Between 2010 and 2016, the Z4 was BMW’s global GT3 contender, which won several important races, including a triumph at the 2015 24 Hours of Spa. That car had an M3-sourced V8 engine with 515 horsepower making it a mighty capable machine. Many BMW enthusiasts still wonder why there was no road-legal version of the car and there might be several valid answers here. More importantly, there is finally a Z4 GT3 that can be driven on public roads now and there’s no trace of the V8 under the hood.
In fact, there is no hood as you can see in the video at the top of this page. The Z4 filmed here was displayed during this year’s SEMA and it was a heavily modified version of the roadster basically built from scratch up. The donor body was sourced from Lithuania and all the body panels were repaired and refitted due to excessive damage. But that’s not the most intriguing part.
The 4.0-liter V8 made room for a Mercedes-Benz V12 engine and that motor was upgraded with a supercharger. “I tried to piss off the Mercedes guys, tried to piss off the BMW guys. Just do something crazy,” the creator of the project admitted in the video. Surprisingly, fitting the massive V12 engine didn’t require tweaks to the chassis and only a few tubes in the engine bay had to be moved around. The brilliant exhaust manifolds required many hours of work, though.
When you see the 12-cylinder masterpiece that sits above the front axle, you might ask yourself – does this thing even work? Well, the engine starts and runs but the car hasn’t been tested in action yet. And how’s the interior? It’s the cabin of an actual race car with a roll cage, removable steering wheel, and bucket race seats. There is a fully upholstered dashboard, an air conditioner, and a power steering though, which should make the hours spent behind the steering wheel more comfortable.
