Friday, July 2, 2021

All Liveried Up: Check Out the BMW M4 GT4's Sweet New Wraps


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If you don't closely follow motorsports, you might not be familiar with BMW's M4 GT4. In brief, it's the German automaker's turnkey race car built for amateur class racing—essentially, if you're not paid to race but have a bunch of cash and want to go wheel to wheel in sanctioned competition, this is the BMW to do it in.
Since its launch in 2017, the GT4 has proven to be a winner all over the globe, and it's appeared in road races and endurance events like the 2017 24 Hours of Spa, where it came first in its class with Top Gear America host Jethro Bovingdon behind the wheel. And now BMW has seen fit to give it four new liveries celebrating both its overall success and its fourth year of racing. The quartet of fresh looks are winners from an internal BMW Group contest involving 30 entries from around the world. A jury of four high-ranking BMW executives—including M CEO Markus Flasch and BMW Group design chief Adrian van Hooydonk—selected the victorious designs.
The four designers responsible for the liveries are BMW Motorad designer Julia Quentin, Rolls-Royce designer Simon Haynes, Wesselka Mandowa-Maier from BMW Designworks in California, and Li Tianyuan from BMW's i Design department in Munich. All are stated to incorporate elements from the automaker's long history while still being thoroughly modern; if you dig the looks, BMW says a GT4 with one of the liveries will run $203,000 and can be ordered via BMW M Motorsport dealers or the BMW M GmbH customer sport sales department.
The M4 GT4 is based on the outgoing F82-generation model that has recently been supplanted by the massively grilled G82. Under the racer's hood lies the same S55, 3.0-liter straight-six found in the M4 road car; in the GT4, it makes 425 horsepower and delivers a top speed of 176 mph. Race car modifications include a big wing, safety gear, and a 33-gallon fuel tank, while curb weight is claimed to be just over 3,100 pounds—500 or so lower than the road car's, so you know it hauls. Or you could just look at BMW's trophy case for additional proof.

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