BMW 530 MLE - A Restoration Of A Very Rare Homologation Special
BMW South Africa have restored a 530 MLE motorsport homologation special.
After a spending a year of painstaking restoration, BMW South Africa completed its latest restoration project. The track inspired BMW 530 MLE was unveiled at the ‘Home of BMW Legends’ Plant Rosslyn.
The 530 MLE was a limited edition “homologation” special developed especially by BMW Motorsport for South Africa. BMW South Africa wanted to go racing Introduced in the mid 1970s and prepared two E12 race cars. These cars competed in the Modified Production Series with ex racing driver Jochen Neerpasch and head of BMW Motorsport to run it.
In 1976 BMW developed the BMW 530 Motorsport Limited Edition (MLE) and it took to the race track in the same Modified Production Series. The car was immediately successful with fifteen wins. BMW winning three championships in three years. The BMW
530 MLE became the most successful racing BMW 5 Series in history. The last outing for the model was in 1985.
The BMW 530 MLE got its first showing at the BMW Group Plant Rosslyn with four BMW Group South Africa employees who built the original more than four decades ago. The 530 MLE was restored by Luis Malhou of Custom Restorations. William Mokwape, Walter Mahlangu, Jacob Matabane and Cassie Calaca provided their input during the car’s whole restoration process.
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BMW South Africa Exclusive Editions
“It is not only the 530 MLE that was exclusively produced at this plant,” said Johan Mouton, Director: Technical and Logistics at BMW Group Plant Rosslyn. Speaking at the unveiling event;
“Legendary cars such as the Gusheshe, the second generation BMW 3 Series – in particular the 325iS and the South Africa-only 333i, rolled off the assembly line at this plant more than 30 years ago.” “We are a future oriented company, but we take immense pride in where we come from,” Mouton adds.
Tim Abbott, CEO of BMW Group South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, adds: “The BMW 530 MLE at the time demonstrated how competitive sporting events were the ideal setting to impress the motoring public with the performance of new vehicles.
“The success of the 530 MLE was a pure example of ‘What wins on Saturday sells on Monday’, and it paved the way for BMW South Africa as a sporty brand and a serious motorsport contender in the country. To this day, M remains the most powerful letter in the world!”
See the 530 MLE in a Web Story
The Road To Motorsport Success
To qualify for entry to the Modified Production Series, BMW South Africa had to sell 100 road-going versions of their race car. The first generation BMW 5 Series entered became known as the 530 Motorsport Limited Edition (MLE). Developed in house by BMW Motorsport as a limited edition “homologation” model for South Africa. Only 110 units of the Type 1 were produced in 1976 and 117 versions of the Type 2 made it off the production line at BMW Group Plant Rosslyn in 1977.
The six cylinder engine was a factory tuned version of the three litre engine found in the 3.0L. Producting as much as 147kW (197bhp) and 277Nm (204 lb/ft), the MLE could reach a top speed of 208km/h (129mph). Using the dog leg manual transmission the 0 – 100km/h (62mph) time came up in 9.3 seconds. The MLE proved to be a viable and competent early step of BMW’s Motorsport developed road cars.
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Car number 100
After searching for many years, in 2018 BMW South Africa found one of the only BMW 530 MLEs known to have lasted beyond its 70s heyday. Car number 100 came with a particular pedigree. The car was once owned by racing driver and the 530 MLE’s team manager Peter Kaye-Eddie. Its engine and chassis numbers are a matching set.
Something unique was the way the Rosslyn-produced vehicles saw weight-reduction. Work that included bodywork and pedals drilled by hand, manual windows with no air conditioning, and Mahle wheels.
South Africa has enjoyed a long history of rare BMW special editions. The BMW Group espablished Plant Rosslyn in 1973 and it was the very first BMW plant outside of Germany. Here they built several models just for the local market until 1990. An ever increasing amount of these have been methodically restored by BMW South Africa including a 333i as you can see in one of the pictures.
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Many thanks to Group BMW and BMW South Africa for the images.
If you’d like to see where it came from have a look here: https://www.bmwgroup-plants.com/rosslyn/en.html
Quite a spectacular result.
Simon