{"id":796963,"date":"2026-07-13T06:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T06:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/796963\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T06:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T06:13:11","slug":"need-for-speed-inspired-bmw-m3-gtr-finds-a-new-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/796963\/","title":{"rendered":"Need for Speed-inspired BMW M3 GTR finds a new home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Need
\n BMW M3 GTR wearing a Need for Speed: Most Wanted inspired livery<\/p>\n

There are few vehicles which became famous for starring in video games, rather than being in video games because they\u2019re famous, but the BMW M3 GTR well and truly falls into the former category.<\/p>\n

While the M3 GTR was exclusively to go racing \u2013 with less than 10 examples of the Stra\u00dfenversion (Street Version) homologation cars still on the road \u2013 in the early 2000s, it was in 2005 that it took on a new life, featuring on the cover of the Need for Speed: Most Wanted video game.<\/p>\n

Appearing as the first car in the game which the player almost immediately loses and has to win back by defeating the final \u2018Blacklist\u2019 racer, Razor.<\/p>\n

The blue-and-silver finished M3 GTR then became a cult icon, which led to BMW paying tribute to it in late 2024 when it paid tribute to the Most Wanted car by giving one of the former racing editions its iconic livery.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Intended to briefly reside in the BMW Welt museum in Munich, it later departed the display. However, it\u2019s now back on show there, allowing fans to recreate photos of the cover car and see what inspired a generation of petrolheads 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

The car itself was raced by J\u00f6rg M\u00fcller and J.J. Lehto in the 2001 American Le Mans Series, where it was campaigned by BMW in the GT category as the #42 car, winning that year\u2019s driver\u2019s title in the hands of M\u00fcller.<\/p>\n

It was powered by a bespoke \u2018P60B40\u2019 V8 engine, displacing 4.0-litres and capable of producing approximately 500kW without restrictions, mated to a six-speed sequential transmission.<\/p>\n

BMW hasn\u2019t said how long it\u2019ll be at the museum, though given the positive reaction to its return, it\u2019ll likely be a while until it leaves again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BMW M3 GTR wearing a Need for Speed: Most Wanted inspired livery There are few vehicles which became…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":["post-796963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}