This 1980 BMW M1 Is a Time-Capsule Keeper

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Very important STATS

Design: 1980 BMW M1

Engine: BMW 3.5-liter DOHC straight-6 (Kind M88)

Electricity: 273 hp at 6,500 rpm

Torque: 243 ft lbs at 5,000 rpm

Transmission: 5-pace ZF guide

Wheelbase: 102.4 inches

For BMW. which constructed its track record on the BMW 2002, the charming minimal sports sedan that experienced all the aerodynamic performance of a shoebox, the sleek, mid-engined M1 was a revelation, and a first in a lot of techniques. BMW’s to start with mid-engined generation auto, it was also the initial car produced by the BMW Motorsports division, headed by Jochen Neerpasch, to contend in racing, especially Team 4 Procar.

BMW M-automobiles may well be regular sights now, but it was not right until the 1980s that 3, 5 and 6-Sequence BMWs started to don the M badge striped blue, purple and crimson. In the beginning, BMW enlisted Lamborghini to develop the necessary 400 examples for homologation, but the arrangement was scuttled and BMW took the M1 project on in its entirety, eventually developing 453 illustrations in between 1979 and 1981.

While recognised to BMW addicts as the E26, the M1 was developed by Italdesign’s Giorgetto Giugiaro and bodies were built in Italy, with assembly accomplished by Karosserie Baur, the German coachbuilder that had been building BMWs since the 1930s. Beneath the wedge-shaped fiberglass physique was a longitudinally mounted, 3.5-liter inline-6 DOHC motor mated to a 5-velocity ZF transmission. The electricity practice produced 274 hp in avenue variety. Despite its race-born, tubular-steel spaceframe chassis, the M1 belonged mostly on the road, looking at its pounds of almost 3,000 pounds—hefty for a race car—conspired from any motorsports successful streak.

For quite a few several years, these outliers in the BMW lineage been given much less focus than they deserved, but these days are driving the M1, with the cars and trucks finally currently being coveted among the collectors who want a friendly unique with a exclusive condition and fantastic importance in BMW history.

This illustration is made available by Canepa in Scotts Valley, Calif., the crew of specialists whose fastidious restorations and updates for the Porsche 959 have garnered worldwide acclaim. In one-relatives ownership considering that new, this M1 was originally imported to San Francisco. During the ensuing decades, it been given a coloration alter from blue to white, and retains its authentic black interior with new, primary devices cloth seat inserts.

In storage from the 1990s till 2010, it was recommissioned and, in 2019, acquired a complete mechanical servicing and beauty refurbishment by Canepa to concours-preservation standards. Nowadays, the 22,760-mile M1 is so complete, it retains its initial resource roll, highway hazard triangle and even a manufacturing facility-situation clinical package, with unopened bandages nevertheless in their original wrappers.