Buy some Top Gear!

A BMW M3 raced by Richard Hammond on Top Gear is expected to sell for £7,500 next month, at Silverstone in England at the Classic Car Auctions. 

A 2010 episode of the hit TV show saw the trio given the task of turning up in Berlin in a saloon costing no more than £5,000. The episode was full of the usual funny surprises from the Top Gear gang, first among them a discovery that this M3 had suffered serious crash damage.

Hammond arrived in this 1996 BMW M3 saloon and managed to drive it at 152mph on the autobahn – just 3mph less than the claimed to speed.

Unlike most Top Gear cars, which tend to end up in museums, the studio or underneath a piano, the BMW M3 re-entered society after the show.

It has now been entered into the Classic Car Auctions’ sale and the auction house has given the BMW a condition rating of 76 out 135.

Guy Lees-Milne, general manager of CCA, said: “It is really exciting to be selling a car that has appeared on such a world renowned TV show. At CCA we are all Top Gear fans, and we are sure it will appeal to many of our buyers, too.”

Under the bonnet is a 3.2-litre engine which develops 240bhpm, giving the M3 a 0-62mph time of just six seconds.

It is being offered with an estimate of between £7,500 and £10,000.

The 3.2-litre engine on the Top Gear M3 develops 216bhp and will do 0-62mph in around 5.3 seconds. It is electronically limited to 155mph.