Valuable steel: the £500,000 BMW M1

6 November, 2016

Have you ever wondered why the 2009 BMW 1M was never called the M1, like every other M-series car that the automaker has ever produced? It’s because of this car — the incredibly rare BMW M1.

In the ’70s BMW wanted to enter into GT Racing (what would later become the Procar Series), and the German-designed horses were to be built under an agreement with Italian manufacturer Lamborghini. However, conflicts arose between the companies, which prompted BMW to produce the car themselves in-house.

With a production run of a mere 457 units, only 399 sold as road cars from 1978 to 1981, while the rest were used for racing purposes — the car also claims the title of BMW’s first mid-engined model to be mass-produced, and now commands a price tag of £500,000 or more for what little of them remain today.

But that’s enough ramblings from us, watch, and more importantly listen to the beautiful sounds of the BMW M1 as driven by James from the YouTube channel MR JWW.

Lancia Stratos – building a winner

On his own, and later with his wife Suzie, Craig Tickle has built and raced many rally cars. Starting in 1988, Craig went half shares in a Mk1 Escort and took it rallying. Apart from a few years in the US studying how to be a nuclear engineer, he has always had a rally car in the garage. When he is not playing with cars, he works as an engineer for his design consulting company.
Naturally, anybody interested in rallying has heard of the Lancia Stratos, the poster child and winner of the World Rally circuit in 1974, ’75, and ’76. Just as the Lamborghini Countach rebranded the world of supercars, so, too, did the Lancia Stratos when it came to getting down and dirty in the rally world.

This could be good news for restoring cars and bikes – but we must be quick!

Our parliament is currently considering a member’s Bill, drawn by ballot, called the ‘Right to Repair’ Bill.
It’s due to go a Select Committee for consideration, and we can make submissions ie say what we think of it, before 3 April this year. It’s important because it will make spare parts and information for doing repairs far more readily available and this should slow the rate at which appliances, toys and so on get sent to landfill.