Building a Roll Cage For Our $2,000 BMW

If you’ve been watching The Drive’s video series /BORN A CAR, you know producer Ryan Symancek has been pulling double-overtime shifts at Broken Motorsports to get the $2,000 1988 325-whatever ready to tackle its first grassroots motorsports event: A real-live stage rally. 

But the first thing we have to do, even before sorting out all the moving mechanicals (or at least at the same time) is to figure out a plan for the most important, non-movable part: the roll cage. Naturally, the added structural integrity a roll cage provides is an absolute for any kind of motorsport. It’s also a very particular rulebook spec that must meet the tech requirements for any event you plan to do with a car — especially one that’s getting a new life — or else you’ll be sitting it out. Doing a cage right is best left to the pros.

On this special episode of AFTER/DRIVE, we go to to Broken Motorsports to talk through roll-cage planning and execution, and check up on the BMW as it’s getting its full tube-otomy.

E-mail the writer at mike.spinelli@thedrive.com