One to Buy: ex-Bavaria Automobiles 1985 BMW 635 CSi Gr.2
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The European Touring Car Championship’s Group A formula kicked off in 1982 and saw BMW’s E28 528i emerge as the premier challenger in the top flight Division 3 category. However, with four wins from ten outings, Jaguar’s fast-improving XJS was expected to offer even more of a challenger in 1983.
To counter, BMW replaced the 528i with a Group A version of the 635 CSi, which, although much less powerful than the V12-engined Jaguars, benefited from significant weight, transmission and fuel efficiency advantages.
In a close run 1983 championship, BMW pipped Jaguar to Division 3 honours and the 635 CSi remained a stalwart of the European Touring Car Championship even after the E30 M3 arrived.
Today, the Group 2 635 CSi is recognised as one of the most elegant and successful Touring Car racers of all time and a superb example of the breed is currently on offer at the Historic Cars showroom in Paris.
Chassis RA2-59 was built up from a BMW Motorsport shell in 1985 for the French team Bavaria Automobiles based in Reims. With backing from title sponsor Texaco, the car went on to contest seven ETCC events during the next three seasons along with a handful of French national events in its final year of competition (1987).
Perhaps most notably, RA2-59 contested the legendary Spa 24 Hour race on three consecutive occasions, placing eighth overall in 1985 (driven by Claude Ballot-Lena, Jean-Claude Andruet and Rene Metge) and fourth overall in 1986 (driven by Rene Metge, Marc Sourd and Philippe Haezebrouck).
More recently, following PVER 25 years in storage, during 2014 chassis RA2-59 was overhauled by some of the same mechanics that worked on it in period and in the last few years the car has received extensive mechanical freshening.
