Update September 30, 2009: The BMW GTP car is back on EBay after not previously selling. We’ve updated pricing and links.

Update September 18, 2009: The BMW GTP racecar did not meet reserve at $198,100 with 5 bids.

September 16, 2009: Here’s a great opportunity to own a small piece of BMW racing history. This was the back-up/test car for BMW’s racing efforts in the IMSA GTP series in the 1980’s. For those of you unfamiliar with the GTP series, it’s still hailed as the some of the most exciting days in Sports Car racing’s history. Wikipedia has a decent article here which gives details about the rise and fall of the IMSA series. These were the days when manufacturing efforts from Porsche, Toyota, Nissan, March, Chevrolet, Ford, Jaguar, Mazda, Tiga, Kudzu, Spice, Argo and Intrepid all came together each weekend for races up to 24 hours long.

Here is a short video explaining the F1 technology used in BMW’s 4 cylinder used in the March 86G, the version after this car.

Bottom line is that if this car hasn’t been crashed and is largely complete (as the seller claims), it could be a great opportunity. The Monterey Historics, the largest vintage racing weekend in the US has started to let GTP cars run and every year the will let newer cars run. With this, the value of these cars should rise rather sharply in the next few years. Although this car needs to be completed, it might just be your chance to get in before the market moves up.

For more info, check out the EBay auction, ending soon here, bidding is at $175,000 with one bid.