Five cars that use BMW engines
Monday, 16 March 2020
While the Toyota Supra might be the latest and most obvious use of a BMW engine in another brand's car (okay, so the Supra uses a LOT more BMW than just the engine…), there is a long history of other people using BMW engines. After all, they are damn good.
We might all know about the McLaren F1, various Morgans and, um, every Rolls-Royce (BMW do own Rolls after all…), but today we take a look at five cars that used BMW engines that you probably didn't know about.
Bertone Freeclimber
Let's just start with possibly the best one - a Daihatsu Feroza/Rocky with additional styling by the same company that did the Lamborghini Miura and packing a choice of either a 2.4-litre BMW turbo diesel, or 2.0-litre and 2.7-litre BMW petrol engines.
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The Freeclimber was built between 1989 and 1992 and was marketed as a 'high-end luxury car', albeit one that looked rather like a Daihatsu and it was popular in Italy and France, as it handily circumvented quotas imposed on Japanese imports at the time.
There was also a Freeclimber II that was based on the smaller japanese domestic market F300 Rocky that packed the 1.6-litre BMW M40 petrol engine.
Wiesmann GT MF5
It wasn't just the mad Wiesmann GT MF5 from 2009 that used a BMW engine - every Wiesmann did.
Starting with German company's first car - the MF30 from 1993 - that packed a BMW 3.0-litre straight six - right up to the GT MF4 of 2003 that jammed the burly BMW N64 4.4-litre turbo V8 under its bonnet.
But the GT MF5 was the ultimate expression of this BMW engine usage - and the height of madness too - after all, it was a car that weighed 1,400kg and yet had the ferocious S85 5.0-litre V10 from the M5 jammed into it. Terrifying wouldn't begin to describe it, really. And awesome.
Lincoln Continental MKVII
Yep, you're reading that right - the Lincoln Continental Mark VII that debuted in 1983 had a BMW engine. Yes, really.
Alongside the 5.0-litre petrol V8 it shared with the Ford Mustang, the Mark VII was available with BMW's M21 2.4-litre inline six-cylinder turbo diesel engine. Yep, you read that right too - a diesel Lincoln Continental.
After the 1970's fuel crisis, American manufacturers were pretty much trying anything to curtail their flagrant fuel-slurping ways, which even led to Ford reaching out to BMW for a supply of diesel engines for its luxury brand. Needless to say, it wasn't popular and was quietly dropped at the 1986 update.
De Tomaso Guara
The awkwardly-proportioned Guara was based on the Maserati Barchetta racing car (which was built at the De Tomaso factory in Modena) and was planned to be a Maserati, but after Alejandro de Tomaso sold his controlling stake in Maserati to Fiat, that didn't happen.
What did happen was De Tomaso's first sports car since the Pantera's introduction in 1971. Except the Pantera was still actually on sale in 1993 when the Guara was introduced, so it was finally retired in favour of the aluminium-backboned, carbon-fibre-bodied, mid-engined Guara powered by the M60 V8 from the 840Ci, until it was swapped out for a heavier 4.6-litre supercharged Ford engine later in the Guara's life.
UMM Alter II
While the company that built it had a name that sounded like an awkward pause, the Alter II was actually a rather popular thing. Mainly among paramilitary organisations in the Iberian peninsula, France, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But, hey - you take sales where you can get 'em.
The Alter II was Portuguese company Uniāo Metalo-Mecânica's (that's what UMM stands for) attempt at a Land Rover - more or less - and was powered by a choice of two BMW turbo diesel engines or the straight six from the E34 525i.
That's right, the E34 BMW 5 Series from 1987: the Alter II was actually built between 1987 and 1994 - bet you thought you were looking at something straight from the 1970s, huh?