Touring Car Battle: E30 Vs E90

Two touring cars, one track and 17 years between them - but just how different are they? PH finds out...

Looking at the BMW E30 touring car basking in the June sunshine I can’t help thinking it looks more like a museum piece than a fully-functioning race car. It doesn’t seem that long ago when these M3s were battling with Sierra Cosworths and Cavalier GSis, but in fact they disappeared in 1991, seventeen years ago.

The retro look is not helped by the fact that last year’s 320si World Touring Car, piloted by British driving hero Andy Priaulx, is sitting six feet away from it on the tarmac here at the Pembrey race circuit. Even though they are almost two decades apart the E30 still looks like a useful device but the question is how would it fair head-to-head against the latest BMW touring car?

To find out PistonHeads has travelled to Wales where BMW has arranged for the two cars to get a good thrashing around this 1.456 mile circuit. Before we make any predictions it’s worth remembering that the E30 has more power – approximately 320bhp compared to the E90’s quoted 280bhp – and at around 950kg it is some 250kgs lighter.

So all we need now is a driver that can squeeze every last bit of performance out of these two cars and give us a solid understanding of how they differ on the track. Enter Mr Priaulx, who has just stepped out of a rented Vauxhall Vectra.

He is the current WTCC champion and has taken the afternoon off from his unrelenting racing schedule to fly from his Guernsey home and drive two BMWs around a track. He’s in good spirits and is clearly excited about driving the M3 for the first time so after grabbing a quick cup of tea he changes into his race suit and climbs into the 320si.

You may think that after winning the championship three times in a row, and currently in the midst of another season, he would be slightly blasé about getting into that familiar drivers’ seat. But Priaulx looks enthusiastic and eager to show what the car can do, chatting with the on-site technician about the current set-up.

Priaulx sagely suggests warming the car up before any hot laps, before starting the ignition and wheel-spinning the 320si out of the paddock. As the car screams around the back of the circuit you can hear the sound of a shrieking four-pot bouncing off the trees behind it, before he changes up a gear and gives the engine a moment’s respite.

Priaulx looks like he’s driving at ten tenths as he passes the paddock again, leaving me to think that the car is well and truly warmed up. He pulls in after the second lap and it’s time for me to climb into the passenger seat. If that was his warm up lap I’m slightly apprehensive as to what the hot lap is going to be like.

Priaulx drops the clutch and the E90 fires out onto the circuit so fast that he is using an armful of opposite lock and the car is half on the grass before we reach the Esses. Brooklands Hairpin is taken far faster than I thought possible and now we are hammering along Speedway Straight into Woodlands.

Priaulx applies more opposite lock as we accelerate out of Honda Curve and now I get to experience the savage stopping power of this car’s brakes. They are truly extraordinary, hauling huge amounts of speed off the car, before Priaulx fires it out of Hatchets Hairpin.

He seems to be fighting with the car and by the time we reach the Esses again he is almost drifting it. Despite, or perhaps because of, the obvious lack of grip, Priaulx is displaying awesome driving talent. Every bend is taken fully committed, with armfuls of lock to stop the car spinning, often with the rear skimming the grass.

It really is an incredible sight and I realise what a privilege it is to be sitting beside him. We pull into the Paddock and it soon becomes clear that something is wrong. The slicks that have been provided haven’t lasted four laps, possibly not helped by the donuts that Priaulx has just done on return to the Paddock. He looks gutted that he hasn’t been able to show me the true potential of the car.

‘I reckon we’re 15 or 20 seconds off what the car could do around here – there was no grip on the back,’ he says disappointedly. Despite this set-back it is time to wheel out the E30. Priaulx tells me that he has always wanted to have a drive in an M3 touring car ever since seeing Steve Soper racing them back in the day.

‘I’m really looking forward to driving it,’ he says. ‘I grew up watching the likes of Soper and I can remember all the names. It’s an absolute honour to be able to drive the car.’

The owner has understandably asked Priaulx to go easy on the car, for the first few laps at least, but he may as well be speaking Russian. Priaulx is one of those racing drivers that doesn’t know the concept of ‘taking it easy’ and even though he has never driven the M3 before he gives it the full beans out of the paddock.

After a lap it looks like he’s been driving it all his life and he looks like he’s enjoying himself. The M3 is an amazing sight and still looks incredibly quick around Pembrey. After a few laps he comes back in. ‘It’s not as twitchy on the limit,’ he tells me, taking a sip from another tea. It feels like a historic car, but a very nicely balanced car though. It’s a totally different feel to the E90, that’s a lot twitchier – the E30 is really easy to drive.’

I climb into the passenger seat of the M3 and we go for a couple of hot laps. It doesn’t feel much slower on the straights but Priaulx is braking much earlier before the turns. The car is a lot smaller and I bang my helmeted head against the door frame a few times as Priaulx throws it into the next bend. We pull back into the paddock and he gives me his conclusions.

‘It definitely smells like a historic car, there were fumes inside,’ he says. ‘It’s got a nice balance though, a nice feeling, but you certainly carry less speed into a bend. I was trying pretty hard but I was losing time when changing gear. It’s a nice handling car but it feels less pointy than mine and the steering is much heavier.

'Mine has power steering and it makes it much easier to correct oversteer.’ He also admits that the power advantage of the M3 didn’t make it feel as quick as it should. ‘I was expecting the E30 to feel a bit more punchy but it didn’t,' he explains.

With decent tyres Priaulx guesses the E90 could take at least 10 seconds a lap out of the E30, maybe more, which is a lot considering a minute lap around Pembrey is fast. Before he leaves Priaulx sums it perfectly: ‘It wouldn’t be quick enough to get anywhere near the back of the WTCC grid today.’

As I leave Pembrey I wonder if in another fifth of a century the E90 won’t know which direction a new touring car went. I’ll let you know in 2028…