I've always found it amazing how cultures thousands of miles apart can have the same iconic mythical figures. An example of one is the Dragon. Found in both English and Chinese folklore, this hard-scaled, lizard-like, fire-breathing creature would terrorise villages, burn crops and eat livestock leaving nothing but devastation in its path.

But these days we all know that Dragons have never been anything but a figment of the imagination, or have they? To my certain knowledge there is still one beast that holds all of the attributes of the dragons of old - a devastating, fire-breathing beast that annihilates all before it. However, this beast lives in the shell of an E36 BMW 318is Turbo, converted primarily for the recent Bosal Cars in Action Tarmac Challenge, it's now set to terrorises the forests, mountains and bushveld of the South African Rally circuit in 2005.

Driven by my colleague Steve Mearns, with co-driver and CiA photographer Ciaran Nunan in the hot seat, the Cars in Action Rallystar BMW 318is contested the 2004 South African National Rally Championship in standard class A8 guise, but for the Tarmac Challenge, Rallystar Performance in Pretoria decided that it would need a little spice derived from a touch of forced induction.

Mearns' first rally, the 2002 Motorpics Mountain trial, heralded the start of a promising rally career when he competed in the Class A5 Castrol Toyota Media-Challenge car. A class win in his first ever event saw the rally bug bite hard with Mearns doing everything possible to get another seat. His following rally saw him gain yet another top 3 finish when he came second on the Subaru Cape Rally.

However, an unfortunate accident in 2003 meant he had to sit on the sideline for the rest of the season until he brought the ex-Topcar BMW into action early in 2004. Heralded as a development year for the car, much blood, sweat and tears have gone into making this rally beast what it is today and with just one or two tweaks here and there, we are certain that the competition will tremble in 2005.

The Cars in Action Rallystar BMW 318is is equipped with everything rally and more. The homologated 318is 4-cylinder 16-valve motor is equipped with a WRX intercooled turbo with manual boost control, custom-built exhaust manifold, 286? competition DOHC and a forged stroked crank. In addition, engine and fuel management is controlled by a GOTECH pro computer system. This beast is currently boosting 0.8-bar, which is around the maximum recommended turbo-action for a powerplant with a 10:1 compression ratio.

All of the power that this mill produces is transferred via a manual 6-speed M3 gearbox to the rear wheels while the Bilstein fully adjustable suspension keeps it firmly planted to whatever surface it faces. As you can see above, the set-up here is to maximise negative camber for tar surfaces - and not damaged control arms as some suggested!

But what makes this rally dragon a real fire breather is the exhaust, which protrudes from under the bumper just in front of the right front wheel. The combination of the turbo, short exhaust and excess fuel burnt on the trailing throttle results in two-foot flames emanating from the chromed exhaust tip when gearing down to fly through the next corner.

So watch out for the paring of Mearns and Nunan next year and it is probably advisable not to stand in any tall grass on the side of the road. You could just end up the same as one of those poor villagers of old, up to your neck in flames from the fearsome passing of the fire-breather.