1977 BMW 3.0 CSL Alpina Gosser Beer tribute car

I think your son Bill dyno tuned my M30 swapped E30 when it had a WAR chip at Dentsport. Small world.
 
My son and I have decided to trailer the CSL to Sebring next October which is where the Group 5 CSLs had their finest hour in the USA,
winning the 12 hour Sebring race outright in 1975 with Redman, Stuck ,and Posey driving. We trailered my Shelby GT 350R tribute car to Sebring
in 2016 and had two days with NASA Florida before I headed north to VIR. This time I will plan to do a NASA event at Summit Raceway
in West Virginia before headed back to Boston.
 
Sandy Washburn said:
My son and I have decided to trailer the CSL to Sebring next October which is where the Group 5 CSLs had their finest hour in the USA,
winning the 12 hour Sebring race outright in 1975 with Redman, Stuck ,and Posey driving. We trailered my Shelby GT 350R tribute car to Sebring
in 2016 and had two days with NASA Florida before I headed north to VIR. This time I will plan to do a NASA event at Summit Raceway
in West Virginia before headed back to Boston.
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Picture of the CSL at the Lime Rock GRIDLIFE event in August 2022
 
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The trip to Sebring will need to wait for another year. We have decided to participate in the GRIDLIFE event at Watkins Glen on April 28-29 2023 instead.
I will drive in HPDE and my son will compete in the Trackmod time attack class. We will also do the GRIDLIFE event at Lime Rock in August.
 
Sandy,
Will you be up at Road America this July 13-16 for the Weathertech International Challenge?
Stephen
 
autokunst said:
Sandy,
Will you be up at Road America this July 13-16 for the Weathertech International Challenge?
Stephen
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We had to cancel our Road America trip in October and we did not receive a refund or credit from the organizer. I also had to eat the hotel charge.
So it does not look like Road America is in or future plans. But Sebring definitely. The GRIDLIFE events are great fun with amazing spectators
so we will plan to do these in future years at Northeast tracks. Drifting, time trials with nationally ranked competitors, and HPDE events are included.
 
Sandy Washburn said:
We had to cancel our Road America trip in October and we did not receive a refund or credit from the organizer. I also had to eat the hotel charge.
So it does not look like Road America is in or future plans. But Sebring definitely. The GRIDLIFE events are great fun with amazing spectators
so we will plan to do these in future years at Northeast tracks. Drifting, time trials with nationally ranked competitors, and HPDE events are included.
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The BMW CSL will be at the GRIDLIFE event at Watkins Glen on April 28-29 and the GRIDLIFE event at Lime Rock on August 18-19. We will also
do a vintage event at Lime Rock on June 2-3. We decided not to so the Sebring trip this year due to other commitments.
 
I saw this car at the Empire Drivers track weekend last June. The thing is awesome. I was driving my silver Porsche 944 in the same run group. Cheers,

Nate Williams
 
nate_williams said:
I saw this car at the Empire Drivers track weekend last June. The thing is awesome. I was driving my silver Porsche 944 in the same run group. Cheers,

Nate Williams
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I plan to return to the Empire Drivers track weekend in June 2023. It is my favorite event of the year because it includes some of the best vintage racing of the year at Lime Rock. My CSL now has 320 rear wheel horsepower and about 360 at the crank after the engine rebuild. The cars weighs about 2600 lbs compared to about 3600 in a BMW M3 so it performs well on the track even at 7/10s. The Lime Rock GRIDLife event in mid August is almost as much fun due to the massive spectator crowd and wild drift cars.
 
Sandy Washburn said:
The cars weighs about 2600 lbs compared to about 3600 in a BMW M3 so it performs well on the track even at 7/10s.
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Oh wow. 2600 LBS is ¬1180kg. Was not expecting that.

I am building something similar, and was hoping to get as close to the original cars in weight as posssible, which was 1079kg. Yours having plexi windows and such, i was really expecting to be around that. Mine will stand no chance to be around the 1200kg with all original widows and mechanisms still in then.

Don't get me wrong, it's still light for all that power, it's just that you'd imagine it will weight a lot less.
 
Maniak91 said:
Oh wow. 2600 LBS is ¬1180kg. Was not expecting that.

I am building something similar, and was hoping to get as close to the original cars in weight as posssible, which was 1079kg. Yours having plexi windows and such, i was really expecting to be around that. Mine will stand no chance to be around the 1200kg with all original widows and mechanisms still in then.

Don't get me wrong, it's still light for all that power, it's just that you'd imagine it will weight a lot less.
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My CSL has flared fiberglass fenders, hood, rear deck, and plexiglass rear window. The front windshield is safety glass. The doors are also light weight fiberglass.
The full roll cage adds significant weight but adds significant structural strength to the E9 body which is very flexible in the stock 2800 coupe. Since I am not doing fender to fender racing I am not concerned with having as light a car as possible. If I were you,I would concentrate on having a professional built full roll cage as a number one priority.
I believe that the original 2800 coupe with steel fenders, doors, hood and rear deck plus glass windows and insulation and 4 heavy seats weighed close to 3000 pounds.
 
tferrer said:
I'd sure love to see that line-up. Those S1/S2 Audi's are lovely beast and that Nissan had gorgeous lines...Pics!
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My son has raced a Nisson 240 SX that he totally built himself for 15 years in time trials (Lime Rock winning lap time of 54.25) and hill climbs (Mt Washington 3 times) It is the ultimate evolution of this iconic car model for flat out racing.
 

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During my talk to the White Mountain BMW chapter about my CSL tribute car and my 60 years of BMW sedan ownership, I neglected to speak about my experience repairing my CSL after a head on accident at Watkins Glen in 2021. At the time, I was unaware of the problem sourcing body parts for BMW E9 sedans and finding a repair shop experienced in repairing these unique bodies. The E9s were one of the early BMW sedans post WWII and they were made with thinner metal and lacked any rust prevention applications. This is the reason there are so few E9 sedans remaining today and those that remain unrestored suffer from severe body rot deep in the frame.
My accident destroyed the right fender and the complete front grill pieces and severely bent the inner right fender lining. Fortunately the E9 has a strong shock support structure that was unharmed. It took me six months to source the body parts and I was fortunate to find the perfect body shop willing to take on the repairs. Tom Kelly and his son Zack at Precision Motorsports in Milford Mass did a magnificent job which was quite complicated. They have specialized in repairing race cars for 30 years and both of them race BMW M3s in SCCA competition.
My car has flared fiberglass fenders that are attached to the steel OEM fenders. I needed to find a replacement steel fender and complete steel front grill members and then have a replacement fiberglass fender made. I visited Mario at VSR1 in New Hampshire and he was extremely helpful with advice and an offer to purchase the front grill parts in Germany for me and provide illustrations of how the repair would be done. He informed me that BMW had ceased making most body parts for E9s years ago. The body molds were sold to a Polish company which went bankrupt. During my six month search, I discovered on Ebay someone in Long Island that was parting out three E9 sedans and I purchased two sets of front and rear fenders and a front grill structure and had them sand blasted and zinc treated for rust prevention. I then contacted the Coupe Guy in Colorado who is one of the few sources for fiberglass CSL Group 2 body parts and had him build two sets pf front and rear flared fenders and front spoilers. The repair took several months and the results are amazing as you can see in the pictures I have posted earlier. Owning an E9 BMW is a goal for many BMW club members, but
I advise anyone considering this purchase to be totally aware of the problems associated with this particular BMW model before paying the very inflated price for these beautiful cars.
 
My son and I have decided on our race schedule for the CSL for 2023. The first event will be with GRIDLIFE at Watkins Glen April 28-30. June 2-3 will be the Empire Club
track weekend at Lime Rock, followed by Watkins Glen with SCDA on July 10-11. We will return to Lime Rock on August 18-19 for the GRIDLIFE time trials which we competed in last summer. We have decided to drive the CSL out to Road America on September 29-30 for the BMW Club Octoberfest event. We had to cancel this last year due to COVID and the BMW Club was kind enough to offer us a credit towards this years event. With the M88 engine totally rebuilt and with a close ratio gearbox and dual master cylinder brake system, the CSL should perform close to how the factory CSLs did in the US in 1975 at Sebring and Watkins Glen.
 
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