It was the magazines crammed full of photos of the Cologne Capris doing battle with the 3.0 CSL BMWs and Porsches that fired his imagination
The Group 5 class of saloon car racing gave birth to legends, including one of the most iconic cars in endurance racing: the BMW 3.0 CSL, better known as ‘The Batmobile’.
Jonathan Hogg was a teenager growing up in England in the ’70s when the Group 5 legends were torturing the tarmac of European race circuits. Without regular TV coverage it was the magazines crammed full of photos of the Cologne Capris doing battle with the 3.0 CSL BMWs and Porsches that fired his imagination. While memories typically fade, the Group 5 Special Production Cars category, which ran from 1976 to 1982, remained vividly etched in his mind and ultimately resulted in the beautiful tribute car you see before you.
DAYDREAMING
Jonathan’s first face-to-face meeting with this CSL occurred in 2010 at the Hampton Down BMW Festival, where the car was sitting under a ‘for sale’ sign. The asking price was appropriately spicy, placing it beyond his means at the time but, completely for free, it sparked up his memories and refuelled his daydreaming neurons. At the time, Jonathan was building a Saker but, after completing the build and getting it out on track, it proved
