2017 BMW M4 DTM Champion Edition confirmed for Australia

BMW’s M4 GTS is returning to Oz, but this time dressed in a new livery.

The firm secured 10 new M4 DTM Champion Editions for Australia, reviving the GTS’s performance package within a new special edition.

Priced at $295,000 and available for order now, the new car was built to celebrate the firm’s 2016 DTM championship win with Marco Wittmann at the helm.

Only 200 will be built in total. But each will pack the water injected engine, stripped interior, and track-spec suspension and aero used by the GTS.

Australia claims a five per cent share of the total build, a figure more aligned with local M sales compared to our uptake of the GTS – of which we received only 3.6 per cent of the total 700.

Deliveries begin late first quarter next year, however, we hope you like Alpine White. It’s the only hue available to match the car’s red, blue, and purple M stripes that streak its sides and roof.

Beneath the paint, however, and besides its smaller front splitter, the Champion Edition copies the GTS’s hardware also verbatim.

Its 3.0-litre straight-six is fed by two turbos and a water injection system, sending 368kW and 600Nm to a seven-speed DCT. It’ll be matched to a titanium exhaust system.

There are also three-way dampers with remote reservoirs installed at each corner, as well as M carbon ceramic brakes.

Meanwhile it wears the GTS’s staggered diameter ‘666M’ wheels, albeit finished in matte grey, and Michelin Sport Cup 2 rubber.

Inside carbon-fibre shelled bucket seats again feature, as well as an alcantara steering wheel, and a half roll-cage. For the Champion Edition, however, the cage is a standard feature and comes finished in white.

All exterior additions are made from carbon fibre reinforced plastic, like its new front bumper flics, as are its bonnet and roof.

So it’s just as quick as the GTS, as it’ll clip 100km/h in 3.8sec and go on to hit 305km/h with its automatic transmission. However no manual transmission is available.

Included in its large pricetag are adaptive LEDs headlights, while ‘Selective Beam’ OLED taillights feature up back.

This isn’t the first special edition BMW’s made for Marco Wittmann, its two-time DTM champion. “To be honest, it’s great in my case, it has happened now a second time so it’s something special,” he told MOTOR while in Sydney.

But he sees the obvious differences in the tribute. “Yeh the 2014 [car] was more about the design, was leaned more towards my DTM car.”

“The current champion edition is probably more leaned towards a M4 GTS, of course with some different wheels, different livery… it’s a bit different, but yeh it’s great with the roll cage.”