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Originally Posted by Eau_Rouge111
I don't get why BMW even races the M6...deep down its a great touring car...not a race car...I don't get why they just don't race the M2 or M4...publicity would drive more sales from these two more affordable M cars.
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I think in order to meet the homologation rules (rules that state all parts of a car, think of it as an "as-built" bill of materials + sometimes production requirements to be allowed to compete) for FiA and such, they needed a production chassis that housed a v8 from the factory.
I believe that's why they switched to the Z4 GT3 race car after E90 M3 V8 (before E90 was E46 GTR v8) Homologation rules change, but I think they may have been just planning on this. M3/4 are street cars and euro emissions + USA (until the EPA is dead) make v8 street cars a bad idea, so they went for boosted 6-bangers to get the power & maintain fuel economy.
M6 is in a different category (giant beautiful grant touring) and gets v8 from the factory so it's easy(er) to slap some better guts the engine, add a roll cage in and a turbo on, etc and you got yourself a homologated chassis compliant for racing in a variety of series across the globe. You can also probably slap some factory BMW race engines in to speed it up if you don't get to start your GT3 design and build from blank paper.