What happens when the engine in your M3 gives up the ghost? For Jonathan and his father, this unfortunate event led up to one of the most interesting builds we’ve seen in the guise of a convertible coupe with a Maserati engine.
Cars.co.za spent a little time with the car and the owner, claiming that we’re looking at “the world’s only Ferrari-engined M3.” That may be an overstatement, and as you’re well aware, the V8 hiding under the hood is a free-breathing Ferrari design with a cross-plane crankshaft from a Maserati GranTurismo.
The retractable metal roof of the E93 was weld shut for more structural rigidity, the body was treated to a Pandem widebody kit from Japan, the rear wheels are now 19-inch 325s for the rear axle, and the custom exhaust features a reworked manifold that gets around the steering column. Oh, and this build also happens to feature a Maserati pressure plate for the six-speed manual transmission.
Jonathan and his father have extracted 220 kW at the rear wheels so far, with 250 kW possible thanks to software calibration. That’s 340 PS or 335 horsepower, which isn’t a lot by modern standards. The V8’s aural quality and the pops and bangs resulting from overrun more than make up for it, though.
The build further sweetens the deal with air suspension at all corners, and of course, a self-leveling system is also featured. In the future, the E93 will get individual throttle bodies and likely a pair of snails for ludicrous turbo lag.
“Impressed by how well it handles,” Ciro De Siena of Cars.co.za can’t help but wax lyrical about this Frankenstein of a car. Already in its third year of existence, the project is a work in progress that has yet to reach its potential.
As a brief refresher, the E93 as well as the coupe and sedan are powered by the S65 free-breathing V8 from the factory. The only M3 generation with M3 power was produced between 2007 and 2013 in a little under 66,000 units.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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