It wasn’t long after we attended the BMW M4 Concept unveiling that BMW officially announced that the new M4 would immediately enter the world of motorsports, running as their contender in the world-renowned DTM racing series in 2014. It was news that caught our attention and stoked a fire of excitement in us. Cars of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters series have a presence about them unmatched by most race classes. The lowered lines of their body-dropped stature sit between giant arches punctured with canards and vents that add a sharpness to the aggressive nature of car. They spit fireballs out of side-exit exhausts while gobbling up apexes and they glide across the tarmac with their splitters just millimeters off the ground. Their appearance speaks to the raw and untamed nature of racing, so we found ourselves eager to see the new BMW M4 undergo the same aerodynamic treatment.
BMW is well known for their participation in the former Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft series, as E30 M3s fought wheel-to-wheel with 190Es in battles that are still held in reverence to this day. It wasn’t until 2012 that BMW returned to DTM after withdrawing 2 decades prior, but they returned with the fourth generation of the M3 chassis and it was clear they meant business as they went on to win the drivers’, teams’, and manufacturers’ titles this past year.
With their latest announcement, we find ourselves dreaming of the potential that lies within a BMW M4 DTM contender. The new Coupe seems like a worthy successor to the M3 with its lower center of gravity and more aggressive stance. Its eyes scowl as the hood dives into the iconic kidney grills, and each corner flexes its strength with arches that distinguish it from your standard 4 Series. Accents of carbon fiber and the power bulge on the hood hint at the performance that lies underneath. There’s no doubt that racing and performance were at the forefront of their minds when designing the M4. The 2014 DTM season will be its chance to show off what it’s capable of. The body will be lowered, the arches extended, and aerodynamics will be configured to stick it to the pavement. An already strong design will be injected with a dose of steroids, producing a car that I’m sure will drop our jaws yet again.
It will still be a while before we see the outcome of the countless hours spent designing and engineering the latest addition to the long list of BMW race cars. For now, the BMW M4 DTM car is relegated to our daydreams and the sketches in our school notebooks. Too anxious to wait myself, I began rendering my vision of the future Deutsche Tourenwagen. Taking influences from past DTM vehicles and molding them to BMW’s current design direction, I developed a grid of racers to tide myself over until the true unveiling. The collection is dressed in liveries from BMW’s racing pedigree. For now, we’ll continue speculating about its performance and dreaming of the canard-covered BMW bodywork that will grace the 2014 DTM season.
