Guide: BMW Art Car #13 - BMW E36 325i DTM Prototype 'Sandro Chia'
Background
After BMW commissioned just two Art Cars between 1980 and 1988, a glut of seven arrived between 1989 and 1992.
The last of these seven cars and the only example produced in 1992 was the work of Italian painter and sculptor, Sandro Chia.
Chia’s spectacular creation was based on a unique E36 Coupe that had been conceived as a prototype Class 1 Touring Car for use in a new era of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM).
BMW E36 325i DTM Prototype
The Class 1 Touring Car regulations came into effect for 1993 to replace the Group A category that, in is later years, had been dominated by brutish V8-engined cars like the Nissan R32 Skyline GT-R and Audi V8 Quattro.
The new regulations restricted engines to production-based units with a maximum of six cylinders, a capacity of 2.5-litres and no more than four valves per cylinder. However, greater freedom was permitted in terms of aero kits and wheel size. All-wheel drive, traction control, ABS and electronically controlled differentials were also allowed.
With the E30 M3, BMW Motorsport had played a major role in the Group A Touring Car era. In anticipation of a similar effort for the new Class 1, an E36-based machine was developed during the course of 1992.
At the heart of the Class 1 prototype was a highly tuned iteration of the 325i straight six that revved all the way to 10,000rpm. Displacement was kept at 2494cc, but thanks to an array of trick parts, output leapt from 189bhp to 370bhp. This screamer of an engine was coupled to a six-speed manual gearbox and dropped into a lightened, seam-welded and wide-arched bodyshell.
Weight was cut to 1040kg and top speed was 186mph.
Unfortunately, Alfa Romeo, Mercedes and Opel all created Class 1 machinery powered by V6 engines that offered much better weight distribution than BMW’s long straight six. BMW had no such engine in their portfolio and were left at an obvious disadvantage.
With the DTM organisers unwilling to hand BMW any technical concessions, the Class 1 E36 project was abandoned in December 1992.
An unhappy BMW would play no part in the DTM for over 20 years.
Rather than forget about the expensively developed E36 Class 1 Prototype, BMW chose to use it as the basis for their 13th Art Car.
Sandro Chia
Sandro Chia was born in Florence on 20th April 1946. Here he spent his childhood, during which Chia became familiar with the city’s many great works of art.
After leaving school in 1962, Chia spent the next seven years studying at two Firenze art colleges (the Istituto d’Arte di Firenze followed by the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze).
Chia subsequently travelled throughout Europe, Turkey and India before settling in Rome in 1970. He began to show his early Conceptualism-based work from 1971. From the mid 1970s, Chia shifted towards a more figurative approach and, by the early 1980s, he had come to be regarded as one of the most significant artists of the Transavanguardia neo-expressionist movement that marked the revival of Italian figurative art.
His paintings showed influences by Carlo Carra, Giorgio de Chirico, Pablo Picasso, Andrea Montegna and Giorgione. By 1982, Chia’s work was being shown at top exhibitions around the world to include the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Chia’s E36 325i DTM Prototype
Sandro Chia completed the commission from BMW in October 1992.
He applied portraits on the paintwork to challenge the observer to consider looking at himself in the mirror. Chia explained that, as a car is exposed to the stares of observers “I decorated the surface of this car to represent these stares. I have created both a picture and a world. Everything that is looked at closely turns into a face. A face is a focus, a focus of life and the world."
Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: BMW - https://www.bmw.com
