At the German GP at Hockenheim earlier this year, spectators and a few lucky television viewers got a super treat – the revival of BMW’s Procar Series, albeit just for the Hockenheim event.

Thirty years ago, BMW had initiated the Procar Series as a unique event. The idea was to show off the company’s technical capabilities – the culmination of which was the BMW M1 supercar. The series also gave young and upcoming drivers a chance to test themselves against the quickest F1 drivers of the day. The five fastest in F1’s Friday practice were each given a seat in the cockpit of a works M1 – the works cars were prepared under the technical direction of Ron Dennis. A further 15 cars were manned by eager young racing talents. The Procar Series was, in a way, like cricket’s ICL & IPL transplanted into motorsport.

At Hockenheim this year, ten cars were driven by past celebrities of motorsport like Niki Lauda and Jochen Neerpasch, as well as Jacques Laffite, Dieter Quester, Christian Danner, Harald Grohs and Prince Leopold of Bavaria. In fact it was Neerpasch, the man who headed BMW Motorsport GmbH 30 years ago, who dreamt up the Procar Series, together with Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley. At Hockenheim, he was driving the famous and probably the most valuable M1, the Andy Warhol Art Car.

The M1 was unveiled 30 years ago as a racing car which BMW customers could also drive on the road, a unique project which had to overcome some tricky administrative hurdles before getting off the ground. In order to gain Group 4 homologation, 400 units of the super sports car had to be built within a period of 24 months. On 12th May 1979, Italy’s Elio de Angelis came through the field from 15th to become the series’ first winner. However, by the season finale at Monza then-double world champion Niki Lauda claimed the series with three overall victories and a second place, for which he was rewarded with a large prize purse and a brand new BMW M1 for his efforts. So what’s the M1 all about? The car made its debut in the autumn of 1978 at the 64th Paris Motor Show. There is no doubt that the car gets its lines from the gull-winged BMW Turbo concept shown six years earlier by BMW designer Paul Bracq. The M1 is a Giorgetto Giugiaro design, and he is thought to have got the wedge-shaped design profile of the BMW M1 from the BMW Turbo. The square-tubing space frame chassis had extremely high torsional rigidity and was bonded and riveted to a composite outer skin. The M1 was 4360mm long, 1824mm wide and just 1140mm short. The wheelbase was 2,560mm and it had a dry weight of just 1300kgs. The mid-mounted engine, designated M88, was fitted with the two-piece four-valve cylinder head from the CSL racing engines and dry sump lubrication. A six-cylinder inline job, it displaced 3,453cc and developed 277bhp, though the racing versions developed upwards of 470bhp thanks to specially forged pistons, reworked connecting rods and galleries, reprofiled camshafts, larger valves, a switch to sliding throttles in place of butterflies, plus reworked exhaust manifolds. For versions complying with Group 5 homologation, engine output would be almost doubled – depending upon boost pressure through the addition of two turbochargers. In fact the turbocharged 3.2 litre engined Group 5 racer had almost 850bhp on tap. Power was transmitted via a ZF five-speed gearbox to a transaxle equipped with a 40 percent limited slip differential as standard. The superb power-to-weight ratio ensured a 0-100 km/h acceleration time of 5.6 seconds. Top speed for the road version was a very respectable (even today) 162mph. When trimmed down to a sporty 1020 kilogrammes, the BMW M1 Procar accelerated from 0–100 km/h in 4.5 seconds, and could do 310 km/h. Marc Surer took one around Nürburgring’s legendary Nordschleife (North Loop) in just 7:55.9 minutes. The Procar Series visited Zolder, Monaco, Dijon, Silverstone, Hockenheim, Zeltweg, Zandvoort and Monza. The suspension of the road car was identical to that of the Group 4 racing car – double wishbones all around that were complemented by gas-filled shock absorbers and two stabiliser bars. Internally ventilated disc brakes worked with an “Anti-dive” compensator to stop the car – these were pre-ABS days!

Initially, the M1 was supposed to be produced by Lamborghini but eventually Baur, German coachwork specialists got the job. So to make an M1, the space frame chassis was fabricated by Marchesi, and the composite bodywork by T.I.R., both being based in Modena, Italy.

Giugiaro’s ItalDesign put these two together, and then added interior trim. After that, the shells would be shipped to Stuttgart, where Baur fitted the mechanicals. All this made the car very expensive unfortunately, close to 25,000 Pounds Sterling in 1978!

It’s a pity the Procar Series ran for just two seasons and a bit. The M1 was futuristic looking, and would certainly look good on the streets, as well as in anybody’s drive — even today. Add to that the potent engine and the M1 becomes a very desirable car indeed.