BMW

M1

The BMW M1 was born from BMW's ambition to build a mid-engined supercar capable of beating Porsche in Group 5 racing, and it became the first and for decades the only true mid-engined road car the company ever produced. Styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign as a sharp wedge that echoed BMW's earlier Turbo concept, the BMW M1 sat on a tubular spaceframe chassis engineered by Gianpaolo Dallara, the man behind the Lamborghini Miura. BMW originally contracted Lamborghini to develop and build the car, but the Italian firm's financial collapse forced BMW to take the project back in-house, assembling the BMW M1 through a complicated chain involving Italdesign, Marchesi, Karosserie Baur and finally BMW Motorsport. At its heart sat the M88, a 3.5-litre twin-cam straight-six with four valves per cylinder producing around 277 horsepower, making the BMW M1 good for roughly 160 mph. Because homologation rules changed before enough cars were built, BMW created the spectacular Procar championship, in which Formula 1 stars raced identical BMW M1s as a support event. Just 453 examples of the BMW M1 were built between 1978 and 1981, of which 399 were road cars and 54 were racing Procars. Rare, beautiful and historically significant, the BMW M1 is now one of the most coveted BMWs of all time.