How do you make one of the most iconic cars of all time even more iconic? One option is to place it front and center on the packaging of an iconic video game. We’re talking about none other than the BMW E46 M3, which is featured in the iconic series Need For Speed: Most Wanted. This time we spotted it at the 2025 BMW M Festival in Chengdu, almost exactly a year after BMW took the covers off the special car at BMW Welt. To mark the 30th anniversary of the original game’s release, BMW pulled an M3 GTR out of the vault and gave it a paint job straight from the original NFS: Most Wanted Cover the car.
NFS Most Wanted E46: The iconic hero car comes to life
By 2005, the E46 M3 had probably already become the dream car of many young (and old) enthusiasts. But with the release of , the car entered pop culture Need for Speed: Most Wanted. It quickly gained a place as one of the most iconic cars in gaming. In the game’s opening moments, the M3 GTR serves as the hero’s pride and joy – a dominant machine that dominates the streets until a fateful act of sabotage hands it over to rival racer Razor. From then on, the player’s mission becomes personal: climb the Blacklist, retrieve the stolen car and once again unleash the M3 GTR’s unmatched power on the asphalt. Almost 20 years later, BMW celebrated this Need for speed series by packaging one of their own M3 GTRs to match the car from the video game’s cover.
Maybe even a regular E46 M3 or an extra crispy M3 CSL would have sufficed. But instead we were treated to the M3 GTR. In 2005 it would have been a completely unknown entity if you weren’t already familiar with the brand or ALMS Racing (American Le Mans). The E46 M3 GTR was based on a powerful P60B40 engine, a V8 intended only for racing use. Well, with one small exception. BMW produced ten M3 GTR road versions (literally “road version”) to homologate the racing M3 GTR for series production. After the regulations changed in 2002 and the minimum requirements were raised to 100 cars and 1,000 engines, the M3 GTR would no longer exist.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped thousands (millions?) of people from enjoying the wild V8-powered M3 from the comfort of their living rooms in games like… NFS. Check out the images in the gallery below and notice some of the crazy details that make the E46 M3 GTR such a spectacle. It turns out that a wild wrap is the last thing you notice when you’re competing with a side exhaust and an exceptional aero kit.
