M CAR CELEBRATION
WE DRIVE 11 BRILLIANT BMW M MODELS TO MARK 50 YEARS OF THE DIVISION
Steve Sutcliffe
GENESIS The M1 started life as a joint racing-car project between Lamborghini and BMW
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BMW’S M division might well be 50 years old this month, but to begin with it made only racing cars – hence M for motorsport in the name – its first-ever creation being the outrageous 3.0-litre CSL ‘Batmobile’ from 1972. At the start, the M division employed a mere 35 people. In 1978, however, everything changed. In the same year that Britain birthed its first test-tube baby, BMW Motorsport GmbH – as it was known back then – also produced its firstever road car, the M1. Since then, it has never looked back. Five decades on, the M division has built more than half a million cars, at the same time underwriting BMW’s reputation as a creator of some of the world’s finest driver’s machines. It’s a reputation that many manufacturers have tried, and largely failed, to emulate. So for a magical couple of days in May, nearly 50 years to the hour after M was born, we brought together a rare and varied collection of the best cars made by the now-mighty division during the past half century (there have been 29 so far, and counting). Starting, of course, with the M1...
18 Special Issue
“It’s a reputation that many manufacturers have tried, and largely failed, to emulate” www.autoexpress.co.uk
