The History of the NFS Most Wanted M3 GTR - Theories and Speculation

The last theory makes a lot of sense.

Maybe Frank Mercer found it, and when he saw he decided to start stealing cars and selling them but he kept the M3 as a reminder of how this is all started

Real Answer: make more money by having the m3 gtr in the game

The gear whine sounded different in heat is my pet peeve

I have heard that player made a way longer way:
Nit from carbon to most wanted
But:
Nfs Carbon
Nfs Underground
Nfs Underground 2
Nfs Most Wanted (2005)
Nfs Carbon
...

One thing worth noting is the chop shop scene when you discover Mercers operation. You clearly see the m3 gtr in a wrecked state on the back of a truck. So it's most likely been totalled this whole time, located by mercer because it's such a rare car and he's made a business of selling cars like that. He's had it reconditioned at the chop shop and ready to be sent somewhere to a collector.

Probably something like the player restored the GTR , using a E46 regular chassi but installing every part from the GTR , because if you see in the boot of the new GTR, it has the M3 logo that the original didnt have , in my thinking , then the player grabed the car and travel to Palm city and was busted

My theory: The car was not totalled but heavily damaged.

Darius repaired it but then sold it to recover his losses for bribing cross

damn NFSMW made me remember when im trying so hard to win the blacklist when i was still a kid in pre-school

The story of the M3 has some parallels to the Elder Wand from Harry Potter. This mythical, all-powerful car/wand, suposedly the best car/wand ever. But the car/wand keeps changing hands and ironically brings bad luck to whoever owns it.

Simple Darius sold the bwm, it was taken in by someone else and was then caught and sold to.

This car has became so iconic

I actually own nfs most wanted

Your missing underground and underground 2, if we factor in U2 then you could say it was stolen from bayview raceway since thanks to Rachel, Player had access to the track. The M3 GTR is just a repainted race car after all

This car is to Need for Speed as Red is to Pokemon.

I'm playing most wanted carbon and undercover in 2023 lmao who else and I'm on laptop

omg it was razor he was the only one who broke and fixed the car

is nfs no limits canon?




i mean it might just be a coincidence but theres a dude named darius in no limits that looks like carbon darius


also it does appear in like one of those special missions as well in no limits, and its appearance in unbound has fricked up the story again i guess

S p e e d

It’s implausible that Darius could use the M3 GTR without the Most Wanted finding out.

a notable mention, though obscure as it is, it that the M3 GTR shows up in a DLC pack for Most Wanted (2012). And while the lore and story of that game is... questionably non-cannon, it's noteworthy

Now that we know about the M3 GTR's appearance in NFS Unbound, here's my theory:

After the NFS Carbon protagonist fled Palmont City, after the other racers were all arrested, he eventually ended up with the M3. Afterwards was when Most Wanted took place, before he returned to Palmont City in Carbon. After the M3 was wrecked (or maybe not) in Carbon, it ended up impounded and later repaired. It remained a dormant car for many years. After Carbon took place, the protagonist moves to Tri-City Bay, when NFS Undercover took place. In Tri-City Bay the protagonist is arrested (there is a police radio message during the game reporting the arrest of Ryan Cooper, who I believe is the Most Wanted/Carbon protagonist. I also theorise that NFS Prostreet occurs before MW and Carbon despite being released after) and sentenced to a long jail sentence after all the havoc he caused during the Most Wanted times. Years later, in NFS Heat, Mercer acquires the impounded M3 GTR and attempts to escape in it, only for him to be taken down. Now, in NFS Unbound, the M3 has once again been repaired. The Unbound player delivers the M3 to someone who, according to the in-game dialogue, has just been released form prison and was looking for the car. That person, is the MW/Carbon protagonist.

My own is that Cross got his hands on the car when it was toaded. "I always get paid. Just make sure I do". Maybe the payment was the car. So being a bounty hunter, he still has connections to the police, and it's possible he handed them the GTR as evidence of Ryan Cooper's crimes. Police has auctions, including of cars. So my guess is when Ryan Cooper decided to clean up his act and become a professional racer, the cops tried to sell the car but since it's not street legal, they decided to try and sell it overseas. Enter Frank Mercer. And the rest, as they say, is history. Alternatively, maybe Heat comes before Most Wanted cannonically and Heat's between Carbon and Most Wanted, which would mean Heat's character is the Most Wanted. "But the car list!" Yes. Gameplay/licensing reasons. That's it.

Can you imagine? Writing the script and editing all the scenes in one Historic video... Well Done!

Its an infamous car but not its fault nonetheless.

If its a track car - can it be road legal? I mean license number, pay road taxes etc.

Dieser BMW ist meine Liebe...Stolz aller Rennfahrer...Eine Icone...eine Göttin...❤️❤️❤️

I’m pretty sure the most wanted m3 was a rep of the gtr because I’m %99 sure that the gtr came out before they made the LCI tail lights, the seats aren’t the seats from a m3 gtr and the engine sound and redline are different from the gtr, the in game cars sound like they have the s54 in them but the m3 gtr has a v8 and the s54 is a straight 6

My theory is that the car was missing for 13 years because the big three had to be addressed 😂

If we want to understand the history of the original M3 GTR, we also have to take a close look at the Protagonist that Blackbox Entertainment established back in the Underground Series. To keep things short, this Protagonist will be named 'MW' as in Most Wanted.
WARNING: My theory contains spoilers!

2003: The MW as we know him starts his life as a street racer within the events of Underground 1. He beats the Eastsiders, gets crashed by Caleb, 6 months later, the MW travels to Bayview to work his way up through the Underground Racing League to finally challenge Caleb.

2004-2006/2007: After UG2 takes place, the MW somehow ends up in Palmont City for the first time, makes his name there, finds a girlfriend/ally (Nikki) and also builds a close connection to Darius. We know from the Carbon cutscenes that Darius betrays the MW, involving the local Police while leaving the MW the opportunity to escape with his own blue-white Toyota Supra.

2007: The MW escapes with Darius' Supra but knows that the Heat on that car is just too high keep it running, so he has to ditch it. We don't know if this happens right after the events of Carbon or some time later, all we know and as other people already pointed out is that the host of the Pro Street racing events mentions a blue Supra being found in the parking area and asks if someone knows the owner of that vehicle (it was left there). Because of the BMW E92 M3 along with other cars, those events couldn't have taken place before 2007 because the E92 M3 was just revealed to the public in that year.

So here's where some speculation kicks in: The MW ditches the Supra and gets his hand on the E46 M3 GTR the same time Ryan Cooper makes a name for himself in the racing events. That's why Cooper can't be the same person as the MW, moreover, Cooper starts out with a Nissan 240 SX and maybe he's also a bit younger than the MW. After receiving the M3 GTR, the MW drives away to Rockport City, meeting Mia on his way. Here, the story of NfS Most Wanted unveils as his beloved BMW gets stolen by Razor, the MW then getting it back by beating Razor and escaping the Police along the notorious Seargent Cross.

2007-2008: Between the end of Most Wanted and the start of the actual Carbon story, we don't really know what happens. We know that Cross changes the Wanted level of the MW to nationalwide before getting suspended for his failure in capturing the later one. The MW is now chased by police all across the country, probably going stealth for some time to let the Heat die down a bit. In this time, he remembers the events in Palmont City and wants to find out what happened back then, so he decides to go back. In the meantime, Cross, now working as a bounty hunter in or around Palmont, catches wind of the MW's trail and seeks some kind of revenge for his own flaws back in Rockport. He catches up to the MW, destroying the M3 GTR in a chase through the canyons.

Although we don't ever get a second glance at our car, I assume that Cross keeps the BMW as a trophy for some time. As the story of NfS Carbon progresses, Cross realizes that Darius may be the bigger threat to civilian life than the MW is, also his sense of responsibility kicks in as the M3 GTR is first and foremost a car used by a wanted criminal. Thus, Cross uses his connections with the police to get the car impounded so the MW and no other person can get his or her hands on the car.

2008 onwards: Now here's where things get really tricky. As objects that have been used in or for crimes can stay impounded by the police for quite some time, it would be very likely that our M3 GTR didn't see the light of day until the events of NfS Heat. This and the widely known status and stories of the MW can also be the reason why from 2008 to 2019, we see variations of BMW M3 models that have been tinkered with to look like a M3 GTR in different NfS installments, while none of these are the real deal. It is also logical that Mercer from NfS Heat did get his hands on it while searching through impound lists of high value vehicles he could steal and sell for profit. Maybe he got in contact with one of the former Blacklist members from Rockport City, maybe even Razor himself while searching for a buyer on the black market.

Perhaps, that deal was finished after all, one way or another. In NfS Unbound, we get to drive that very M3 GTR with our current Protagonist as we have to deliver it in one of the side missions we receive from Yaz. As we learn in and after finishing the mission, the car was ordered by a member of the ominous Blacklist. It was 'the first thing he wanted when he got out of prison', Yaz mentions.

My theory is either that razer or the player that your playing as in nfsmw or the original owner of that car built it back to its normal state then it got stolen or sold off to somebody (idk im just guessing and sorry for the 3 year reply cross also retired as well as all street racers from that time its obvious) but the theory of mia exists when we dont know why she helped and why she retired from being an undercover cop at like 22 years old or something. Damn just realised that mia couldve rebuilt it

In Unbound, the M3 shows up again. And according to Yaz, the story is that some guy got out of prison, and the first thing he wanted was that car. No names were dropped, but the protag of Unbound says something like "I feel we're on the razor's edge by doing all these deliveries."

This car is also in the deluxe version of NFS from 2015 as well before showing up in NFS: Heat. What would be the story there?

I'm going to be honest the third theory kind of sits a little bit with the storyline

In addition to the cameo in Unbound.

I like how all of these 4 games are connected somewhat.
I want a cameo with the Most Wanted character, old and retired. I think that'd be cool if they continued the trend of the connected worlds.

this just popped out of my recommendations.. i must say, i think EA really did this car dirty. we worked hard to get this car in MW. We had it in the finale which is when it's pretty much useless (unless if a player plans to complete every challenges and races). and in carbon we only had it for a few minutes, and we can't get it in career at all. they should've just made it available after beating the first 3 bosses, and say that the player had enough money to get it fixed or something. it would be a perfect way to end the duology; the previous game's boss car vs the current game's boss

I just built my own BMW M3 GTR and now it's my car now

According to my theory so Darius takes our bmw in return of our bounty and what if he sold the bmw for some hot cash to Mercer in Palm city where he upgrades the car with new engine and still cant use it because of the heat level the car contains as Razor says in unbound saying becareful that car contains a lot of heat, this is my theory this may have went this way

Best Car in nfs and my dream car

I hate how slow you spoke and the build up. This video scuked

Or an autobody guy that attended one of the races and bought it at auction, and started rebuilding it then passed it down..

This the only gtr I want in real life 😭😭😭

you also get the car back at the end of nfs carbon.

I beleive that in Carbon, when's it's totalled its an insurance claim since no one can even ensure it. Or if no insurance it just becomes totalled since there's no insurance. Must've been kept by Cross then auctioned off and someone bought it. Next seen in NFSMW2012. Next appearance would be Heat so the guy from NFSMW2012 must've been busted then again went into the police.

I think it’s really sad how someone originally built this car with love and passion and it’s now passed so many hands down the years, should of stayed with the maker

This car is in unbound! And razor asks for it back. You have to deliver it to him or choose to keep it

I think this car wasn't totalled because of few pipes, because it has metal reinforcement, also if it was totalled I think the driver wouldn't survive this