1979 BMW M1 PROCAR – Widescreen Gallery
Images by Seth Reinhardt
The BMW M1 Procar Championship may have only been with us for two seasons, but it left us with some of the most magnificent race cars of the sport’s history.
Meet the the Speed Star Wheels BMW M1 Procar.
Created by BMW Motorsport GmbH head Jochen Neerpasch for an inaugural 1979 season, the BMW M1 Procar Championship was a one-make series for, surprisingly, BMW M1 Procars. It was also a piece of marketing and race development genius.
BMW had been working on the M1 since 1978 with plans to enter the car in the World Sportscar Championship in 1979. When rule changes came in to Group 5 requiring 400 M1s be built to Group 4 specifications before the car could be homologated for Group 5, they got creative with their use of time.
Rather than wait until all 400 road cars were built, they started building race cars at the same time and developed the M1 Procar series for Group 4. This got them out and racing, and allowed them to develop the cars under full race conditions.
During the 1979 season, different Formula 1 drivers earned seats driving for the five-car BMW factory team based on their performance in practice. These five drivers not only got the seats – they were guaranteed the top five spots on the grid as well. This proved compelling for the Formula 1 drivers, and the list of those who drove for the BMW Motorsport factory team is magnificent, including more than a handful of World Champion drivers.
The 1979 series ended after eight rounds and a ninth non-championship round held during the Gunnar Nilsson Memorial Trophy. Niki Lauda took out the drivers’ title with one race for the factory team and a further four for Project Four. Hans-Joachim Stuck and Clay Regazzoni took second and third.
1980 saw the series expand a little, moving beyond Formula 1 events. The Donington Park round was retained, now known as the International Procar Meeting, and two German events were added at the AVUS and as a support race for the Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft’s 200 Miles of Norisring.
The workings of the factory team changed as well, and this time Alan Jones, Jacques Laffite, Nelson Piquet, Didier Pironi and Carlos Reutemann were assigned to the cars for rounds which were not held during a Grand Prix weekend.
Nelson Piquet would finish the season on top of the tables, followed by Alan Jones and Hans-Joachim Stuck.
During 1980 two significant things happened for BMW. They met homologation requirements for the M1, allowing it to enter the Championship for Makes in 1981, and they became a Formula 1 engine supplier for Brabham. That move to Formula 1 shifted their attention, and they ended their Group 5 plans having built just two race cars. The M1s from the Procar series were sold to run in other series, and that was that.
This car, Chassis #1077, was built by Ron Dennis in May of 1979 for Project Four. While it’s a factory-designated Procar chassis, financial struggles saw it sold to Speed Star Wheels and shipped to Japan before it actually raced.
It arrived, essentially new, in Japan in August of 1979 just four days before the Suzuka 500-mile, clearing customs the day before the race itself. And it went on to finish fourth outright with barely any practice under its belt. This move to Japan made it one of the earliest M1 Procars to race outside of the Procar series.
Throughout its career it was raced primarily by Naoki Nagasaka, co-driven by Naohiro Fujita and Fumiyasu Satou, in Japanese endurance races.
1981 saw it bought by Team Auto Beaurex and given a traditional white with BMW racing stripes livery. Later that year it was converted to the Silhouette Group 5 specifications, receiving a wider and lighter body.
It won the Suzuka 1000 in 1982 and went on to win two Japanese Endurance Championships in its career – 1980 and 1982.
Chris Bowden found the car in Japan in 2014 and, with David Bowden, embarked on a half-year negotiation that led to them purchasing it. They handed the car over to their restoration team for a further year of heavily-researched work to restore it to its original race specifications.
The original M88/1 3.5-litre inline six motor is still with the car and had been rebuilt a few years prior. It’s been tested on the dyno recently and puts out the same 480bhp that it did back in the day, happily pushing the car to its top speed of 311 kilometres an hour.
The car is absolutely stunning and the Ecurie Bowden race & restorations team have done a magnificent job returning it to its full racing glory. It was a sight to behold at Sydney Retro Speedfest, and we can’t wait to see it out on the track again! Its next outing will be at the Phillip Island Classic at Phillip Island over the 12th & 13th of March.
Images by Seth Reinhardt
Head to Bowden’s Own for more on the car’s history and head to Ecurie Bowden for more on their classic race, restorations & sales work.
