The BMW M1 was the first car of BMW Motorsport series built between 1978 to 1981 initially assembled by the Lamborghini, an Italian sports cars manufacturer from Bologna.
The M1 coupe is the rarest of all BMW models and constructed only 456 pieces. The car was hand-built under the Motorsport division of BMW as a homologation special for sports car racing. Homologation means when a racing car is sold in public to have a certain number of sales to prove that it’s not a racing-only car.
The car’s body was designed by Giugiaro, following the 1972 Turbo concept car. Lamborghini was supposed to finalise the chassis, assemble prototypes and manufacture them. However, in 1978 following the bankruptcy of Lamborghini, BMW had to take over the total control, after seven samples were built. Afterwards BMW commissioned the German convertible builder Baur to finish the project. However, to the ill-fate of M1, when the car was in full production, the rules of homologation had changed and BMW was not qualified to race in the type it intended to run. And it was not even produced or sold in the scale the new rule dictated. That was the end of the M1 in the race tracks.
The M1 had an Italian look with a powerful BMW engine. It was the first and only mid-engined BMW with a 3.5 liter 6 in-line mid-mounted cylinders having four valves per cylinder. At 6500 rpm the engine had 277 hp and developed 243 lb of torque at 5000 rpm. A variant of the car was also used in the South African model BMW 745i built between 1984 and 1986. The car weighted 3175 lb and could reach a maximum speed of 162mph. The acceleration from zero to 100kmph was reached in 5.6 seconds. With this configuration, the vehicle had a fuel consumption of 14.4mpg.
Despite being designed as a racing car, the car never had a laudable success on track. However, the M1 is considered till today as the pioneer sports-car of the BMW spirit. It is listed as one of the top ten sports-cars of the ‘70s.