Here is BMW 335i racecar build part 5 of my ongoing series. You can read all the previous installments by clicking here.

When it came to my 335i racecar, I had a choice to make: do I leave the bodywork alone, or do I try to do something a little different. Unfortunately the later the model of the car, the harder it is to find readily available parts for it because the industry caters to where the numbers are, and the numbers are in the older models, as they are cheaper to start with, and as a result, there are just more of them around to race.

The search

I wanted something different because I feel a racecar should look somewhat racier than a standard car, obviously. But I also wanted a car that I could use for slightly less intensive gymkhana or autocross type events, and maybe for the odd rapid drive to say the shops on a Sunday morning, , if you know what I mean.

I looked around on the internet and started with the 2006 BMW E90 320si World Touring Car as inspiration for the clean look I liked. And then, as per usual, I started looking around on the internet for body kits that could work.

I didn’t really want to put all new panels on the car, so I hunted around for something that I could ‘bolt on’ so to speak, and one kit kept catching my eye, and that was the HARD Motorsport LEICHTBAU E90 body kit.

The kit

The HARD Motorsport LEICHTBAU E90 Widebody kit is, as you might have guessed, inspired by the BMW Motorsport WTCC E90. The six-piece kit is made from thermoformed ABS plastic for durability on and off the track. Perfect for what I have in mind.

And the kit is a practical widebody option that incorporates many of the stock features of the E90’s original lines and eliminates the need to replace full body panels or require hours of bodywork. That being said, the company does warn that some trimming or adjustment will likely be necessary during the installation process, and modification and cutting of stock fenders is required to properly fit the kit.

The good news is that I now have a kit that gives me an extra 50 mm of width at each wheel and that is enough to hide a set of 18×11 inch wide wheels under the fenders. The alloys are wrapped in 295/30 Yokohama A048 semi-slick rubber for the road and 320/620 Yokohama A008 full slicks for the track.

My next update I will cover the add on choices I made at HARD Motorsport and the effort it took to get the goods to SA…