Building a European sports car with nearly 1,000hp is no easy task. Building one that will remain rear-wheel drive and hook up on the unprepped streets and strips (few and far between) of Germany could prove pointless – but not this weekend.

This weekend in the land of beer and bratwurst, the RACE1000 standing half-mile is scheduled and the fastest cars in Europe are cruising in to claim their share of the trophy that says you went faster than anyone else in this class on this day.

The car is a BMW E46 Coupe. Under the hood is a beefed-up BMW inline 6-cylinder M50 (2.5-liter) engine. The turbocharger is a Garrett GTX42 and the entire running gear (including the manual transmission) is from an M3. Thanks to Injector Dynamics and Donkeytec (tuning).

Right off the trailer, the little sports coupe posts a 167-mph top speed.

After a few tweaks; a top speed of 171-mph (nice ride-along POV footage on this pass).

More tweaks and they are counterproductive. Only 160-mph this time.

After a pass of only 144-mph, the crew figures out that they are turning the screw in the wrong direction. They rethink the tuning strategy and post a top-speed of 175-mph.

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