Photography by Mario Bok
A version of this story previously appeared in BMW Car Magazine

The top touring car series today is the WTCC, which is a big draw for the manufacturers, but its also fair to say that it’s a long way from being the most enthralling racing. The cars, even with their aggressive wings and flares, aren’t exactly the most emotive machines. Go back a few decades to the World Championship for Makes though, and it was a golden era of fire-spitting beasts that only bore a silhouette resemblance to their road-going counterparts that were raced by past and future Formula 1 and Le Mans stars.

Porsche ruled the Group 5 era with its turbocharged 935, but BMW and the CSLs were formidable rivals to their German neighbors, and this stunning green example is the most original of BMW’s Group 5 works cars. Jan Luehn owns this matching-numbers, race-winning Batmobile, and he offered to have me out to see it in person and talk about its spectacular history and originality.