🏎️ Max Finds A Car Shaped Like A Clown Shoe???

GM. This is MaxFindsCars, the March Madness of automotive newsletters; you’re always excited for it to arrive but you’re going to have less money in your account because of it in the end

…assuming you all are buying these cars I am so kindly hand delivering to each of your mailboxes?

Since my bracket was busted after the first game, I’m back scouring the auctions for the most interesting cars on the internet,

and gang we caught ANOTHER weird ass BMW,

the (in)famous ‘Clown Shoe’ 1999 BMW Z3 M Coupe

• 🌏️ Driven around the world: 3.7x

• 🧓 Generation: Zoomer

• 🏇 Can beat 240 horses in a fight

• 💰️ Predicted Price: $29,999

• 📆 Auction Ends: Friday, March 17th, 2023

Hopefully you can tell why its nicknamed the “Clown Shoe”.

If you can’t, wipe the schmutz out of your eyes and look again!

It is the side profile, dear readers. The side profile is shaped like a clown shoe.

We car folk are a simple breed!

I’ve been looking at these things for years trying to figure out exactly WHY it looks a bit off

Maybe the way the hood bulges out slightly, but then the lines on the door and side glass curve down in the opposite direction 🤷 

In any case, IMO it is one of the most awkwardly shaped cars ever developed,

and the story of how it got that weird shape is a big part of what makes the Z3 M Coupe so cool!

So, HOW DID BMW decide on this weird ass shape?

Well! Following the trend set by the Isetta, this Frankenstein of a car started to come together when some German guys decided to roll a base Z3 into a basement…

The difference this time, however, is that the basement was in the BMW Research Center in Munich, and the Germans in question were (as you probably guessed given they were inside the BMW R&D building) but four BMW engineers, led by an OG named Burkhard Goeschel.

Why tf do I need to know Burkhard Goeschel?

Burkhard has been engineering shit (good shit, mostly) since the 60s, and got involved with BMW in the 70s. He led the division that created the base Z3, developed the BMW E46 M3 CSL (which go for like… INSANE MONEY now), and was HEAVILY involved with BMW’s F1 team for a number of years.

Since I’m mentioning BMW F1, and I also just stumbled upon an absolutely WILD wikipedia blurb, this is a GREAT time to mention Nelson Piquet (who won the F1 driver’s championship with a BMW-powered Brabham in 1983). I bring up Nelson exclusively because he apparently has a storied history of insulting everyone around him and being a total dick. Check out this piece from his Wikipedia:

ANYWAYS

I digress,

so this five man team with Burkhard at the helm rolled the dinky little Z3 into the basement

“How did they get it down the stairs?”

No goddamn clue.

And more importantly they didn’t even have permission or funding to be working on this project. They were working on it in SECRET.

They just decided the Z3 should be better, so on nights and weekends the crew started sticking a bunch of foam bits on the convertible to try to figure out how to make this sucker more stiff and thus more quick on the fun twisty boi roads.

It may not, because of how damn weird this sucker looks), surprise that this rag tag crew DID NOT include a designer. They were doing what all engineers want to have the freedom to do: let form follow function.

And to make it functional, what they ended up doing was literally just weld a damn roof to the thing, make it nearly 2 inches wider, stick a glorious BMW E36 M3 inline-6 engine under the hood

and the end result is the funky clown shoe vibe.

The technical term for the clown shoe vibe (which I’m sure you’re ALL just itching to know) is SHOOTING BRAKE.

Why tf is it called Shooting Brake?

THIS is the OG shooting brake. Idk when its from. Let’s say 1880. Basically its a carriage with a long seating & cargo area used for transporting you & all your hunting homies, guns, and the animal kills you hopefully collected throughout your big day!

It doesn’t REALLY look very similar to the Z3 M coupe, so I’m not sure why it was adopted as the name in car design…

but given the clown shoe shape, and design heritage based around packing a gaggle of weirdos, is the Z3 M Coupe the PERFECT clown car?

My theory:

Yes.

In the end, Burkhard & Crew took their project out of hiding and presented the Z3 M Coupe to the BMW Board and it was POLARIZING.

Conversations in the room about this Frankenstein’s Monster were literally:

german accent

"Is zis cah too ugly to sell?”

and answers were SPLIT.

Apparently it came down to an Italian designer saying

romantic italian accent

“You cannot understand the M Coupe with your brain. It is something you have to grasp with your heart.”

Which, strangely (because this car was built exclusively with brains over looks in mind), convinced everyone to pull the trigger on production.

I for one am very happy they did, weird cars like this existing in the world keep me alive.

The purpose of this car was not to look beautiful, it was to drive beautifully, and it IS beautiful as a result.

So many modern cars are built simply to fill a market gap or compete with another automaker, and that makes sense. The Z3 M Coupe was created despite there being… effectively… ZERO market for it, without the permission of any corporate big wigs, and without any thought of what exactly it was competing with.

It was a passion project by some of the best engineers in the world, and that makes it special.

So, dear readers,

Does you or someone you love have aspirations to be a clown?

Do they like their clown cars to have a PHAT ass?

Buy this special, beautiful car.

(and then sell it to me for a steep discount, maybe I’ll trade you my wife’s Chevy Cruze for it)

That's a wrap for today. New Editions come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday! While you wait, go out and drive! And if you want more, be sure to follow Max’s Twitter (@maxjzin)

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