Apparently, all the quirky and strange BMW M3 concepts and ideas that fans and enthusiasts come up with have actually been made by BMW. In a press release yesterday, BMW M unveiled some of their best-kept secrets, including an E46 M3 Touring, E36 M3 Compact and – to our surprise – an E30 M3 Pickup Truck.
Some of you might recall the E92 M3 truck unveiled on Aprils Fools back in 2011. The quirky prototype took everyone by surprise and surprisingly enough – pun intended – has been extremely well received by the community and members of the press. Many have advocated for a production version, but BMW M has held their ground and kept it as an one-off fun exercise.
But it turns out this wasn’t M’s first attempt to make an ute. The first one started with the original, the E30 M3. Many enthusiast owners of the original M3 have cut its roof off, to make an E30 M3 Convertible or Roadster, depending on the owner’s skill, wallet size and patience.
However, BMW made a proper E30 M3 Convertible, but it was just never released. BMW then took that convertible one step further and made a pick-up truck E30 M3. BMW engineers needed something to haul parts and equipment very quickly with, so they took a regular E30 convertible, converted it into a pick-up and slapped in the M3’s powertrain and suspension.
BMW used this one-off pick-up E30 M3 as a parts transportation device for 26 years. And apparently it still runs like a champ today.
What an aberration.
The proper E30 M3 Convertible was indeed produced in greater numbers than one, but still only in 786+1 examples. The one off refered to in this article is probably the Sport Evo convertible or perhaps a mixup with the E34 M5 convertible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_M3#Production_figures