Schnitzer Motorsport is a motorsport team based in Freilassing near Munich, Germany. From the early days of its establishment, the team has operated an automobile racing squad for BMW, and has remarkable results in touring car and sports car racing scenes.
In the last years, they mainly competed as "BMW Team Germany" in the World Touring Car Championship with drivers Jörg Müller, Dirk Müller, and Augusto Farfus. Currently as of 2010, the team has operated the GT racing team for BMW under the name of "BMW Motorsport".
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The team was founded in 1967 by the brothers Josef (August 7, 1939–August 31, 1978) and Herbert Schnitzer (b. June 5, 1941). Their stepfather Karl Lamm had a car repair shop and dealer business. The brothers started racing in 1962, and Josef Schnitzer won the 1966 German Championship in a BMW 2000ti. In 1968, both retired from active race driving to focus on the business and the race team.
In the 1970s, the Schnitzer's younger half-brothers Karl ("Charly") and Dieter Lamm joined the team, with Charly Lamm acting as team manager at the race tracks. In 1978, Josef Schnitzer died in an accident, and Herbert Schnitzer remained as the boss.
Apart from having the BMW dealership and Motorsport team based in Southern Germany's Bavaria, they also own a BMW tuning specialist concern in the far north near the border of Belgium and the Netherlands, in Aachen. As this city has the license plate code AC, they called this branch AC Schnitzer.
Since the 1960s, the Schnitzer team has been mainly active with BMW and BMW M cars in Touring car racing like the European Touring Car Championship, the Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft, the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft and the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC).
In 1977 and 1978 Schnitzer tried to take on the mighty Porsche 935 in the DRM. They developed a Group 5, 560 PS (412 kW) turbocharged silhouette version of the RA40 Toyota Celica and raced it with modest success. The best finish of the Celica LB Turbo was a fourth at Nürburgring in 1977, but with dismal reliability the next year Schnitzer withdrew and returned their focus to BMWs.[1]
Schnitzer was also active in Sports car racing and Endurance racing, e.g. the ALMS and Le Mans Series. On 26 January 2011 it was announced that Schnitzer Motorsport, under the name Team Schnitzer, would run Andy Priaulx 's GT2 M3 in the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup[2]
In 2012, BMW Team Schnitzer, along with BMW Team RBM, and Reinhold Motorsport GmbH, will each line up with two BMW M3 DTM cars in the DTM. BMW Team Schnitzer will also run two BMW M3 GT cars for BMW Motorsport at the major endurance races in Europe and Asia. [3]
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