BMW NA Celebrates 40th Anniversary of First US Race Win

This weekend BMW of North America will kick off 40^th Anniversary celebrations for two key events in their history at the 20^th annual Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. Forty years ago, BMW of North America transitioned from using an importer, to operating as a subsidiary of BMW AG and distributing the cars themselves to dealers across the nation. Just a few days later, BMW Motorsport scored its first US victory at the 1975 12 Hours of Sebring.

BMW of North America will start the celebration at “Cars & Coffee at the Concours” this Saturday, March 14. They will unveil the special BMW 3.0 CSL-inspired livery for the current Z4 GTLM race cars (which we correctly predicted) that will race next weekend in the 63rd Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

Long time BMW factory driver Bill Auberlen and 1975 12 Hours of Sebring winners Brian Redman, Sam Posey, and Hans Stuck will be there for the unveiling. Also on-hand will be original BMW Motorsport Director Jochen Neerpasch. Amazingly, BMW was also able to round up the complete BMW Motorsport crew from the 1975 IMSA Camel GT effort!

If you want to see the new liveried cars attempt to repeat that historic 1975 victory, you can join us in the BMW CCA Car Corral.—Nate Risch