Article Summary
- BMW unearths 49-year-old images showing an original 5 Series towing the Group 5-spec 3 Series race car.
- The track-only E21 was too wide to fit on the trailer.
- BMW used the base 518 with a carbureted engine to do the hauling.
BMW Classic’s Instagram account is a treasure trove of automotive history. In case you missed it, we recently spotted the original 7 Series wearing funky camouflage during testing. But the story doesn’t stop there: the same year the E23 debuted, BMW’s motorsport division ran into a logistical hiccup. In 1977, the car transporters meant to haul the 320 Group 5 race cars couldn’t carry the track-ready E21s.
Why? The race-spec 3 Series was simply too wide to fit on the trailers, so BMW had to improvise. Spectacular images from nearly half a century ago show the “Flying Brick” being towed by a first-generation, right-hand-drive 5 Series. It’s not just any E12, but a base 518 with a carbureted M10 engine producing 89 horsepower. Enough punch, apparently, to haul a race car all the way to the Kyalami circuit in South Africa.
Seeing those race cars out on the road, towed by two 5 Series models, must’ve been a sight to behold. For context, the N1 is a national route in South Africa running from Cape Town through Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, and Pretoria. Those wide fenders on the E21s must’ve turned plenty of heads in traffic.
BMW enthusiasts will also recall that 1977 was the year Roy Lichtenstein transformed a Group 5 E21 into the third official BMW Art Car. The Jägermeister livery is arguably the most beloved among Group 5 fans. While the original 3 Series road car topped out at 141 hp, the race-ready E21 had over three times that power. The 1979-spec version with its iconic orange livery produced 443 hp from a turbocharged 1.4-liter engine, hitting peak power at a screaming 9,000 rpm and reaching 180 mph (290 km/h).
Fast-forward to 2026, and BMW is preparing to retire the seventh-generation 3 Series to make way for the new G50. It won’t arrive alone: an electric version, the i3 (NA0), is also launching this year. The EV is likely to get a Touring variant, and there’s hope that the combustion-engine model will once again see a wagon body style. All four are likely to get the M Performance and M treatment, so the future looks good for both ICE and EV fans.
