You'd think that getting your heart snatched right out of your chest once would be enough, but this BMW 335i is seemingly relentless—and not in a good way. We have reason to believe that it is the same F30 BMW 335i that got smashed to bits back in March while racing against another Shelby GT350.
If it’s not the same car, then at least the mods are identical, and our conclusion pretty much final. The Shelby GT350 is too powerful for a 335i running this particular bolt-on setup, but let’s consider their stock figures first.
The German sports sedan is animated by a 3.0-liter inline-six engine (the N55B30M0 to be specific), producing 302 hp (306 PS) and 300 lb-ft (407 Nm) of torque when stock. All that grunt can be channeled to either the rear wheels or all four wheels via an eight-speed ZF automatic gearbox—a little bit of an advantage over the Mustang in terms of shift speed.
In this particular case, the Bimmer also comes with bolt-on modifications (downpipes and a 93 tune), but we don’t have a final output figure for you. Knowing exactly what it brought to play with would have been nice.
As for the GT350, we all know it uses a 5.2-liter flat-plane crank V8 with 526 hp (533 PS) and 429 lb-ft (582 Nm) of torque, mated to a lightweight Tremec TR-3160 six-speed manual gearbox. Compared to a regular Mustang GT, the Shelby variant also features a track-focused chassis with upgraded brakes and an upgraded suspension.
On top of all that, this car gets an E85 tune with cat delete, so it’s got even more pulling power to throw at the BMW, which is desperately short on torque.
In the end, this wasn’t even close, so let’s hope there won’t be a third race between the two because it would be rather redundant.
Sergiu got to experience both American and European car "scenes" at an early age (his father drove a Ford Fiesta XR2 supermini in the 80s). After spending over 15 years at local and international auto publications, he's starting to appreciate comfort behind the wheel more than raw power and acceleration. Full profile
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