BMW M1

The BMW M1 first competed at world championship level on the 1983 Tour of Corsica, the same event as Lancia's 037. Driven by Bernard B�guin, it produced 430Bhp from it's 3.5l 6cyl engine, and weighed 1150kg. The car was run by the ORECA team and sponsored by BMW & Motul. The car retired from the event but went on to score two second places, one on the 1983 Lyon-Charbonnieres rally and another at the Antibes rally. Main problems with the car were reliability and size. It was a good twenty cm wider than anything else competing at the time. The car never competed on a gravel event.

The BMW M Legacy

The BMW Motorsport department was tasked with designing and building a powerful, lightweight derivative of the three series. The purpose of the M3 was to compete in the FIA Group A racing. Over five-thousand examples were hand-built by BMW Motorsport.

The first M3 was based on the E30 platform and was introduced to Europe in 1986 and the United States a year later. Production continuted until 1990. In a short amount of time, the E30 M3 scored thousands of victories making it one of the most successful touring machine in history. Under the hood of the M3 lurked a 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine with twin-cam four-valve head with Bosch fuel-injection and rated at 192 horsepower. There was also a 238 horsepower "Evolution" engine offered in Europe. The 2850 pound vehicle with five-speed manual transmission could go from zero-to-sixty mph in less than seven seconds. The top speed was 140 miles-per-hour.