“Now another thing about M is, BMW was also the first company to think about, ‘How can I bring everyday usability and motorsports together in one car?’ Because at that time, it was still either, you have a sports car, or you have a sedan, and the BMW M5 and the BMW M3 were the first ones to say, ‘You don’t have to choose either/or, you can have both in one car.” That’s just the start of his explanation. And so for us, it’s something really special also for the anniversary year of BMW.” “We started out as BMW Motorsports in 1972 and the first concept we had done in ‘72, was the famous BMW turbo that, later on, turned into the first BMW M vehicle, the M1, and more or less, this is now the second and only M vehicle that’s going to come to the market after 50 years of BMW. “Next year, 2022, is going to be the 50th anniversary of BMW M,” Frank van Meel, chairman of the board of BMW M GmbH, tried to justify at a sneak-peek preview in Los Angeles a couple weeks before the official reveal. But no, for the next M car BMW is doing… a sport utility vehicle.

Any one of those would be a perfect and perfectly fitting successor. So when BMW unveiled what is only the second car in its history to come as an M-only at Art Basel Miami Beach two days ago, you might expect something like a production version of the Vision M of two years ago, or 2008’s beautiful M1 tribute design study, or even some sort of successor to the svelte and sporty BMW i8. The M1 even went on to star in its own racing series in 1979-80, with no less a pair of champions than Niki Lauda winning the first year and Nelson Piquet winning the second. Whenever someone comes up with a list of the greatest cars from every era or even every year, you really have to thank BMW for making the M1 in an era when the rest of the industry was struggling with oil embargoes and emissions regulations instead of horsepower and outrageous design. It was so glorious that it defined its own era of supercardom.

They only made 453 of those Giugiaro-designed mid-engined supercars. And what an M that one was: the 1978-81 M1. The German automaker’s performance-oriented M Division celebrates its 50th anniversary next year.īMW had only ever made one other vehicle that was an M and only an M.With 740 hp, it’s the most powerful BMW made.BMW’s M Division revealed the Concept XM in Miami, its first M-only vehicle since the M1 supercar.

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