
delivery aircraft that can be sold to the public, but really was meant to carry a bunch of guns
and soar over London. through many sleepless nights
and a bit of schnapps. Willie did it. He penned the design of the B.F. 109. It was revolutionary in its simplicity,
and it was as fast as it was nimble. It went into production at record pace,
and its first battles took place over Spain. A mere two weeks after the Olympics. Then Italy. Poland. Normandy. Leningrad. Egypt. The beef, one or nines V 12, were still
grumbling overhead as the war came to an end. And in its wake,
it had claimed more lives than any other aircraft. 15 of the top aces of World War Two piloted 109s, most of them scoring over 200 victories. Eric Hartmann, Top Ace of the War and 109 trainer shot down 352 planes alone. The best US pilot managed to down just 40. In total, 20,000 aircraft were shot down by the weapons
mounted to the BF109, making it an order of magnitude
more deadly than even its closest rival. And it got there
not with firepower, but with finesse. The 109 didn't have the most guns. It didn't have the biggest guns,
and it was far from the most heavily armored. Due to the stringent rules set by the Luftwaffe
at the start, the BF109 on paper should have been surpassed by its contemporaries,
the Spitfire and the later P-51 Mustang. But it wasn't
because its power did not lie in its cannons, its engine or its frame,
but the combined balance of all of its parts in the hands of a pilot who was making split
decisions, choices between life and death. You wanted a machine capable of reacting quickly. A tool that practically reads your mind. Now you already know if you've watched
this channel. War has a habit of pushing innovation. By the 1980s, wars
were not fought with guns and bombs. The battles were waged on tarmac. The shots fired from exhaust pipes. And yet the thirst for blood was all the same. The automotive landscape of the 1980s was wrought with disaster. Fuel had become scarce thanks to The oil crisis of the seventies. Big gas guzzling German autobahn burners
were becoming harder to sell. That meant that racing cars being derived
from the road doing counterparts were slowly getting smaller and lighter,
with more fuel efficient powerplants. In Germany, The King of the small touring car was Mercedes, whose 190E was not only one of the best
selling German cars. It was making waves in the racing world and this was much to Mercedes chagrin. You see, the Stuttgart luxury
giant had actually canceled the racing program after Audi handed them their assets,
which is a story for another time. But you see, Mercedes-Benz's
own engineers went rogue. They still wanted to race,
so they teamed up with AMG and started building race ready
versions of the 190E anyway. These renegade wrench turners
set their sights on an upcoming series, The Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft Or DTM, a series started in 1984
to help promote Germany's finest cars and to prove to the world
that they were more than stuffy beer snobs and pretzel eaters
coinciding with the start of DTM. The infamous Nurburgring had just reopened
after extensive renovations. To celebrate both the new racing series
and the opening of the Ring, the Race of Champions was held at the Green Hell,
a race consisting of only Mercedes 190 E's being driven by the who's
who's of champion drivers. When the smoke cleared, none
other than Ayrton Senna, who we've mentioned a few times before, stood
atop the podium. So there in the 1980s was the world
celebrating the 190 praising Mercedes
Benz, Ayrton Senna, green hell, DTM It was all making BMW mad as hell
and they weren't going to take it anymore. Unfortunately, BMW was stuck in the past. They were still stuck in the seventies,
still racing big heavy cars
and kind of not doing a very good job of it. Sure. With the help of Bob Lutz, yeah. That Bob Lutz. BMW had created its new M Division, an optimistic endeavor
to lead all of BMWs motor sports operations. Their focus was DTM. It was the racing series in Europe
in the early 1980s. DTM adhered to the strict rules of FIA’s
Group A the boring tomb of numbers and charts dictating
what a race car should be. But love them or hate them, rules make racing. And DTM was no exception. Rule number one was arguably the most important homologation. In DTM, Each entry had to be based on a production car
and unlike other homologated racing series,
they really meant it. Most racing series require
something like 500 road cars for homologation, meaning manufacturers can make one off cars
that were hand-built at low numbers. You know, race cars, but DTM and Group
A really wanted to push manufacturers
to use their real cars in a race. So they pumped that number up to 5000 examples
a year. What that meant was that most companies
competing in DTM had to take an actual car from their lineup
and make a race car out of it. So BMW at the start of DTM
would compete with their 635 CSI. They slapped some sticky rubbers on it
and actually won their first DTM championship. When Volker Strycek managed
to stay ahead of the rover Vitesse. The next year, though, the six series was proving to be too heavy to compete
with the new lightweight group B inspired cars. It took third behind Volvo and Rover
and would never be able to climb to the top again. What's worse, by 1986, Mercedes had decided
to put their full weight behind the 190E. No longer was it a skunkworks
project fielded by a team of ragtag engineers. Stuttgart had entered the fight. In 1986 They stole second place from BMW,
but Ford took home the title. The Battle for Black, Red
and Yellow was dominated by a blue oval. You can imagine how that felt to a nation of pride
filled engineers. The writing was on the wall. The future of motorsport
meant small, lightweight and efficient designs. BMW race cars would need to hit
the gym, shed weight and get smart, because if they didn't,
the future was to be led by the 190E and Mercedes. And that didn't sit
very well with Eberhard von Kuenheim CEO of BMW, and a man whose name
I surely just butchered. Thanks to him, BMWs name would no longer
be dragged through the mud. The blue and white roundel would shine in the sun once again. Eberhard had a burning passion, a fire that could not be quelled. He wanted BMW on top. No second string to Mercedes, Audi
or anyone else who dared make luxury cars. When Eberhard became CEO,
BMW was an unfocused mess. It was the seventies
and they were still recovering from World War Two. They made the odd motorcycle,
some passable cars, and faced the threat of bankruptcy a few times. Eberhard grabbed the company by the reins
and pulled it in a new direction. And with the help of the new race
fueled M Division and Bob Lutz, he started pushing the company
in a brand new direction. Ultimate Driving machines, automobiles
that would inspire passion in their owners. No longer just mere appliances
to get you from A to B, and to be discarded When a new model came out. to prove to the public
that these were the works of driving passion they claim them to be. BMW was going to need to win races. So to fulfill Eberhard’s dream, he directed
the Motor Sports Division to commit to one task. Win. Build BMW’s fastest touring car. Unleash the full efforts
of their motorsports division on DTM and put Ford, the 190E
and anyone who dared defy them in their place. There was just one problem
a homologated Race car needs to be homologated unlike the blind eyes turned towards group
B, BMW couldn't exactly build a winning race car
without also having a worthy road car. And the best they had on offer at
the time was a timid little grocery getter. But it had potential. The 3-Series. a car that is to BMW what the civic is to Honda, the sales leader, the bread and butter. In the 1980s, BMWs 3-series had no hopes
of competing with the 190 E in racing form. It suffered an anemic engine,
one that BMW had been using since the damn sixties
and barely made 100 horsepower. And the body itself was far too small and narrow
for fat racing tires. The three series would need a complete rework
to be able to take on the Fords and Benzes on the German tarmac. The rules were simple, though. Whatever you brought to compete in DTM,
you had to make a hell of a lot of them. It was the hand they were dealt. The higher ups at BMW thought, Well, fine. If the rule is we have to use a production car,
then duck making the three series competitive we’ll just make a race car
and sell it to the public. Somewhere, a stuffy German accountant woke up in his bed,
sweat dripping down his face. Visions of bankruptcy and layoffs in his head. Furiously, the number crunchers swarmed Eberhard
office to demand this undertaking be stopped. BMW would lose money, endless sums if they tried to sell fast cars to regular
customers. Eberhard
politely listened, nodded his head, stood up, shook their hands
and ignored everything they told him. You see, his vision was singular. They were going to win at all costs. And so the M division
would continue on their important task. This would be the defining moment for BMW, a day
when they would stand up, pump up their chest and punch Mercedes right in the face. And so it was that the M division would be tasked with saving BMW
on the world stage. With marching orders in hand. They set about with focused minds on one important
task. Roll a three series into a well-lit garage,
take everything off of it, strip it down to the chassis and rebuild it
from the ground up with a singular purpose. Win, win, everything. Their first step was figuring out
what to power the damn thing with. Like I said before, the three series
engine wasn't going to cut it and the E30 presented
a pretty significant problem. It was small. Its short hood couldn't hold some massive power plant in it,
so they were going to need to be clever. Luckily, BMW had been making masterworks
of internal combustion for some time and that was in large
thanks to a man named Paul Roche. Sound familiar? All of my stories have repeating characters. Paul, who later designed the McLaren F1 engine,
was on tap to breathe life into the M3. Paul was a BMW thoroughbred and possibly
the greatest engine designer that ever lived. Prior to the e30, he'd had his hands on the race
engine made for the middling supercar, the M1. Paul's M 88/1 that had run the M1 through its
paces in Group five was a proven winner and in the mid-eighties BMW was primed to replace it
with the S38, the petrol burning rocketship that would power the M5 and M6, but
the S38 was far too big for the diminutive M3, and the focus for the M3 was lightweight over
sheer grunt. So Roche decided to start with the BMW
M ten a straight four cylinder BMW had been using
since the fifties. It was rock solid, reliable and light. Its teeth were cut in Formula One, where it served as the base of the most powerful
F1 engine of all time. The 1500 horsepower M12. For his finishing touches,
Paul took the head from his legendary M88 engine and literally sliced off
two cylinder banks, welded on a steel plate to cover the hole
and slapped it on top of the M10. Like the M88 before it,
the new engine would also get individual throttle bodies and beefed up internals
to withstand the thrashing of high level racing. The result was a lightweight,
durable beast of an engine. The S 14 so named because it took Paul Roche only 14 days to design it. While it was small
and it wasn't exuberant in its horsepower figures, its bark was as loud as its bite and the S14 bit hard as hell. Translating the S14 notes to the driveshaft
was a Getrag five speed with a dogleg layout. Dogleg means that instead of pulling down from
first in the second you'd push up to second and pull down into third. A design that's inconvenient in a road car,
but on a racetrack where you're shifting from second to third more often,
especially when screaming out of an apex, a dogleg shaves tenths of a second and fractions of a second in DTM were the difference
between the podium and the pit. No stone left unturned. The suspension, brakes and exhausts
were all similarly put on the operating table. The focus was weight savings and durability. The M3 had to perform on a track
and only see rubber and fuel in a pit stop. It got wider. It got lighter. It even got an extra stud per wheel
so that it could handle high GS and cornering better on the exterior. The E30 M3 shared very little with the skeleton. It was built around. The three series only donated a hood,
a roof panel, sunroof and inner door panels. Everything else was bespoke to the M3. Every detail nudged and sculpted
in the name of weight savings or aerodynamics. Gone were steel bumpers replaced with lightweight plastics, the windshield tilted for aerodynamics. The c-pillar flattened and widened
to persuade turbulent air to a new rear spoiler. Wider arches enveloped thicker wheels and tires. What remained may have at first glance
been a slightly modified three series. But what stood before you at a racetrack
or showroom floor was an entirely new car. The M3, a fully prepped racing car that just happened to be road legal. And in 1987 you wanted one BMW’s pace to get the M3 on the racetrack was neck breaking in just over a year
since they gave the M3 project a green light. The first examples started
rolling off the line in March of 1986. BMW accountants, though,
were still losing sleep at night, so out of fear they only released a few into
the wild used as bait to lure people into dealerships where BMW would try to sell them
more reasonable cars like the five series. Their plan sort of worked. They got them into the dealership,
but they were there to buy an M3 because when they got their eyes on one in the wild, when they saw what it did
to the competition on grueling corners of Bavarian racetracks,
it was different from any BMW they'd seen before. Hell, it was unlike anything else on the road. The E30 M3 wasn't a road
going version of a race car. It was the race car. And you could buy it and you could drive it. Shift that dogleg transmission. Hear the S14 screams straight off the showroom floor. The E30 M3 wasn't just some inconvenient
sportscar, its DNA was still a BMW three series economic
a comfortable versatile. You could take your wife and kids
to dinner on Saturday and then take your M3 to the track on Sunday and you would win the E30 M3 was a blitzkrieg of engineering, durability and agility. BMW initially was afraid no one would buy them very quickly, though,
they started to fear they couldn't make enough of them
to meet homologation requirements. They needed 5000 examples. They sold 10,000 before the boys of the M factory
said nein! no more. We cannot meet demand. The M3 would go on to sell for years, evolving and defining the legacy of the BMW
name for generations. It would catapult the BMW m name
into the halls of automotive history. It was nearly an accident. They were trying to make a sales leader,
but they did anyway. BMW had given the public
something they didn't even know they wanted. Purring underneath that emblem of blue
and white was a road car with racing blood, a killing machine full of fire
and fury that anyone could tame. And like willy measurements be if 109. When you put the right hands
on the controls of a balanced blade, the weapon becomes unstoppable and its thirst for victory. Countless lives were snuffed out
at the hands of the BF. 109. Were you to see one in the sky... You only had one hope to survive the encounter. You were on the same team. No different. Was the air around European racetracks in 1987. You may have pulled up to that starting line
in your Alfa Romeo with 20 more horsepower or been looking at the e30 M3 in your Ford
Cosworth rearview mirror. Confident that your 60 additional horses
could keep it there. But you were wrong. You were dead wrong. The humble, underpowered, unassuming BMW m3 would claw its way up
your spine, grip you with its sharpened
teeth and spit you out on its way to the podium. Its wrath indiscriminate behind the wheel. It really didn't matter who held the controls. The lightweight, naturally aspirated BMW sports
car was so easy to drive, so reliable and consistent that it would eventually be
at the front of the pack. On paper, the E30 m3
should have been an also ran in history, but on the black hot tarmac of racetracks
across Europe, history would write the name M3 at the top. It wasn't the most powerful, but it could be driven harder and driven longer. It struck a balance few have ever achieved. Drivers of M3 had more confidence
to push harder to brake later closer to the apex and accelerate harder out to be on the track side by side with an M3. It would feel as though
you were in an entirely different class. The first year that the M3 went, racing manufacturers around
the world were slapped in the face and M3 took home the trophy in the Australian Touring Car Championship,
the European Touring Car Championship, the World touring Car championship
and most importantly on their home turf. BMW shoved, Mercedes-Benz face in the sand
and took its lunch money. They were atop the podium. Shiny in the limelight was Eric van de Poele, the new champion of DTM at the height of its winning streak. A BMW M3 was winning one race every single day and would go on to win 1436
first place finishes over its run. Three years, nearly 1500 races
where everyone learned to respect it, making it the most successful touring
car to ever touch a rubber to road. Years later, Japan would unleash a beast as notorious
and as dominant as the E30 M3, But the R 32 GT-R would never have
as many victories notched its belt. The M3'S reign in the eighties
was unlike anything before it. And unlike anything we are likely to see again. But that's not exactly why we love it so much. We love it because it kind of changed everything. The E30 m3 racing
history is absolute, and yet today, in talks of the plucky little sports
car, it rarely comes to mind. Yes, the e30 M3 was built to race, its teeth sharpened by drivers
and engineers to take down the competition to earn trophies
to appease the corporate overlords. And certainly it was excellent at that. But it isn't why they're so important
and so valuable. It isn't why the E30 M3 is considered to be by many to be BMW s greatest achievement. Its legend is in every car. It helped create. Everything you know and love today is in large part
thanks to BMW commitment to the M3. It was a race car for the road
unlike any that had been made before. It was one without compromises. No longer would you have to buy a terrible road
car that raced. Or a race car
that was miserable to drive in traffic. The E30 M3 was the perfect blend between fire and ice, comfort and vengeance. It was truly the ultimate driving machine and it changed the enthusiast world forever. It paved the way for every boy racer's dream. The Civic Type r The Lancer Evolution WRX STI all could be confident that they would find their audience
as the BMW M3 did. Manufacturers now knew that the public
wanted to see a race car at the track and drive one home from the dealership. I mean, just look at the legacy it created. Every BMW M car is a monument. Each generation of M3 is unique, fast
and fantastic, all born from that initial idea to make a race car for the road. The BMW M3 changed a middling German car brand from a stuffy luxury car maker to where you go when your blood burns with 91 octane when you need the world's finest cars that hold no punches and leave no witnesses. This was that lever of Archimedes, the balanced, delicate weapon, unassuming and sheathed in plastic that Germany would slash across motoring history, leaving the crushed dreams of its enemies
in its wake and changing history forever. This was the lever that a team of Mad Men
in the 1980s made so powerful that they were able to move the entire world.
I watched this a few days ago and it was great. Really well produced. I told my husband to pay attention so that he understands why I love my E30 so much.
This guy makes great videos overall, I recommend them all tbh