Gotham Pretty...(Part 2)

Bolted to the engine block is the Getrag dog-leg gearbox from the Fat Arnie car. It is perfect for track use, what with second and third providing the left-hand leg of the H and fourth/fifth the right-hand leg. Embed this in your head and it is a real joy: a confident grasp of the lever is rewarded instantly and you couldn’t ask for sharper, more decisive shifts. The weighty precision is complemented by a short and very beefy clutch action, so beefy that at first you wonder whether it is manageable, but within a corner or three its heaviness is forgotten. The weighting of these two primary controls is key to the pleasure the car offers and within just a lap or two I felt comfortable giving it, er, some stick... The Avon slicks are confidence-inspiring and with the chassis seemingly set up with mild under steer, it can be confidently and relatively easily powered into mild over steer with the throttle, precise modulation possible thanks to a long and linear pedal travel.

Building a replica racer isn’t for the faint of heart. It is extremely labor-intensive and costly (especially if you want it to be authentic), but a result like this makes it extremely rewarding too

The original worm-and-roller steering reveals some inherent play in the dead-ahead position but it is surprisingly delicate as far as effort goes, but not just because of the generously-sized wheel that, by the way, is a genuine BMW Motorsport item. No, the secret to the lightness of helm is a Mini power steering pump nestling in the passenger foot well, thanks to which you could easily drive the race car all day. And down there there’s also a brake booster, reducing effort to the front wheels only while leaving the rears unassisted. It’s a set-up which works better than you might think: you can get on the clamps really hard, enjoying good feedback and minimal pedal travel so that heel-and-toe blips can be executed comfortably. The stoppers don’t feel like they’ll tax the muscles around your eyeballs but the confidence with which they can be used is appreciated.

So too the overall handling, and this car has done the best part of 100 laps at Zwartkops during testing and fine-tuning of the shock and spring settings, the dampers being the work of respected local race-car guru, Mark Sacks. The ride is surprisingly plush with just a hint of mild and progressive body roll when aimed towards the apex, and overall it feels well-sorted and benign. Interestingly, road-going CSLs don’t have an anti-roll bar at either end. The CSL was conceived as an endurance racer (that’s why there are two huge fuel-filler nozzles cut into the boot lid), and there’s a huge advantage in having relatively docile and predictable manners if long stints at the wheel are the order of the day – even if your name happens to be Hans Stuck.

Bat Beginnings

To many, the terms Batmobile and CSL are synonymous, but that’s not strictly true. The first run of 169 CSLs, built so that the car could compete in European Group 2 racing that at the time was dominated by Ford Cologne’s V6 Capris, were arguably the most extreme of the road-going homologation specials. The heart of the car was the pretty 3.0 CS, which meant power came from an M30 2985cc twin-carb straight-six with an unchanged 135kW. The increased performance was largely thanks to thinner gauge sheet metal for certain parts of the body, along with aluminum doors, boot lid and bonnet. Polycarbonate, non-opening rear side windows were added along with a glass fiber rear bumper, which weighed about 2.5kg. Sound-deadening material and luxury features such as power windows and power steering were also junked, trimming mass to a svelte 1165 kilograms.

LIGHTWEIGHT 15X7J Alpina alloys were fitted along with Bilstein dampers and a limited-slip differential helping the 195/70x14s put the power down. Problem was, at DM30000 it was very much a case of less costing more, and BMW was still some way short of producing the 1000 units needed to meet homologation requirements.

Fortunately, a new company had been formed within BMW: BMW Motorsport GmbH, and this new competitions department took over the CSL project from 1972. In went the fractionally-larger 3003cc fuel-injected power plant from the CSi, bumping power up to almost 150kW. Reverting to glass (albeit thinner and lighter) added weight. Some 929 were made in this basic specification, including 500 right hand drive cars for the UK, many of which were fitted with the Town Package bevy of luxury features that included power steering, and a number were sold without the 20mm lower Bilstein suspension. In rare instances, the aluminum doors were replaced with conventional steel items.

The version now popularly known as the Batmobile only came into existence in mid-1973, engine capacity growing to 3153cc that helped add a few more kilowatts but substantially increased torque. More importantly, it had the now-famous aerodynamic additions: a deep front spoiler incorporating brake cooling ducts hanging straight down from the front valance, thin little fins atop each front fender guiding the air flow, an impressive, stirrup-type spoiler at the trailing edge of the roof designed to delay the point at which airflow detaches itself from the rear glass, thereby bringing the CSL’s pièce de résistance into play a boot spoiler to end all boot spoilers…

ALL THIS ADDED up to more stability and additional down force without adding drag, but because the add-ons didn’t comply with legislation in certain markets, including Germany (one assumes due to the dire effect on rear visibility), it was sold packed in the boot, requiring some, er, assembly... This also meant the individual parts could be ordered as a kit, and no doubt many owners of earlier CSLs and CSs beat a path to the parts counter of willing BMW dealers. And in at least one instance, the body kit was stolen from the boot of a car being shipped to SA… According to the book BMW Coupes, A Tradition of Elegance, published by BMW’s own Mobile Tradition, only 110 genuine road-going Bats were built initially and thereafter, but a further 57 cars were produced between June 1974 and November 1975, bringing the era of the road-going CSLs to an end. A total of 1265 cars of all types were built, and depending on condition, they’ll fetch anywhere up to the equivalent of $193,018, with ropey rust buckets worth $27,574…

Twin exhaust has removable baffles to control noise levels and A straight six lives under the bonnet

Gearlever and switch panel from the E90 BMW production racer and Roof spoiler was a key feature of the Batmobile package

Carbon fiber bonnet helps to keep weight down and the big six revs to 8, but 7 is motr than enough...

BBS race wheels key to an authentic look. Extremely rare though and #24...if it's good enough for Hans Stuck, it is good enough for anyone