The Last Patron: Herbert Schnitzer. BMW Racing Legend, Dies at 85

Herbert Schnitzer, the last surviving member of the four Schnitzer brothers who built one of BMW’s most dominant racing dynasties, died on June 5, his 85th birthday, at his home in Freilassing, Germany, surrounded by family. The news was shared by Uwe Mahla, a former BMW press officer who had known Herbert for more than half a century.

” His other nickname was the man with the “golden bladder,” earned from sitting on the pit wall with a lap chart for hours without moving. Gerhard Berger once called him the soul of the operation. Dieter Quester described him as a hard-nosed businessman who wasn’t too proud to keep the lap chart himself through a full 24-hour race.

Both descriptions fit, and that balance is likely why the team endured as long as it did.

Herbert and his older brother Josef took over the family BMW dealership in 1966. The racing division followed a year later. Josef, the engineer, built the cars; Herbert ran the business. Josef became German circuit racing champion in a BMW 1800 TISA, and together they developed a Formula 2 engine that powered Jacques Laffite to the 1975 European F2 championship, beating the factory BMW engines.

Then tragedy struck. In 1978, Josef was killed in a road accident that was not his fault. The team responded by winning the German Touring Car Championship that same year with Harald Ertl. Call it resilience. It was also grief with nowhere else to go.

From there, the titles piled up: European and World Touring Car Championships, British, Italian, Japanese, Asia-Pacific titles, and the American Le Mans Series. In 1999, Schnitzer’s BMW V12 LMR won Le Mans outright. Drivers who came through the garage included Bellof, Berger, Cecotto, Fitzpatrick, Ickx, Ludwig, Piquet, Quester, Rohrl, Stuck, both Mullers, and both Winkelhocks.

Herbert sat on the pit wall through it all with his lap chart.

His half-brothers, twins Dieter and Karl “Charly” Lamm, who handled race operations in the later era, died before him—Dieter in 2014, Charly in 2019. Herbert was the last one.

Schnitzer closed its racing program at the end of 2020. Herbert had fought to keep it going longer than most expected. The team had returned to the DTM in 2012 and won the drivers’, manufacturers’, and teams’ titles in its first season back. Then the money ran out.

In his final years, Herbert watched motorsport on television, kept up with old friends, and was driven to his regular table by his longtime companion Peter Reinisch. Fifty years of championships. One family. Herbert was the last of them, and now all four are gone.