Lime Rock Park’s Historic Concours Is a BMW Goldmine

Lime Rock Park is the picturesque ideal of a race track, nestled in a beautiful valley in the northwest Connecticut hills. Lush green hills and lawnchairs replace grandstands, while elegant, thoughtful structures designed by former BMW racer, broadcaster, artist, and now track co-owner Sam Posey dot the grounds. It feels more like a park that happens to contain a race track than a race track alone. But perhaps the best thing about watching a race at Lime Rock is that it’s only around 1.5-miles around, so there’s constant action on track.

This year marked the 43rd year of the Lime Rock Historic Festival, a Labor Day weekend vintage car gathering that runs the gamut from pre-war to modern era formula cars and GTs. Walking through the paddock is a US road racing history lesson, and there is no shortage of BMWs. This year saw five 2002s, seven M3s, including two E30’s along with E36 and E46 models–yes, those are considered vintage now–with the faster cars lapping in under sixty seconds.

But the secret jewel of the weekend is Sunday’s concours and car show. With more than 1,000 cars and motorcycles participating, it draws a bigger crowd than the race days.

The most significant BMW race car at the festival wasn’t there to race. Kevin and Carolyn Ladd’s works-prepared E9 3.5 CSL is a huge piece of BMW’s US racing history . Chassis #2275986 won the 1976 24 Hours of Daytona with the Peter Gregg Racing team and drivers Peter Gregg and Brian Redman. It also had a lot of success in 1975, with wins at Laguna Seca, Riverside, the Paul Revere 250 at Daytona and Talladega. The car is in beautiful condition today after a restoration by the legendary Jack Deren. It’s been a jewel of the Ladds’ collection since 2004, and surely will be for years to come.

Photo: David Haueter

There were also quite a few elegant E9 road cars making an impression. One great example was Michael Balaban’s 1973 3.0 CS coupe. “This was a California car, restored by Peter Sliskovich,” says Balaban. “It was restored for a wealthy dentist in Chicago, who owned the car for two weeks and was unhappy with it because the windows didn’t go up and down quickly enough, which is a common thing on this car. I bought it and have been restoring it back to original. The paint was a shade off the original color (Agave Green) and the interior was wrong. I personally think this car was the pinnacle of BMW design and I’ve never had the desire to own any vintage car other than an E9 coupe. It’s timeless and I drive it all the time.”

Photo: David Haueter

If Daytona-winning CSL wasn’t there, then Neal Heffron’s Henna Red 1980 M1 would’ve stolen the show. It previously appeared at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este where it was signed by its designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro. It also had a famous previous owner. “This was singer Christopher Cross’ car,” says Heffron. “I saw that he had owned it, but the funny thing is that I got a call from another guy that had an M1 for sale and wanted to know if I was interested in it and said his car was once owned by Christopher Cross. I said no, I have Christopher Cross’ car. We got his number and called him up. His girlfriend answered the phone and we told her to ask Chris if he had an M1. We heard her yell up to him to ask and he yelled back that he had two! He had one for the weekends, which was my car, and another one that he drove every day.”

Photo: Shawn Pierce

Heffron’s E36 M3 Lightweight was also there, on display in a group commemorating 50 Years of the 3 Series. The stripped down M3 Lightweight was made for use in street stock club racing series, and many ended up in BMW CCA Club Racing. Only 126 were made in the 1995 model year, and it’s rare to find one that hasn’t been raced or modified. A previous owner modified, Heffron’s car, but he’s restored it to (almost) stock form. Legendary racer and former Lime Rock Park owner Skip Barber liked this M3 so much that he chose it for the Skip Barber Concours Award. He presented the trophy along with Erik Wensberg, the Motorsport Manager at BMW of North America when this car was conceived.

Photo: David Haueter

Andrew and Cindy Wilson drove their 1968 1600 Cabriolet 223 miles from Maine to the show, but New England is a long way from where this car started out. “This car was in Japan until an expat bought it, and he imported it in 2003 when he came back to the States,” says Andrew Wilson. “We bought it in 2019 and the car was in bad shape. Mice had moved in, so all the soft materials had to be replaced. We enjoyed the car for five years but then last September it failed inspection. I took it to VSR (Mario Langsten’s Vintage Sports & Recreation) and it turned out half of the car was 80% rust. The A-pillar and all the rockers were gone, and they had to square up the frame.” The quality of VSR’s work is evident when you see the car today.

Photo: David Haueter

Another Sixties BMW present that caught my eye was the 1967 BMW 1600 GT owned by Axel Coelln. “When you go to a BMW meet with this car, a lot of people have never seen it before,” says Coelln. “Glas was another Bavarian car manufacturer and when BMW bought Glas in 1967 (which they did primarily to gain production capacity) they continued the body style of the Glas GT and put the BMW M10 engine in it. They only did it for a year. The Glas Club has over 1,000 members and we all help each other out with parts and knowledge.” Most of the cars from the Seventies on display were certainly not daily drivers, which is what makes Kurt Hansen’s 1978 316 unique. It’s also carbureted rather than fuel injected, which is rarely seen here in the US in a 3 Series car, since the only E21 3 Series model sold here was the fuel injected 320i. “I bought this car from Germany a year ago in non-running condition,” says Hansen. “Nobody imports them because they cost more to bring them over than what they’re worth. I’ve been reliving my misspent youth driving this car, and they’re simple to work on. I have a Z4 coupe too but I wanted another car as a daily driver, and this car has been bulletproof since I got everything sorted out on it.”

If you want to spend one day at the Historics, the Sunday car show is probably the best day to go, but it’s worth it to get the full experience and see some of the races as well. It brings the competitive history of BMW and some of their most iconic road cars to life, and you couldn’t pick a more bucolic place to bring these cars together than Lime Rock Park on Labor Day Weekend.