Motorsport
In 1979, the head of BMW Motorsport, Jochen Neerpasch, devised a one-make championship using racing modified M1s. The series was created to aid BMW in building enough cars to enter the group 4 classification in the World Championship for Makes. The new series, known as the "Procar BMW M1 Championship", served as a support series for Formula One, and included many Formula One drivers in identical cars.
In June 1979, Hervé Poulain with Manfred Winkelhock and Marcel Mignot raced an M1 Art Car, with body painted by Andy Warhol, in 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans in IMSA GTX class. They came 2nd in their class and 6th overall.[7]
The series ran for two years, with Niki Lauda winning the 1979 season, and Nelson Piquet the 1980 season. After BMW met the standards for group 4, the Procars were used by various teams in the world championship as well as other national series.
The M1 was also campaigned at the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 1981 to 1986 where it proved competitive.[4] The car was classified as a Group B car for Le Mans purposes, as Group B was also planned for GT class for road races, but were instead eclipsed by Group C prototypes.
An M1 Pro Car was also converted to Group B rally spec by BMW France for the 1982 season. The car was campaigned for the 1983 season as well before the car was entered solely by the Motul privateer racing team for the 1984 season.[8] The 1984 season proved to be the most successful for the M1 as former ERC champion Bernard Béguin won back-to-back at Rallye de La Baule and Rallye de Lorraine that season, and even claimed an outright ERC podium with a second place at the Rallye d'Antibes four months later.[9] The car was not campaigned further after 1984.[8]
