The Podium BMW M4 GT3 wheel is almost here! Here’s the information you’ve been waiting for.
Thomas Jackermeier
Member
As you probably know, we are a bit behind schedule on the release of the Podium Steering Wheel BMW M4 GT3. I won’t bore you with the details, but this has been a very tough year for product development and manufacturing across the entire industry. In particular the automotive sector has been hit hard, and because we use so many automotive-grade materials and chips in our products, we have been hit with the same kind of setbacks.
But we’re on the final stretch now, and we are already shipping units to BMW Motorsport for the real cars. Those units are still built by hand on a small scale but we are now ramping up production to increase the output.
Now for the information you’ve been waiting for: the Podium Steering Wheel BMW M4 GT3 will be available for pre-order for 1399.95 €/$ starting December 20th.
So it is not the 4000,- or 5000,- of similar real world race car steering wheels as rumored by some people. Although it is certainly the most expensive wheel in our line up it is well below other motorsport wheels and even well below other simracing wheels out there.
This product is exactly the same wheel that goes into the real car. It’s not a replica. This has never been done before and I am very proud of what we’ve been able to achieve here. The original announcement video is below:
If you’re interested in seeing the whole story, check out this documentary:
The wheel is of course compatible with our new quick release system and the price is of course including this new QR. But it is also compatible with our QR1 system which is included as well so you have the free choice.
I also suggest that you tune into the BMW Sim Live 2021 live stream later today... https://www.twitch.tv/bmwesports
Further information and technical details available on bmw.fanatec.com.
Comments
The documentary was quite nice if I’m honest. Gives a good insight to the whole process. I don’t do any GT racing at the moment, so don’t think I can justify the cost, but it sure is very tempting to own a piece of Motorsport & Simracing first.
More important than the pre-order date, what will be the shipping date?
Will it be possible to order QR2 for wheels already in our collection without ordering the BMW wheel? How much will QR2 cost as a separate part?
Every wheel which has an exchangeable QR can be upgraded to the QR2 as communicated several times for a year now ;)
So of course you can order QR2 without ordering the BMW..
More information about the QR2 will follow soon.
Looks a very nice wheel indeed great job guys! What about the Bentley steering wheel any more news on that as that is my favourite particular wheel, and I'm guessing the price will be the same as the BMW wheel? Regards mike
The price is reasonable and I am tempted to give this a try, I race in VR exclusively and this wheel looks ergonomically better to use "blind" than the Porsche PBME which is my current default wheel. But I need to know the planned shipping date before I pull the trigger, hopefully this will be announced before the pre-order date.
Also important and missing is the the details on the QR2 - does the wheel include the base side of the QR2 or is that an additional purchase? And why include both wheel side QR1 and QR2 with the wheel - why not sell each as separate packages? This seems stupid - most (all?) people will use one or the other. If a few users choose to change from one to the other they can make that purchase, that seems more sensible than supplying every purchaser with a redundant QR. Would save e-waste, and money.
So not "the information we've been waiting for" quite yet. Sure we'll hear more - soon™. 😂
Happy to hear the news today, waiting for the 20.12. to order.
I was wondering about the compatibility with the new QRs and never had infos about it, wondering about this comment:
Happy I can use the new BMW Rim with the old QR, no need to convert all the other rims.
I suppose it's an OK price if you're an uber enthusiast. But I got the Thrustmaster SF1000 for 350 Euro.
Yes I know I can't use it in a real car, but that's a 0.001% use case.
Can you go also to simcube or any other manufacturer's page and make the same comment to one of the 1300 euros wheels?
Not bad. I was one of those who thought this wheel would cost 2k - 3k. Good to see I was wrong. Its still too much for my liking, but now I'll surly see a lot of them on YouTube and sim racing forums.
no need to be surly about it. 😉
This is awesome news. :)
Any idea on Australian pricing yet? It's not a linear 1:1 transition, so would be great to learn how much we'll pay down under. I have compared DD2 and 911 Podium pricing between EUR and AUD, so have a feeling about the numbers, however keeping that to myself in this forum.
Yeah, I knew it could be swapped, I just want to know when I can buy it, ensure I didn't need to buy the BMW wheel to get it, and how much it'll cost. As cool as the wheel is, I just don't have that much money for one wheel but the QR looks like the kind of improvement I'd love to get installed on my setup ASAP.
Caught me red handed!
I blame spiel check. 😁
I'd love to have one, but I don't have enough sim rig to warrant getting one. Monitors and a graphics card are my next sim racing related purchases.
I dont have simcube gear, I do have fanatec gear, for over 10 years, so that's why I comment here.
YEAH thanks FANATEC!
Can't wait for it to arrive, but I'm already waiting for nearly a year so it doesn't matter much.
Hope I will be able to pre-order it.
So, pay now and we will try to ship in June, barring any delays that may arise in the next 6 months. And we won't include the QR2 that you already paid for in June - we will ship that as "soon" as it is available.
No thanks. Maybe later when actual delivery dates of the entire wheel package are clearer.
If you would have been fast you could have got it already in February as that was the date for the very first batch ;)
including QR2?
of course not.
Why of course? This is not obvious, remember QR2 was scheduled for early this year.
I really don't like the way Fanatec take money for orders months before the item is expected to ship - they even already know that they won't be shipping the complete order. So why not sell individual package with QR1 first, then QR2 later - is that too sensible?
I much prefer the way companies like Valve deal with preorders - join the queue and pay when you finalise the order.
I'm still interested in this wheel, but given Fanatec's history with software development and delays, I'll wait until I know the full package is available and I have some confidence that everything is working. Been bitten too many times now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yAyds2CiHY&ab_channel=BMWBLOG
Awesome to listen to, hurts to watch.
Interesting that the shot at the beginning shows the wheel made of layered woven carbon fibre - that version looks amazing. The forged carbon fibre production version looks less impressive.
I'm still not clear on whether the QR that is shown in that video is identical to that which will finally come as the QR2. I suspect not but not sure how that tallies with claim that the package that you can buy from Fanatec is identical to that used in the real car.
QR looks similar to the one they had at the sim expo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJf4OCu7wUI&t=62s&ab_channel=RON
It does, yes. But I wonder if they are identical - I'm sure I saw a post on here from someone saying that the QR used on the car was different in some way from the elusive QR2.
The QR part itself where the wheel will be attached to must be the same - otherwise you could not put the wheel straight from the car to the simulator and vice versa.
What might be different (of course) is the part behind the QR part as the mounting of the QR is very different to the car vs. to a Wheel Base, hence the car most likely just cant use the exact same QR2 Base-Side part everyone can buy later as it just couldnt be mounted to the car, hence BMW race-car teams would need to buy a different QR2 Race-Car-Side part.
Hi, This is the QR2 for this Wheel?