Thursday 25th May 2017

BMW M4 GT4 - on sale now

170K euros plus VAT and you can see it race at the Nurburgring this weekend!

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For those PHers lucky enough to be considering a GT4 entry at the moment, you're rather spoilt for choice: Porsche, AMG and McLaren have all recently revealed new racing cars for the category, those three now joined by BMW with the M4 GT4.

An M car with indicators? Whatever next?!

Sadly it doesn't look quite as wild as the original preview sketch, though there's certainly no mistaking it for the road car with its new front splitter and rear wing, plus super aggressive aero flics. Not a race car without flics, is it? That's in addition to carbon fibre doors, a racing exhaust and a seat, brakes and pedal box that "make use of solutions" found in the M6 GT3. There are notable road car links though, with the engine and DCT gearbox carried over from the standard M4 and a carbon bonnet from the GTS.

The brakes are by AP Racing - 390mm at the front, 355mm at the back - and the GT4 also uses Ohlins dampers, a mechanical limited-slip diff and a 125-litre endurance tank. The DSC and ABS have also been race tuned by BMW Motorsport.

Then it begins to get a little more complicated. Apparently the M4 GT4 is fitted with "power sticks", which can be set to a variety of engine performance levels. The aim is to make the car easily adaptable to different Balance of Performance rules, the sticks said to be protected against manipulation and approved by the SRO Motorsport Group. If anyone knows exactly what a power stick is then we'd love to know...

Consider it an M6 GT3-lite

The M4 GT4 has been in pre-production testing at the 24 Hours of Dubai and the Nordschleife, with the car back at the latter for this weekend's 24-Hour in full race trim. The car will be raced by Dirk Adorf, Ricky Collard, Jorg Weidinger and some bloke called Jethro Bovingdon. Apparently he writes about cars on occasion...

As well as making its full race debut this weekend, the M4 GT4 is also now on sale from BMW to private race teams. It costs 169,000 Euros plus VAT, which is about what a GTS costs at the moment. Should you be interested, contact BMW on perhaps the best email address ever: [e-mail]. Now, who can Photoshop a Warsteiner livery on?

Watch the video here.

[RacerMike]

Unsurprisingly, GT4 is going down the same route as GT3! But it's great to see so many new manufacturers making cars for the series now. When I did GT4 in 2015 you pretty much had the choice between the Aston and Ginetta and that was about it. There were a few other options, but none had the success or durability to be a serious contender.

Now we've got the Porsche Cayman GT4 MR, McLaren 570S GT4, Audi R8 GT4 (next year), BMW M4 GT4, KTM XBow GT4, Aston Martin Vantage GT4 (which is due to be replaced at the end of next year with the new car), AMG GT GT4 and Ginetta G55 GT4. I predict GT4 Euroseries will be huge in the next couple of years.

[hondansx]

The wing looks ok knowing it is an actual road car!

Really hoping things work out and I can do GT4 next year. Think the safe money is with the Cayman though.

[RacerMike]

hondansx said:

The wing looks ok knowing it is an actual road car!

Really hoping things work out and I can do GT4 next year. Think the safe money is with the Cayman though.

Cayman is a great car yes. The MR package has made it really competitive in European GT4. Aston is still surprisingly quick, and the McLaren is good but heavy!

Everyone I speak to thinks the R8 will be the car to have....

Are you looking at British GT or European?

[houlbt]

RacerMike said:

Cayman is a great car yes. The MR package has made it really competitive in European GT4. Aston is still surprisingly quick, and the McLaren is good but heavy!

Everyone I speak to thinks the R8 will be the car to have....

Are you looking at British GT or European?

I think the Audi and the Merc will be the cars to have... with better factory support than the Porsche too.

[RacerMike]

houlbt said:

I think the Audi and the Merc will be the cars to have... with better factory support than the Porsche too.

Yeah agreed. And I believe the Porsche support hasn't actually been that great for the Cayman!