If there's one thing we find ourselves fawning over around here, it isn't the umpteenth Coyote or LS swap we've seen this week. It's the oddball engine swaps between a rolling chassis and a drive train that we haven't seen literally hundreds of times this week alone. That's why we have to give an especially British shoutout to Paul Foster on Instagram: we've definitely never seen what he's cooked up before.
It took ten long arduous years of steady work and toil on Mr. Foster's part to get this 1982 BMW E21 3-Series in the condition it is today. On first looks alone, his creation sure looks the part of a proper early-80s German touring car or even a Group 5 World Championship racer. BMW did, in fact, field specially-tuned E21s in Group 5 competition for a time in the late 1970s through the early 80s. So the comparison isn't all that far-fetched. But genuine Group 5 racing Bimmers hit circuits with in-house-tuned Formula 2 engines. That's something you can't say about what Paul Foster came up with, given a decade of development.
Gone is whichever of the two four and six-cylinder engines the E21 would've left the factory sporting 42 years ago. Instead, Paul took a tried-and-true 5.4-liter Rover V8 found in everything from Range Rovers to TVRs and more boutique British sports cars than you could shake a stick at and shoved it in the engine bay of this German coupe. To you purists out there, let this be your kryptonite. But this isn't just an engine ripped out of an old jalopy and slapped together with all the care of a late-night booze cruise.
Some added trinkets are bolted onto this all-time classic British V8; never mind, it started out life as an American Buick engine. We're talking about a set of Suzuki GSX-R1000 K2 throttle bodies as if to add another country to this international Frankenstein. A set of custom equal-length headers gives a unique and special exhaust sound to what's largely accepted as a burly, brutish-sounding engine. Power is fed to a Cosworth T5 WC five-speed manual transmission specially tuned for high-performance and racing applications; it makes for a drivetrain so unique; it's astonishing that it came from the mind of just one man.
With GAZ coilover suspension and drilled and slotted brake rotors at all four corners, this true-to-form racing car is likely just as potent as genuine racers from the same lineage as this E21 3-Series. The extra bits of aggressive aero, flared wheel arches, color-matched roll cage, and the racing interior are just extra British gravy on top. Congratulations to Paul Foster on completing what's one of the most unique restomods we've seen this year.
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