The BMW 3.0 CSL Lothar/8 Mystery Car
This car has had me going down a rabbit hole trying to find out if it even exists. What I mean by that is there is no documentation that this race car ever raced or was even really built. Jean Pierre Beltoise is written in the window, and he was a famous French race driver. But this specific car Lothar/8 is not the one he won the championship in as far as I can tell.
Above are the only “real” pics of the car I could find based on the livery. The only other matches I could find after a lot of digging are of a model car:
1976 BMW CSL Championne Production. As far as I can tell it was a model car from the 70s sold in France.
When I saw this I got hopeful that it must have been based off a real car, possibly one that won a championship in 1976. So I looked into all the leagues that were around back then and there were CSL BMW race cars but none that matched the livery.
I knew that I had seen this car before though and then it hit me.
1977 “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo”
So after scanning through all the race scenes I grabbed a couple screenshots of the mysterious Lothar/8 BMW. This one sports the number “8” where as the toy model was “20”.
Since this movie took place in Monte Carlo it is possible that the production company was just paying homage to a popular model car that was a tribute car? Although it is definitely not in many scenes and was not one of the main cars in the movie.
So now I have no idea what to think, the “real” photos of the car at the top of this post have no numbers on it making this even harder to solve.
If anyone has any insights to this phantom car I’d really like to solve this it’s driving my ocd mad. (Pun intended)
To be clear I’m trying to find out if this specific car with the livery Lothar/8 was ever a real race car or just a model tribute.
Thank you!
- Rad Racer
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BMW 3.0 CSL
German automaker has unveiled a special 3.0 CSL model as a tribute to its race cars from the 1970s.
It will be limited to exactly 50 units to mark BMW’s 50th anniversary, the production of all the vehicles will take approximately 3 months and each vehicle will be created in an elaborate manufacturing process at the external location of BMW Group Dingolfing plant in Moosthenning, Lower Bavaria.
The exclusive interior carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) components will be produced by hand at the BMW Group component factory in Munich.
For the paintwork of the new BMW 3.0 CSL, a specific process was conceived, craftsmanship and high-technology was combined to provide each individual part with its characteristic colour design, a team of 30 qualified technicians worked on the vehicles and each model took upto 10 days to complete.
The racing version of the historic BMW 3.0 CSL won the European Touring Car Championship during its inaugural season in 1973 and repeated this title win five more times in succession from 1975 to 1979. The road version of the racing car was developed for homologation purposes and became a widely known symbol for inspiring driving pleasure.
The BMW 3.0 CSL is powered by the most powerful straight six-cylinder engine with direct injection ever used in a BMW model, the engine produces a maximum output power of 206 hp, the powerful drive system was combined with refined suspension technology and its unladen weight was just 1270 kgs.
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BMW 3.0 CSL Group 2
Image by Stefano Bozzetti || IG
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BMW 3.0 CSL | BMW Group Classic
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