Two rare BMW 635 CSi reunited at the Bosch Hockenheim Historic 2023

Ten racing series, around 500 entrants, record spectator numbers – and right in the middle, two coupés from the early years of the 6 Series touring car: the green BMW-Italia car of the Racing Corporation Vienna and the black-and-gold JPS coupé from Australia.

Text: Editorial team s14.de based on a report by Rainer Selzer · Photos: RS65photos (Rainer Selzer)

1. The Event:
Bosch Hockenheim Historic – The Jim Clark Revival 2023

From 5 to 7 May 2023, the Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg hosted the Bosch Hockenheim Historic for the 18th time, one of the largest and best-known classic festivals in Europe. The organiser announced ten racing series with around 500 entrants; the previous year around 30,000 spectators had made their way to the Motodrom. ²⁵ After the weekend, Motorsport Retro reported a record attendance of 35,000 visitors. ⁶

New in 2023 was the role of the ADAC: for the first time, the automobile club appeared together with the Badischer Motorsport-Club (BMC) as sporting organiser – a pilot project and at the same time the ADAC’s first-ever involvement in historic circuit racing. ²³ The 2023 edition also marked the 55th anniversary of the death of Jim Clark, who was killed on 7 April 1968 in a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim. ⁴

Title sponsor Bosch has accompanied the event since 2012; the connection to the circuit dates back to its opening in 1932, which is why the corner before the start-finish straight is named the “Bosch-Kurve”.

The ten racing series in 2023

Three series run by the British organisation Masters Historic Racing appeared in Hockenheim for the first time in 2023 and formed the sporting highlight; added to this were the established pillars of the programme and – also new – the Tourenwagen Golden Ära. ²³⁵

• Masters Racing Legends for 1966/85 F1 Cars – Formula 1 cars with 3-litre naturally aspirated engines,
dominated by the Cosworth DFV; 23 cars on the grid. Winners: Nick Padmore (Lotus 77) and
Michael Lyons (Lotus 92).⁶⁷

• Masters Gentlemen Drivers & Pre-66 Touring Cars – classic GT and touring cars up to 1966 in
a combined field; in the touring car classification a BMW 1800 TiSa
(Barton/Brundle) finished second behind a Ford Falcon. ⁶

• Masters Endurance Legends – sports prototypes from the more recent Le Mans era; a one-two for Steve
Brooks in the Peugeot 90X. ⁶

• Group C Supercup – Group C and IMSA-GTP cars, in the programme for the third year running.
⁶

• BOSS GP – Big Open Single Seaters (former F1, GP2, IndyCar and World Series cars);
a one-two for former F1 driver Antonio Pizzonia. ⁵⁶

• Historic Formula 2 (HSCC) – single-seaters built to the 1967–1978 regulations, the historic
link to the Jim Clark Memorial. ²⁵

• Lurani Trophy – Formula Junior. ² Historic Racecar Association (AvD Historic Race Cup) –
historic formula cars. ²⁶

• Raceclub Germany – club sport field. ⁵⁶

• Tourenwagen Golden Ära – touring cars from the “pre-Class 1 era” (DTM, Group A, STW).^[2)

2. The racing series “Tourenwagen Golden Ära”

The Tourenwagen Golden Ära is the stage for the touring car era between DRM and WTCC. The name derives from the “golden age” of the DTM: a virtually classless set of regulations that enabled spectacular duels between production-based cars and drew well over 100,000 spectators to the circuits. ⁸ It covers cars from the DRM (1971–1985), the DTM (1984–1996) as well as the two-litre era of STW (1993–1999) and ETCC/WTCC (2000–2006). ⁸¹⁰

The series was founded in 2015 as “Tourenwagen Classics”; two sprint races of 25 minutes each are held per weekend. From 2024, the category will be run as a championship under FIA Appendix K. ⁹ The promoter is Wolfgang Huter, also founder of the Hockenheim Historic. His stated aim: “The cars and their former stars must once again be the focus – not the interests of individuals.” A particular feature is that many cars are kept race-ready in the hands of collectors, and the former drivers repeatedly return to their original cars. ⁸

In 2023, in addition to Hockenheim, the series was also on the programme at the Nürburgring Classic (26–28 May) and the Red Bull Ring Classics, where among others Kris Nissen, Altfrid Heger, Roland Asch and Prince Leopold of Bavaria drove original cars. 110 teams were entered for the Red Bull Ring. ⁹¹⁰

Hockenheim 2023:
Debut with around 40 touring cars

In Hockenheim, around 40 touring cars from the 1980s and 1990s competed, including cars from DTM and STW. The first race on Saturday was won convincingly by Michael Kammermann in the BMW 3.5 CSL ahead of Paul Mensley’s Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 and Hans-Jürg Lüthi’s Vauxhall Vectra STW. On Sunday, Michael Lyons prevailed in the Ford Mustang Group A by just half a second over Marc Seesing’s BMW M3 E30 Group A; third place went to René Aeberhardt in the Audi A4 STW. ⁶

Which BMW model lines were on the grid

From the reports and results lists, the following BMW model lines can be confirmed for the 2023 Golden Ära field: ¹⁶

• E9 – BMW 3.5 CSL: winning car of Michael Kammermann in the first race.

• E24 – BMW 635 CSi Group 2: the two coupés portrayed here (JPS, driven by Nick
Padmore, and the green RCV/BMW-Italia coupé, driven by Frank Jacob), run by Britec
Motorsport.

• E30 – BMW M3 Group A / DTM: among others Marc Seesing (2nd place in the second race) as well as the M3
Evo, with which Emanuele Pirro won the Guia Race in Macau for Schnitzer in 1991.

In the Masters field of Pre-66 Touring Cars, the BMW 1800 TiSa of the Neue Klasse was also used. ⁶ Whether E36 Super Touring cars also ran at Hockenheim in 2023, as they did the same year at the Nürburgring (E36 M3, E36 320i DTC), is not confirmed by the available sources. ¹⁰

3. The two coupés: from CSL successor to world traveller

Touring cars and BMW are inseparably linked. When homologation of the E9 coupés expired in 1979, BMW needed a cost-effective successor for the transitional years until the introduction of Group A in 1982. Due to capacity constraints, BMW Motorsport commissioned Heribert Werginz and his Racing Corporation Vienna (RCV) to build and homologate the 635 CSi to Group 2 regulations. Two bodyshells were delivered to Austria and built into race cars there. ¹¹³

The green coupé: Racing Corporation Vienna / BMW Italia (1980)

On 23 March 1980, the first two 635 CSi took to the grid at the 4-hour race in Monza. The green coupé with race number 98 – entered by the Racing Corporation Vienna, driven by Harald Neger, Heribert Werginz and Umberto Grano – took pole position and won the race on its first outing. The second Werginz coupé, with Dieter Schmid and Karl Hurler, finished ninth. ¹¹¹¹²

The driver line-up reflects the funding model: Werginz himself behind the wheel, alongside Austrian timber merchant Harald Neger (“Neger-Holz”) as sponsor and driver, as well as Umberto Grano, whose involvement secured the support of BMW Italia. Grundig, a consumer electronics company previously unconnected to motorsport, came on board as main sponsor. ¹³ The wide-body coupé, with around 400 PS, was the fastest car in the European Touring Car Championship in 1980: pole position in six of nine rounds, wins at Monza, Vallelunga, Pergusa and the Tourist Trophy at Silverstone – but also three consecutive retirements (Brands Hatch, Salzburgring, Brno) and an axle failure at the Nürburgring that cost it the title. ¹²

Werginz-Motorsport built two further Group 2 cars in 1980: another green coupé with a white bodykit, as well as the base car for the JPS BMW in Australia. ¹ For 1981, Swiss constructor Ruedi Eggenberger built a new coupé for BMW Italia; Umberto Grano – owner of the leather goods manufacturer “Enny” – won with it, together with Helmut Kelleners, at the season opener in Monza and at the end of the season took the 1981 European Touring Car Championship. ¹¹³ According to Rainer’s report, both received support from motorcycle world champion Johnny Cecotto at Monza; this information is based on details from the racing series. ¹

The green coupé used in Hockenheim carries exactly the livery of the 1980 RCV car – Grundig, Neger-Holz, Castrol, Bosch, Bilstein, Pirelli and ELAN – along with the driver names Grano, Werginz and Neger. The original chassis 635180 was completely restored in more recent times and offered race-ready by Springbok Sportwagen in Isernhagen. The driver line-up reflects the funding model: Werginz himself behind the wheel, alongside Austrian timber merchant Harald Neger (“Neger-Holz”) as sponsor and driver, as well as Umberto Grano, whose involvement secured the support of BMW Italia. Grundig, a consumer electronics company previously unconnected to motorsport, came on board as main sponsor. The driver line-up reflects the funding model: Werginz himself behind the wheel, alongside Austrian timber merchant Harald Neger (“Neger-Holz”) as sponsor and driver, as well as Umberto Grano, whose involvement secured the support of BMW Italia. Grundig, a consumer electronics company previously unconnected to motorsport, came on board as main sponsor.¹³ The wide-body coupé, with around 400 PS, was the fastest car in the European Touring Car Championship in 1980: pole position in six of nine rounds, wins at Monza, Vallelunga, Pergusa and the Tourist Trophy at Silverstone – but also three consecutive retirements (Brands Hatch, Salzburgring, Brno) and an axle failure at the Nürburgring that cost it the title. ¹²

The wide-body coupé, with around 400 PS, was the fastest car in the European Touring Car Championship in 1980: pole position in six of nine rounds, wins at Monza, Vallelunga, Pergusa and the Tourist Trophy at Silverstone – but also three consecutive retirements (Brands Hatch, Salzburgring, Brno) and an axle failure at the Nürburgring that cost it the title. ¹²

That the Hockenheim car is this chassis is very likely given the livery and history, but this is not explicitly confirmed in the sources.

The black-and-gold coupé: JPS Team BMW, Australia (1981–1985)

In the southern hemisphere, a quite distinct variant of the 635 CSi was developed in parallel. In the early 1980s Australia raced under national Group C regulations, which allowed considerably more freedom than the later Group A. The first JPS car was converted from a 1980 Group 2 car from the European Touring Car Championship – precisely that Werginz base car mentioned by Rainer in his report. ¹¹⁴With huge fibreglass wheel-arch extensions, wide tyres and a low front spoiler, the left-hand-drive coupé was a one-off in Australian motorsport. ¹⁵

In 1981, BMW Australia entered touring car racing with Allan Grice and the 635 CSi; the programme initially sat with BMW Australia under Ron Meacham and in 1982 passed to the team run by Frank Gardner, which thereafter competed as JPS Team BMW. ¹⁶¹⁹ In its first year the team avoided the V8 dominance of Ford and Holden in the ATCC and instead ran in the AMSCAR series for cars up to 3.5 litres, in which Grice finished runner-up. ¹⁴

With the change from Grice to Jim Richards, a new Group C coupé was built; the first car remained with the team as a spare. Richards made his debut with the second car at the Castrol 400 at Sandown in 1982 and finished sixth at the James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst alongside David Hobbs. ¹⁴¹⁷ The press release for the 2017 Silverstone Classic, on the other hand, dates the start of the Richards/635 partnership to 1983 – here the sources contradict each other.¹⁸ Bathurst 1983 is remembered for the “periscope camera”: a 360-degree pivoting TV camera protruded through a hole in the roof – an experiment never repeated after the car’s early retirement. ¹⁷

Without a single overall win in four Group C seasons (1981–1984), the 635 was regarded as a car that simply did not suit the Australian regulations.¹⁵ That changed abruptly in 1985, when Australia adopted the international Group A regulations: Jim Richards won seven of ten rounds and the first Group A title of the Australian Touring Car Championship, remained unbeaten in the AMSCAR series and also took the Australian Endurance Championship with five wins from six races. ¹⁸¹⁹

The championship-winning car, in this Group A specification, was acquired by New Zealand collector Peter Sturgeon and, at the initiative of Richards and former Gardner team member Pip Baker, was returned over around 18 months to its spectacular Group C condition – with the 24-valve twin-cam six-cylinder engine revving to 8,400 rpm. In 2017, the car came to Europe for the first time at the Silverstone Classic, driven by Jim Richards himself. ¹⁸

The coupé driven in Hockenheim by Nick Padmore – who won the first Masters Formula 1 race of the same weekend in the Lotus 77 – carries race number 31, the names Jim Richards and Frank Gardner, the James Hardie 1000 lettering and the sponsors Burson Auto Parts, Castrol, Dunlop, Hertz and Recaro. ¹⁷ According to information from the racing series, on which Rainer relies, this is the Werginz base car; the chassis number has not been published, so this attribution – as well as the question of whether the Hockenheim car and the Sturgeon car are identical – cannot be independently verified. ¹

Both coupés were run in Hockenheim by Britec Motorsport. Two of the three beautiful and rare Werginz coupés were thus reunited in the Tourenwagen Golden Ära, bringing together well over four decades of touring car history on a single grid. ¹