Written by Oleksandr Lugovyi, instagram: @oleks_lugovyi
The year is 2005, I was merely a simple-minded 10-year-old learning maths and playing tag, although a historic event took place. Need for Speed released yet another latest game release, the year prior NFS Underground 2 came out and it was a masterpiece, therefore the expectations were high and oh did it beat expectations. Need for Speed Most Wanted 2005 went on to become a racing game legend, one where even to this day no other racing game has provided such an immersive experience and developed the attachment to such a car that came with it.
A quick summary of the game is you climb up the blacklist of 15 notorious street racers, and Razor a new racer to the block cheats and tampers with your BMW M3 GTR without the protagonist knowing. The final race endures, and you are beating Razor by a landslide when suddenly your BMW develops an oil leak and its engine breaks causing Razor to not only beat you but also take away your beloved pride and joy, the M3 GTR. All the hard work you spent building up your reputation with your car for only some lowlife scoundrel to take it all away from you and use your car to climb the blacklist and become first. We are forced to start from the very bottom and grind our way to the top, beating every single blacklist racer for the penultimate showdown between Razor, in your M3, and you going head-to-head for one last battle. This time round you beat Razor, and you get your car back, but celebrations are premature as the entire police department is after you. You spend what feels like an eternity getting away from the cops reunited as one with your truly beloved, the M3, man and machine working together. The game ends with you jumping over a partially finished bridge and you make your dramatic escape.
As a ten-year-old the BMW M3 GTR wasn’t just a car, it was a love story, you hustle and grind staying up late defeating everything that gets in your way with the sole purpose of getting back what rightfully belongs to you. Over the years Need for Speed added the M3 GTR to their latest releases and it was like reuniting with an old friend, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one, but the BMW M3 GTR is what planted the seed and fuelled my passion for all things cars. It was the first time I looked at a piece of automotive engineering and developed an anthropomorphic attachment.
The thing is though the BMW M3 GTR wasn’t just a fictional car, it was also a real-life racing car, unlike the E46 M3 released at the time which had a 3-litre straight six engine the M3 GTR had a 4.0 litre V8 that produced 493 bhp and 480 Nm of torque. Performance specs were also just as impressive, 0-62 mph was achieved in 3.2 seconds and went onto a top speed of 200 mph. Back in 2005 very few vehicles could achieve this, the Porsche Carrera GT is merely one example that could achieve this but in a coupe that could accomplish this level of performance was just unholy. Now, the engine, the history and the attachment weren’t the only things that made this car such an icon. Its gearbox, more specifically the noise it made is what made driving it so rewarding, the thing with racing cars is the racing gearboxes are made via a method called straight-cut gears the engineering behind this “straight-cut gears effectively allows much larger powertrains to be placed in a vehicle without risking the output shafts and other bearings tearing themselves apart, producing a larger safety factor within the transmission itself” ~ Car Throttle. The mechanical noises and sounds that the car produced made it seem alive, it had a personality and an attitude it was human. You developed a relationship and an attachment with the car as you worked together winning races, beating milestones and setting new records.
Alongside the technical and engineering features the silver and blue paint job and body kit that came with it offered a sense of excitement and rush, and only coming equipped with a single seat, a roll cage and menacing looks you knew the car was built and destined for one thing… racing. As the years went by no other fictional racing game car made such an impact as the BMW M3 GTR has, we were merely kids when we met the car on our consoles. As we grew up into adults a lot of us have developed a soft spot and an attachment with the legendary and iconic BMW M3 GTR.
Sources:
https://bmw1.fandom.com/wiki/M3_GTR
https://www.carthrottle.com/news/advantages-and-disadvantages-straight-cut-gears
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