Behind the Lens: Meeting your heroes
This story brought to you by Cam Dawes
I’m an E36 kid from way back, when I was 16 my parents gave me $3,000 to buy my first car. I found a black over tan, 5 speed manual, E36 323i Sedan (Later named Frankenstein). I still own Frankenstein (now with a 2.8L motor), and although I haven't been behind the wheel for years, and it’s now painted white over no interior at all, I haven't lost any love for the E36 chassis.
Seeing an E36 M3R come up in the bookings piqued my interest more than maybe any car I have ever seen in our system. It’s far from the most expensive, fastest or most sought after car I have ever photographed (all three of those awards go to a Porsche 956), but this is the ultimate version of MY CAR. If you aren’t a BMW enthusiast, or even if you aren’t an Australian BMW enthusiast, you may not be aware of the M3R. This is the highest performance E36 produced by BMW, they only made 15, and they were only sold in Australia.
The car was developed by Queensland’s Frank Gardner Racing in order to fulfil the homologation requirements of the Australian GT Production Car Series. The four M3R race cars wouldn’t succeed in their mission on the track, but the eleven cars sold to Australian enthusiasts became legendary as the fastest and most hardcore of all E36 road cars. In 1994 you couldn't even purchase an M3R if you didn’t have a CAMS racing licence (this may have been overkill).
Okay, so what did Frank Gardener do to make the M3R stand out from the E36 Line up? Firstly he ordered them from BMW in the lightest form he could, no A/C, no radio (although some owners optioned these back in). To improve power, Schrick cams replaced the factory parts, the exhaust side of the head ported, the airbox was re-designed, and the ECU was tuned to accommodate the changes. This resulted in the 3.0L S50 producing 240Kw, 4Kw more than the later 3.2L S50 produced by BMW.
To counter the engine’s extra power, the M3R was given larger AP Racing Brakes and revised suspension. Some of the M3R’s desirability comes from the fact that it was delivered with many of the most sought after parts in the E36 catalogue. Parts that E36 owners worldwide replicate or overpay for, like the M3 GT wing and front splitter, 3 piece BBS wheels and the Iconic ‘M-Rain’ upholstery. This example has also had the decals from the M3 Lightweight applied.
To say I was excited to drive and shoot this car was an understatement. I picked the car up from the owner in Cremorne, ready for the short drive over to the location in Prahran. At idle, the car makes a low smooth tone, not giving away its motorsport roots. This example has had a Supersprint exhaust fitted, which means that as I pressed the rightmost pedal, and opened up all six throttle bodies, it produced the exact raspy, even roar that BMW motorsport motors are known for. It sounds as M as an M car can.
Despite it being the rarest and fastest of E36 Road cars, it’s still an E36. It can’t avoid at least some of the E36 character flaws, the shifter is loose and vague, the steering rack is too slow, and the door card doesnt want to be there. None of this matters though, I’m feeling what would happen if everything about my E36 was turned up to eleven.
I slip through the streets of Melbourne’s inner south in relative anonymity, even to a diehard E36 fan, the only giveaway that this is anything other than a standard car is the AP racing brakes peeking out from behind the BBS wheel centres. Frank Gardener didn’t feel the need to make this car shout it’s providence at you, no red brake callipers, no monster aero, not even bespoke badging.
I arrive at one of my favourite car photography locations in Melbourne, the carpark of a Woolworths in Prahran. It sounds humble, but is surrounded by beautiful old buildings and I have never seen a single car parked on the roof. After driving on a silly angle on and off all the ramps to avoid scraping the rare aero bits, I turn the car off and take a few steps away.
This is SO cool.
Shooting a white car is always fun, they stand out in almost any environment, and there is no concern of how your camera will interpret the colour in harsh light. When shooting for Trading Garage, we take a huge number of detailed photos to show the condition the car is in, so I settle into my rhythm, get the standard photoset out of the way, and now I am on to the fun stuff.
This car doesn’t present a challenge to photograph, there are so many iconic angles, and the car is so well presented that there are few bad views. The clear morning direct light creates deep shadows, but by angling the car so the top surface and one of the visible sides are lit, the harshness can be lessened.
This location has several different background options, all with a good amount of texture and warmth. After several laps of the car, I move it to the ramp, which has several options for framing the car with the curved concrete of the parking structure. These are my favourite shots of the car, and I even swapped my trusty 50mm lens out for a 24-105mm, to get a wider view and include more of the interesting shapes of the ramp area.
As the light was so direct, most wide shots of the interior included bright highlights and very deep shadows, most of the interior shots I took were therefore of well-lit detail areas.
I didn’t want to give the car back, but it is unlikely I will be allowed to continue shooting cars for these clients if I don’t. The S50 woke up once more, and dragged a melancholy photographer back to Cremorne.
Once home, the photos didn’t require a huge amount of work. Once my general preset of lens corrections and shadow balancing was applied, all that was needed was to adjust the warmth and exposure to replicate the glow that the day had provided that morning.
Now I need to figure out how to make my $3,000 E36 drive like this E36 worth fifty times more.
