Italian Gianfranco Brancatelli will be re-united with the BMW he drove in the 1987 World Touring Car Championship at the Taupo Historic GP meeting later next month.

An ex-F1 driver and 1985 European Touring Car Champion, Brancatelli will drive the M3, which he shared with Johnny Cecotto when the pair won at Dijon-Prenois in France in 1987, at Taupo’s renamed Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park.

Christchurch-based Peter Sturgeon, who now owns the M3, is delighted that Brancatelli is available to drive the car again.

“When Murray Sinclair, our category organiser, told me that Gianfranco was interested in driving at Taupo, it was too good an opportunity to miss. I was delighted to let him loose in his old car,” Sturgeon said.

“The M3 is a real racing car hiding under road-car bodywork.”

“It is smooth and a real joy to drive, especially in the wet.”

Historic Touring Car category organiser Sinclair will drive his 1996 Nissan Primera Super Tourer, one of two Nissan Super Tourers entered for the three Touring Car races across the weekend.

Built for the team owned by the 1982 F1 World Champion Keke Rosberg, the Nissan finished fifth in the Spanish Touring Car Championship for Eric Van de Poele.

“To call it a Primera is unfair,” Sinclair commented.

“The motor is barely visible with the 295bhp straight-four pressed against the bulkhead behind the drive shaft.

“And the intakes face straight ahead, unlike the standard car.

“There’s also extra piping to the double-caliper brakes because they’re water-cooled with a little radiator underneath.”