{"id":115851,"date":"2025-10-11T16:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T16:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/115851\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T16:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T16:54:09","slug":"at-562k-this-bmw-3-0csl-with-le-mans-and-spa-history-is-a-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/115851\/","title":{"rendered":"At $562K, This BMW 3.0CSL with Le Mans and Spa History Is a Winner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belgium isn\u2019t the first country you think of for \u2026 anything, really. The Belgians don\u2019t even get credit for French fries, even though they most likely invented them. And Belgium certainly isn\u2019t the first name in cars, even though this small kingdom with the sideways German flag has produced beautiful automobiles (Minerva), all-time great racing drivers (Jacky Ickx), and one of the world\u2019s most famous tracks (Spa-Francorchamps). This week, though, Belgium was in the automotive spotlight with the Zoute Grand Prix Car Week, a five-day motoring festival including a concours and two auctions in the small seaside resort town of Knokke-Heist. Among the stars of Broad Arrow\u2019s 75-car sale was a car that, despite the German beachball of BMW on its nose, was campaigned by Belgians to win that country\u2019s biggest race\u2014the 24 Hours of Spa. It sold for \u20ac478,000 ($561,507).<\/p>\n

BMW\u2019s E9 platform started out in 1968 as the 2800CS, an impossibly handsome coupe with clean proportions and unfussy lines. The 3.0CSL that eventually followed in 1972 was less dignified grand tourer and more homologation special, a lightened and more powerful Bimmer to take the E9 touring car racing. In 1973, BMW revised the package again, with even more power and an aero package that included an air dam, fins running down the front fenders, a roof spoiler, and a massive rear wing that earned the car the nickname of \u201cBatmobile.\u201d These CSLs brought BMW to the top step of the European Touring Car Championship every year from 1975 to 1979, and they won dozens more races on both sides of the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

\"\"Broad Arrow<\/p>\n

\"\"Broad Arrow<\/p>\n

\"\"Broad Arrow<\/p>\n

This one shipped new as a rolling shell to Brussels racer Jean-Marie D\u00e9trin, who had it prepped for the 1976 racing season. Its first big break came at Le Mans, where the CSL qualified way down in 54th out of 57 starters but then worked its way up through the field over the next 24 hours to finish 24th overall and first in the Group 2 category. A month later, the car tackled another grueling 24-hour race at Spa, and with an all-Belgian driver lineup of D\u00e9trin, Charles Van Stalle and Nico Demuth, it won the race. It also ran at Silverstone and Jarama, and then, under new ownership, it had a long second life competing in hill climbs in France. It was restored in the 2000s and has been an active historic racer since at events all over Europe.<\/p>\n

BMW built 1265 of its 3.0CSLs<\/a>, and the road cars come up for sale with some regularity. But given their rarity, race heritage, and good looks, they\u2019re among the priciest cars of the \u201970s today. Current values in our price guide put them at about a quarter-million dollars in #3 (good) condition, or $391,000 in #2 (excellent) condition. The actual competition cars, which gave the CSL its comic-book nickname and racy DNA, are a much scarcer sight at auction.<\/p>\n

This one sold at nearly the condition #1 (concours) value for a road car, no doubt thanks to its trophies from Le Mans and Spa, and it\u2019s the second-most expensive 3.0CSL we\u2019ve ever seen at auction. But half a million dollars still doesn\u2019t seem like such a bad deal given the serious history as well as all the races and concours events where this car would be welcomed with open arms. If a 911 came with this kind of r\u00e9sum\u00e9, it would sell for over a million.<\/p>\n

\"\"Broad Arrow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgium isn\u2019t the first country you think of for \u2026 anything, really. The Belgians don\u2019t even get credit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[74],"tags":[71265,18,19,17,82],"class_list":["post-115851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-broad-arrow","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}