BMW's first mid-engined supercar was meant to be built by Lamborghini
BMW wanted a purpose-built racer to take on Porsche, and rules demanded hundreds of road versions first. It hired Lamborghini to build them, watched the Italian firm's finances crumble, and ended up hand-assembling just 453 M1s across three countries, one of its rarest cars ever.
The push came from Jochen Neerpasch, head of BMW's motorsport division, who wanted a genuine competition car for Group 5 racing and insisted it be mid-engined to outclass rivals. Homologation required 400 road cars within a set time, more than BMW could manage alone, so Lamborghini was engaged to refine the chassis, build prototypes and handle production. Gianpaolo Dallara designed the tubular steel space frame, and Giorgetto Giugiaro drew the fibreglass body, borrowing from BMW's 1972 Turbo concept. When Lamborghini's money troubles made production unlikely, BMW took the project back in April 1978 after seven prototypes. Former Lamborghini engineers formed a company called Italengineering to finish the design.
Production became a relay. Marchesi of Modena welded chassis, TIR in Reggio Emilia moulded bodies, Italdesign in Turin fitted them and the interiors, and the German firm Baur completed final assembly by hand with engines sent from Munich. Of the 453 built between 1978 and 1981, 399 were road cars. The engine, Paul Rosche's 3.5 litre M88/1 straight six with six throttle bodies and four valves per cylinder, made 277 PS in road trim for a top speed of 265 km/h, and later versions powered the M635CSi and E28 M5. Inside, the cabin was spartan: air conditioning and power windows, but no seat adjustment and left-hand drive only.
Delays and rule changes pushed the car into Group 4 instead, so Neerpasch invented a one-make series to help reach the numbers. The Procar BMW M1 Championship ran as a Formula One support race in identical cars, won by Niki Lauda in 1979 and Nelson Piquet in 1980. That June, an M1 painted by Andy Warhol finished sixth overall at Le Mans. A rally version later gave Bernard Beguin back-to-back French wins in 1984.
BMW did not build another mass-produced mid-engined car until the i8, whose customer production started in April 2014. In 2008 it marked the M1's 30th anniversary with the M1 Homage concept, a pure design study, and the 2019 Vision M Next borrowed its louvred rear windows.
Source: BMW M1
