German tuners Manhart Racing got tired of BMW not offering the M3 as a Touring model (wagon,) so they decided to create one themselves. They took the standard 3-series wagon (not available in the States,) and added their own body work, consisting of a front apron, front side panels, side skirts, and the “powerdome” hood from the M3 sedan, then designed their own M3-style rear apron and widened the rear wheel-arches.

Naturally, the standard 4.0-liter, 420 horsepower V8 engine wasn’t good enough, so they upgraded it to the 5.0-liter powerplant from the M5 that produces 500 hp. Still not satisfied, Manhart tuned the ECU and exhaust so the V10 would produce an impressive 550 hp. That power is kept in check by a 7-speed SMG gearbox, also taken from the M5. Continue Reading…

Manhart Racing, yet another German tuning firm, found that the current iteration of BMW’s M3 just wasn’t good enough, so they decided to upgrade it. OK, fair enough. That’s what tuning firms are there to do, but to the guys at Manhart Racing the concept of “enough” meant cramming a 5 liter V10 into the M3.

If German tuning firms keep going at this rate, by sometime in 2012, we’ll see the biggest AMG blown V12 crammed into a VW Polo.

Manhart calls their BMW M3 E92 5.0 V10 SMG a “Porsche Chaser”, and just reading over the press release I think that might be a bit of an understatement. The existing M3 is anything but underpowered nor is it underperforming. The M3 is, however, not really the sort of car that you could run with a Porsche 997 Turbo, even if the current M3 has a 420-HP-V8 under the hood.

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“These crazy bastards dropped a V10 into the Z4. Nice.” That’s what head Automoblog dude Christopher said to me in an email moments ago. Yeah, nice AND crazy all at the same time. Our kind of people these folks from Manhart. I (and I’m assuming Chris) love people that do things like this; V12s into Miatas, mid-engine Mini Cooper conversions, that sort of thing.

Of course, putting an aircraft engine in a 50s vintage car is one thing, doing an engine swap in a modern car, with all the electronics and whatnot, is a bigger deal.

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