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Deciding to capture the huge attention which DTM racing was recieveing, BMW started a racing programm for the E30 BMW in 1987. To satisfy homologation purposes 500 road-going examples of the car had to be produced. These cars retained all the aerodynamic features of the racecar. The E30 M3 was born.

From 1987 till 1990 M3s ruled the DTM with factory sponsored entries by Zakspeed, Schnitzer, Linder and Bigazzi. Eric van de Poele of Zakspeed took the overall victory in 1987 while Roberto Ravaglia took the 1989 overall victory with Schnitzer.

Despite the homolagtion requirements, the Group A version of the M3 was drastically different than the road-going version. This is most apparent in the price difference between to two. $120 000 USD was the factory price for a new race ready M3 while the US spec M3 sold for $34 000.