6 Cars Made Especifically for Homologation Requirements - A #blogpost by Mark One

In the world of motorsport, one can’t just make a race car with a new engine and design, as there are rules preventing you from doing that. Car makers usually use cars based off something you can buy, but some take a more extreme approach and create a handful of cars just for racing to pass Homologation Requirements. This is how we got some of the best and most exotic cars in the whole world. Today, i’ll show you some of the most radical and crazy cars made just to pass homologation requirements.

BMW M3 E46 GTR

Ahh, the M3 GTR. My favorite car of all time. In 1998, the all-new BMW 3 Series, codenamed the E46, was introduced. Two years later, in 2000, a new BMW M3 arrived built on the E46 platform. The M3 was powered by a newly developed 3.2-liter DOHC inline-6 that produced 338 HP. This M3 was quickly transformed into a race car, just in time to contest in the first round of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS). Rivals such as Porsche pointed out that the 2001 M3 GTR was more of a prototype as its P60B40 V8 engine wasnt available in the road-going BMW E46, which is in violation of the spirit of Gran Turismo. In 2001, ALMS regulations stated that cars must be for sale on two continents within twelve months of the rules being issued. To fulfill this rule, BMW put 10 road going GTRs on sale after the 2001 season, for €250,000 each. The street version of the new V-8 produced 375 HP, while the race car’s power was increased to 444 HP. The bumpers and spoilers were bigger than those of a normal M3 and made of carbon fiber. The hood was raised and a vent added to help cool the engine. This monster vehicle was completely different from a normal M3, and its AC Schnitzer-tuned powerplant helped make it a champion on numerous occasions.

NSX R GT

The NSX R GT is a celebration of everything NSX. The NSX-R GT was created by Honda solely to comply with the Super GT production-based race car homologation requirements. As JGTC rules required at least five production cars for any race car version to compete, the NSX-R GT was limited to a production run of only five cars.
The differences between the Second-Gen NSX-R and the NSX-R GT are not fully known. One clear difference is the addition of a functional snorkel attached to the roof of the car, which in the race car is for feeding outside air to an individual throttle body intake plenum (thank you Car Of Doom or whatever you identify yourself as). The NSX-R GT also has a lowered suspension and widened body. More aggressive aerodynamic components such as an extended front spoiler lip and large rear diffuser are used as well. It also is speculated that the NSX-R GT incorporates more weight savings over the NSX-R.

Dauer 962

The Dauer 962 Le Mans is a sports car based on the Porsche 962 racing car.
Shortly after Dauer Racing was closed, Jochen Dauer began work on converting a Porsche 962 so that it could be used by the public on the street. Dauer Sportwagen was created from the remnants of Dauer Racing, and conversion of Porsche 962 chassis #169 began. By the Frankfurt Auto Show of 1993, the first Dauer 962 Le Mans was completed and put on display. Porsche assisted in providing numerous customer parts that had been developed for the 962, as well as assistance in developing new parts necessary to make the 962 legal for the streets. Once the first car was completed, Porsche approached Dauer about converting the next two chassis to race cars once again, in an attempt to re-enter the 24 Hours of Le Mans under the new production-based grand tourer regulations, rather than the 962’s previous Group C class. Running the Dauer 962s under a different class allowed it to use a larger fuel tank and a larger air restrictor.

Nissan R390 GT1

The R390 was created primarily to satisfy homologation requirements for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which at the time specified that race vehicles must be based on general passenger cars. However, thanks to a loophole in the rules that gave any car the right to race as long as it satisfied the minimum safety equipment standards for driving on public roads, the R390 was able to compete.
Nismo began developing a prototype of the R390 GT1, named to follow in the tradition started in the 1960s with Nissan’s R380. The first decision for Nismo and TWR was the choice of engine. The previous Skyline GT-R LMs had used the trusted RB26DETT Inline-6 motor, but the design was old for a racing car, employing an iron block which added weight, and had a high center of gravity. Nismo instead chose to resurrect an engine from the Nissan R89C, a racing car from the Group C era. Thus the engine was upgraded and designated VRH35L, and would produce approximately 641 hp (478 kW) at 6800 rpm. For road going versions, the engine was detuned to 550 HP. Only two road-legal R390 production cars were built, both blue in color, with one road car ending up in storage at Nissan’s Zama, Kanagawa facility. The other was sold through an undisclosed auction to an unknown wealthy recipient and Nissan enthusiast, though said to be registered with British tags reading, “R390 NIS”.

Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution

The Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution, PajEvo for short, was built from ‘97 through ‘99 as a means of sneaking into the Dakar Rally’s production-based T2 class. The Dakar Rally is the toughest car (and bike) race in the world, and building a car for it is a serious task. It should come as no surprise that the PajEvo is a serious car. The Pajero Evolution came standard with a 3.5-liter 24-valve DOHC V6 with Mitsubishi Innovative Valve Timing and Electronic Lift Control (MIVEC). A new, dual plenum variable intake helped increase power and a new independent rear suspension made the ride even smoother. Mitsubishi built a total of 2500 Pajeros Evos.

Nissan Skyline GT-R LM Road Going Version

When Nismo decided to compete in the GT category of the famed 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995, the rules for the class stipulated that at least one road-worthy example must be built of a given model, thus a single, ultra-wide bodied Nismo GT-R LM was built and registered in the United Kingdom. Perhaps just as astounding, while the production Skyline GT-R had long featured all-wheel drive, this solo homologation special feature rear-wheel drive only, just like the Le Mans competition cars.
Apart from its outlandishly-styled exterior and reconfigured drive system, this road-going Nismo GT-R LM is surprisingly docile in just about every other area. The RB26DETT-designed engine produced 305 PS, on par with the standard production car unit; even the interior remained nearly unchanged. But the bodywork was a different story: All four fenders were widened by 50 mm to accommodate wider tires for improved grip, and hood vents and a wide-mouth front clip allowed for more efficient removal of hot air from the engine compartment.
As for the car’s competition brethren, the GT-R entered into the GT class of the 1995 and 1996 editions of the French endurance classic encountered mixed results, the 450-PS maiden effort finishing a respectable 5th in class, with the vastly more potent 630-PS car landing 10th in class the following year.

Conclusion

As you can see, car makers can go out of their way to participate in racing championships. Which one was your favorite?