Why The BMW M1 Was Way Cooler Than You Remember
BMW built its first Motorsport division car (the M1) to race in the Group 4 series of the Manufacturers Championship. Homologation rules stated that BMW needed to make 400 road-legal vehicles to use them on the circuit. There's a funny little secret wrapped around the creation of this race car: it's as much Italian, as it is Bavarian.
Sure, the engine that powers it is an all-German 277 horsepower, 3.5-liter, DOHC straight-six. The production version jumped from 0-62 mph in 5.6 seconds, and had a top speed of 162 mph. Kitted for racing, it produced 470 horsepower at 9000 rpm, and reached nearly 200 mph.
Initially, world-famous auto designer and Italdesign founder Giorgetto Giugiaro would design the shape and look (including the fiberglass wedge body), and Lamborghini was set to fashion the space frame chassis, while former Lamborghini employee Gianpaolo Dallara designed the suspension. Lastly, Lamborghini was supposed to put it all together, but that's not exactly how things panned out.
Instead, body construction went to Italina Resina in Modena, while the tubular chassis was built by Marchesi in Modena as well. Still Italian, just different companies. Wrapped up in bankruptcy proceedings at the time, Lamborghini finished the engineering phase, but never built any of the cars. When the sundry parts and pieces were finished, they were sent to Italdesign in Turin, where the interior and only some of the car were put together. Baur handled the final assembly at its facility in Stuttgart.
The Bavarian powered, Italian designed racer
The M1 was the fastest German-made sports car at the time. Of the 460 M1s produced (all handmade, mind you), only 53 were made into race cars. At a mere 3,100 pounds and at a height of just over 3.5 feet, the mid-engine car had a low center of gravity that kept it glued to the road. The 277 horsepower engine (known as the M88, internally) became the powerplant for the M635i and the first M5 cars.
In 1979, pop art king Andy Warhol was allowed to work his magic on BMW's fourth Art Car. Warhol was given an M1, a brush, and several buckets of paint, and 28 minutes later, he was finished — complete with a handprint and signature. Paul Walker and business partners (Erik Davis and Roger Rodas) owned Always Evolving (AE) Performance, and had a rare M1 AHG in their esteemed car collection.
The M1 remains the only "supercar" BMW has ever built. Yes, it does look like a Ferrari 308, especially with the red paint job. If you're also getting a sense of DeLorean, you aren't wrong. Giugiaro worked on that car, too, and it was even rumored that he used a side treatment from the DeLorean on the M1.
When first released in 1979, the price tag was a mere $115,000 — ironically double what a Ferrari 308 cost at the time. Today, an M1 can be had on the secondary market, but they usually sit in the upper-$600,000 range.