– Words: Devin Yaltirakli. Photos: William Stern.
Imagine for a second that you’re a lively man in the prime of your life, your mid 20s. You know that money won’t buy taste, and you’ve watched your peers throw their hard-earned away and make some catastrophically bad decisions in the hunt for life experience. But you’re better than that, and you’re keen to prove a point. Allow me to introduce you to Omar Murray, Active Autowerke and this undeniably gorgeous supercharged M3.
Now take it a step further and imagine you are not only a car enthusiast, but so passionately in love with one specific brand that you dedicate your working life to improving, accentuating and building on that marque in insane ways with the likes of a highly revered Miami based supertuner workshop not dissimilar to Rauh-Welt Begriff or Hennessey.
Finally, imagine that you wish to build a project car that incorporates and displays your ethos as an individual & a car enthusiast, and you had a limitless supply of resources and connections to help you do so. Sound like a plan you want to undertake?
This matte grey beauty was built with the absolute best in mind. Grab a few boxes of tissues if you call yourself a brand whore because you’ll be salivating so hard you might just make your teeth fall out: Vorsteiner, StopTech, ADV.1, Lamborghini, Recaro, BMW Performance, HKS, KW and of course Active Autowerke themselves.
By no means is the standard M3 a mediocre attempt at a refined sports car – BMW have been in this game for long enough to create pure driving perfection – but any car enthusiast can attest to the fact that even the most faultless vehicle is but a base for their own masterpiece.
The modifications seek to improve on the M3 and make it the best and then some; if you ask me, as a man who already loves his European cars enough, they’ve achieved just that.
Vorsteiner’s product catalogue provided the GTS3 front bumper with twin carbon fibre front splitters, a GTS3 vented bonnet with carbon fibre vents and a carbon fibre bootlid & diffuser in the rear to complete the outfit.
So much bare carbon fibre was once unheard of on European cars and would otherwise be deemed sacrilegious, but on a race oriented monster it looks right at home and is just the beginning to what could possibly be the ultimate version of the Ultimate Driving Machine.
A six-piston front and four-piston rear StopTech big brake kit helps keep stopping power in check…
… and is presented behind a beautifully crafted set of ADV.1 5.0 Trackspec wheels in 20×9.5 and 20×11 inch sizing. Wrapped in super grippy Nitto tyres and sitting nicely on KW Clubsport infinitely-adjustable coilovers, it creates a package Ron Jeremy himself would blush at… if the modifications ended there.
It’d be a terrific waste of talent to spend precious hours on the required R&D to create forced induction kits which can easily generate tyre-frying power with the twitch of a big toe, and not to use them on your very own project car.
How does 640hp and 610Nm sound? This is where Active Autowerke’s expertise comes in handy, providing a Level 2 E9X M3 supercharger kit and finished off with their own Black Edition race exhaust. AA also developed their own software for the factory ECU, which can be personalised and tailored to certain power deliveries or driving styles at a customer’s request.
The kit consists of a front mount air to air intercooler, HKS GTS8550 compressor & methanol injection, and is available in various stages to suit whichever power needs you may have.
The inside is all business as well; again, the standard M3 interior is really not a bad place to find yourself in, but Active Autowerke had more ambitious ideas in mind.
Its stock steering wheel, gear knob and hand brake boot were replaced with alcantara items by BMW Performance, which can be compared to the likes of Nismo and Ralliart – in addition to BMW’s M Division, BMW Performance offers more race oriented options with guaranteed fitment, quality and of course… Performance.
The trio of STRI gauges in the lower centre console allow for monitoring of supercharger boost, coolant and engine oil temperatures just to make sure all levels are at bay, and add a wonderfully driver-focused element to the cockpit. A pair of Recaro Profi XL fixed-back seats now reside in the front…
with the rear bench occupied by a six point roll cage painted in that very same curious lime green tone as the calipers, intake plenum and finally, its sister car.
That sister car is piloted by Joe LaPadula, owner of Martino Auto Concepts, a high-end vehicle collision repair and restyling shop. Joe and Omar came together a year before these two projects were undertaken and decided to work with each other to create the individual artworks you now have in front of you. The daringly bold colours these twins are painted in? Lamborghini Reventon matte grey and Aventador Verde Ithaca pearl green, no less.
As far as initial impact alone goes, Active Autowerke are quite fond of loud cars, in both the aural and visual senses of the word. They consistently produce the highest quality of products for their customers; a theory proven right with the amount of successful demo cars using their very own parts.
Their workshop consists of any BMW you can think of, each in various stages of modification or involved in planned research on bringing out their absolute best potential. The boys of Active Autowerke combine work & play in one tantalisingly good mixture, and this E92 is that super sweet cherry on top of it all.
SPECIFICATIONS:
VEHICLE:
– 2011 BMW E92 M3
ENGINE:
– 4.0L S65 V8
– Active Autowerke Level 2 Supercharger Kit
– Active Autowerke Signature X-pipe & Black Edition Exhaust
DRIVELINE:
– Standard six-speed manual
SUSPENSION & BRAKES:
– KW Clubsport coilovers
– StopTech Trophy BBK (six-piston front, four-piston rear), painted in Lamborghini Verde Ithaca
WHEELS & TYRES:
– ADV.1 5.0 Trackspec 20×9.5 F, 20×11 R
– Nitto Invo 255/30 F, 295/25 R
EXTERIOR:
– Lamborghini Reventon matte grey respray
– Vorsteiner GTS3 front bumper and vented bonnet
– Carbon rear diffuser and bootlid
INTERIOR:
– BMW Performance steering wheel, gear knob & handbrake boot
– Recaro Profi XL seats front – Standard seats rear
– AE Performance roll cage, painted in Lamborghini Verde Ithaca
– Active Autowerke S1 short shift kit
– STRI 3x Gauge package (boost, coolant- and oil-temperature)