New Zealand Classic Car – September 2019

FEATURE (^) Historic Touring Cars
I
t’s an incident that, thanks to the all-seeing
eye of the television camera, has become
part of Australasian folklore: the day that
Tony Longhurst jumped out of his distinctive
yellow BMW E36 318i super tourer and
threw three solid punches through the open
driver’s window of teammate Paul Morris’
similar car (you can check it out for yourself
on YouTube at youtu.be/xJ9Bqmzax4U)
after a wheel-tangling clash at the Winton
round of the Australian Class II Touring Car
Championship back in 1994.
Longhurst would go on to win the
1994 championship title in the genuine
BMW Motorsport–built, former Team Bigazzi
E36/A 053 93 car now owned by Christchurch
businessman Lindsay O’Donnell and driven
in the local Historic Touring Cars series by his
son Matthew.
Like most of the other Group A, Group C,
and Super Touring models running in the
series, the car has a fascinating competition
history that started in 1993 in the Italian
Super Touring Championship (the
Campionato Italiano Superturismo) and also
took part in the season-ending FIA Touring
Car Cup Challenge at Monza that year.
The E36 318i was very much the car
to beat at the time, with German ace
Joachim Winkelhock leading home
BMW Motorsport teammate Steve Soper
to win the 1993 British Touring Car
Championship (BTCC) and Venetian
Roberto Ravaglia reclaiming the Italian
Superturismo title that he had won twice
before in an E30 M3, behind the wheel of a
CiBiEmme Engineering–run E36 318i that
same year.
Having driven one himself in the inaugural
FIA Touring Car Challenge event at Monza in
Italy in October 1993, where he finished 22nd
overall, Tony Longhurst obviously knew how
good a 318i was, so it should come as no surprise
that, despite being disqualified from the round
at Winton for his fisticuffs with teammate
Paul Morris, he added his own name and the
1994 Australian Manufacturers’ Championship
title to the model’s period provenance.
Before onselling the championship-
winning car to young gun Steven Ellery at
the end of the year, Longhurst also entered
John Blanchard and Warwick Rooklyn in it in
the 1994 Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst, where, in
a mixed field of V8 Falcons and Commodores
and two-litre super tourers, it came in 12th,
and was also the third two-litre car home.
After updating the bodywork to 1995
spec, Steven Ellery ran the car in his family
company’s Chelgrave Contracting yellow
and red colours in the 1995 Australian Super
Touring Championship, finishing sixth.
Later that year, Ellery sold the E36 to
Cameron McLean, in time for the latter to run
it in the Clipsal Super Touring Car Trophy
support races at the season-ending Australian
Formula 1 Grand Prix meeting in Adelaide,
where he finished eighth in the first race but
failed to finish the second.
McLean gave the car a sequential gearbox
and ran it in his — again yellow-based —
Greenfield Mowers colours in the 1996
Australian Super Touring Championship,
finishing ninth.
With McLean upgrading to a later model
Holden (Opel) Vectra for the 1997 season,
the E36 was sold to Aussie Jim Cornish
and Australia-based Kiwi Nigel Barclay,
who teamed up with Christchurch driver
BMW
E36 318i
BATTLE
WAGON
Words: Ross MacKay Photos: Richard Dimmock
A RACING BMW MADE
EVEN MORE FAMOUS
BY THE FIGHT IN ITS
DRIVER
58 New Zealand Classic Car | themotorhood.com