German Car Day at Larz Anderson Museum in Brookline MA. Courtesy of Hemmings Daily
Another crowd-pleaser, and a frequent visitor at German Car Day, was this 1980 BMW M1 owned by Neal Heffron. This M1 has some celebrity ownership in its past, purchased new by Christopher Cross after his 1979 self-titled album collected five Grammy Awards. The M1, of course, features BMW’s 3.5-liter V-6 straight-six, good for 273bhp.
What is it doing here? Baur took over production of the M1 when Lamborghini could not fulfill its original contract for the M1. You are looking at a Baur product, friends!
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More about that here:
http://baurspotting.blogspot.com/2012/04/1972-e25-bmw-turbo-prototype.html
http://baurspotting.blogspot.com/2011/05/million-dollar-bmw-and-baur-connection.html
http://baurspotting.blogspot.com/2012/04/bmw-m1-concept.html
http://www.autozine.org/Archive/BMW/classic/M1.html
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2012/06/21/event-coverage-german-car-day-at-larz-anderson-auto-museum/
We meet at the German Day and discussed the origins of the M1 in front of my car pictured. We were both right about who built the cars. Italdesign, Giugiaro's firm built the cars in Italy. It was the first and last time the firm would actually set up a production line to assemble cars in house. See below for a short history.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.caranddriver.com/features/the-m1-trilogy-the-history-of-the-m1-feature
Lamborghini’s financial problems postponed the start of production beyond the original 1977 deadline, so BMW Motorsports hastily created the racing 320i for Group 5 competition. Although the M1 was formally announced soon after (January 1978), Lamborghini’s imminent bankruptcy finally forced BMW to cancel its contract on April 20, 1978. Under a new plan, Marchese would build the car's tube frame, TIR would mold the fiberglass, and then Ital Design would mate the two and install the interior. The cars would then be shipped from Italy to Stuttgart, where Baur, long a builder of BMW production prototypes, would install the BMW hardware. BMW Motorsports would do the final preparation in Munich—in fact, the car would carry a BMW Motorsports manufacturing plate.
I did not attend the German Day show that you refer to. I believe you met my friend Ed, aka THEPOOLEMAN, and that you had this conversation with him, not me. I am Tom. No big deal.
ReplyDelete:)
Thank you for sharing this info with us.... and I agree, btw, the M1 was a collaborative effort involving BMW, Baur, and several Italian firms, as you mention. I have not seen this much detail on the process previously, so thank you for sharing it with us!