BMW M3 ZAKSPEED
The motor — more about it later — looks similar to the standard BMW unit, but that’s where the similarities end. In Europe, power from this unit got up to 279kw at 11,000rpm
AN ALREADY FAST CAR REBORN INTO THIS RACER
North American beginnings Graeme Cameron is a name that anyone interested in motor sport in New Zealand will know. With the possible exception of Kenny Smith, Graeme has been around as long as any. He started his racing career in North America back in the early ’70s, and raced at some of the big venues there: Westwood, Kent, Portland, in Formula Ford, and later in F5000 Atlanta and Watkins Glen. He was a Canadian championship winner in Improved Production in 1973, and took second place in the Canadian Formula Ford championship in 1974.
Business and family matters gave Graeme reason to hang up his helmet for a decade when he moved back to New Zealand. In the early ’80s, however, “that pill swallowed at Ardmore” many years before took effect once again and he returned to racing. Quite a list Since then, Graeme has raced and won many times in everything from Group A Commodores to Porsches and more recently Formula Fords and a Lola F5000. He won the Benson and Hedges Saloon Car Series with Ed Lamont in 1986. He also competed with Alan ‘Gricey’ Grice in his Group A Commodore in the Wellington street race and at Pukekohe for two years before doing a full season in New Zealand in 1988 in Group A with that same car.
After retiring from Group A, Graeme took a brand-new 1989 Porsche 944 Turbo S to the 1989 Wellington street
race and, for a few years, was a name in the Bridgestone Porsche Cup series. He remembers that Porsche 944 Turbo S as a “very sweet race car”, with three wins at Wellington and the overall championship twice.
It’s not a case of age wearing Graeme, though; he still enjoys his racing, campaigning either his ADF Formula Ford — “so much fun to drive” — or the car we’re featuring here: his Zakspeed, former Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) championship–winning BMW M3. This car is perfectly balanced, and wonderful at high speed. Peter Zakowski won the Private Driver STM Championship in 1991, and NilsKristian ‘Kris’ Nissen won the Nordic Cup in 1992 with this car. German build quality The car was built in 1991–’92 by Zakspeed, a German race car–building company. Zakspeed had previously built factory racers for Ford: those absolutely other-worldly looking Escorts, Capris, and Mustangs. The company even had its own Formula 1 (F1) cars on the grid for five years from the mid ’80s. Martin Brundle, who is now part of the F1 television commentary team, drove one of those to Zakspeed’s bestever F1 finish: fifth place at the 1987 San Marino Grand Prix.
The BMW M3s came after all that. These
cars were built as race cars, and this one was the second to last of this particular series. Graeme answers the question on the difference between his car and a production car with a single word: “everything”. Flourishing a copy of the logbook — the real one is locked away — he explains that there is a black market in logbooks. Some unscrupulous dealers have been known to use these books to build exact-copy cars, which have then been passed off as the real deal. The logbook, or Wagenpass, chronicles all the events run from Kyalami to Zolder to the Nürburgring, and more.
Conrad Timms of High Performance Classics found this car in Belgium three years ago. It was one of two for sale, but, according to Graeme, “Conrad would only let me buy one, so we bought the Zakowski/nissen car that had been fully restored by Christian Loehr at Zakspeed.”
Not stock standard
Graeme explains that these cars have had almost everything changed, with the exception of the location of the suspension pickup points. Stronger lightweight alloys are used for front suspension uprights — lighter-thanoriginal metal was used for the body on some of the later models. This car left the factory with a Getrag five-speed gearbox, but that was swapped for a Holinger six-speed when the car was being raced by Kris Nissen. The motor — more about it later — looks similar to the standard BMW unit, but that’s where the similarities end. In Europe, power from this unit got up to 280kw at 11,000rpm, but, at that, these motors didn’t last long. Today, Graeme’s car produces a real New Zealand 246kw and, in the interests of longevity, Graeme has a self-imposed limit of 9500rpm. The blocks on these cars are cast from bearing metal, and, when available, they come with a very hefty price tag, so, for reasons of reliability, availability, economy, and common sense, Graeme endeavours to maintain the lower rev limit.
Nothing on these factory-built racers is standard BMW. Those slick-shod wheels are slowed down by six-pot calipers at the front and four-pot calipers at the rear. Something like that is necessary when the listed top speed is 280kph.
The Unitron colours are as the car was last raced by Kris Nissen in the Nordic Touring Car Cup. Graeme has also maintained the various aero bits and pieces as they were, down to the plywood edge on the original front spoiler. He confirmed this with Peter Zakowski, Zakspeed’s CEO, while the car was back at Zakspeed recently. Christian Loehr, the Zakspeed builder
involved in both the original build and the rebuild, says he maintained 90 per cent of the original parts in his restoration. European excursion Well-known race car collector and driver Peter Sturgeon asked Graeme to join him in the UK and trailer the M3, along with Peter’s Sierra RS2000 — to be driven by Gianfranco Brancatelli — down to Nürburgring and Spa. So, Graeme took the car back to Europe to race at some of his bucket-list tracks. Gricey had told him that there are two must-do tracks: Bathurst and Spa. Graeme knows Bathurst from 1987, but Spa was still waiting to be experienced. He managed to be the third M3 home at Nürburgring — on the GP track, that is, not the 23km ‘Green Hell’. At Spa, he was just warming up — literally, only one-and-a half laps around the iconic track — when his motor exploded. A con-rod bolt had surpassed its recommended time allocation — or maybe just been subjected to an over-rev in New Zealand before departure — and, when it broke, it took almost everything else in the motor with it.
Graeme containered his car and sent it back home. Now, some months later, it is back in ready-to-race condition. A new motor was located in Austria by Conrad Timms, and the original motor — nowadays starting to be a bit like Grandpa’s axe — is to be rebuilt. Graeme intends a limited season in New Zealand
before he ships the car back to Europe next season. There’s a few more tracks to tick off the list yet — and Spa … well, he has yet to approach Eau Rouge with any attitude. Appreciation and accusation Heritage racing is taken very seriously over in Europe. Spectators remembered this car from its DTM days, and some would do a U-turn when they saw it being trailered between events. At the Nürburgring, the car was welcomed by the spectators; one boy was extremely excited to see “the car I have on the shelf at home”.
However, while they were there, an angry local accused them of presenting a replica car.
“The stewards didn’t take time to look at the ‘papers’ we submitted to the organizers, [complete] with copies of the original logbook,” Graeme explains, “[but] took the raging hostilities to heart and were about to impound our car.”
Thankfully, Peter Zakowski got wind of that and intervened.
Christian Loehr, the Zakspeed builder involved in both the original build and the rebuild, says he maintained 90 per cent of the original parts in his restoration
“As it turned out, the accuser owned the next and last Zakspeed M3, which is seriously bent at present, and he thought that we were ‘stealing his car’. His apology the next week was accepted,” Graeme says, “but he sure upset a lot of people. It is a great privilege to own this car, and to give it a workout for other people to enjoy as well as me.”
Graeme is no gentleman racer — well, he may be a gentleman, but he takes his racing seriously. He certainly has a reputation for giving this car somewhat more than just a “workout”, having achieved the fastest lap times for Group A at Manfeild, Taupo, and Hampton Downs in it. Reconnecting with the past Graeme tells us, “The European races were a great time to reconnect with some of the drivers who raced against in this part of the world in the 1980s.”
Gianfranco Brancatelli and Klaus Ludwig enjoy their retirement and race other people’s cars at these events. Graeme says that he remembers Ludwig as a “hard and aggressive driver” but that nowadays he is a “jovial character”. It seems that the racing today generally involves more respect and less aggression, and the cars, just like their drivers, don’t fade away — they just keep coming back to show us all what it used to be like.