A series of unfortunate events - The BMW M1 Rallye. #blogpost

well this was BMW’s chance to get into group B rallying so what what went so wrong for them, today in this blog post i will tel you all of the good and also the bad things about this homologation special, first of all a homologation special is In Motorsports, homologation is the approval process through which a vehicle, a race track, or a standardised part is required to go for certification to race in a given league or series and to enter specific races the manufacturer must come up with road going versions of there race car in order to enter.

it all began in 1981 and the M1 was entering its first ever (tarmac) rally its first outing and was at the Rallye du Var, this was a huge gamble for BMW as no car previously had came up against such rivals such as the 037, quattro, stratos etc… that were competing at the time however BMW threw lots and lots of money at the opportunity getting sponsored by ORCA . As the sport was gradually becoming bigger and bigger and being watched all over the world BMW saw this as a way to show people what the M1 was capable of, but it was not to be, In its very first outing it was doing well until sadly around half way into the rally the race derived suspension packed it in and it was retired from the rally, a big sign of things to come.

But BMW were not giving up that easily and entered it for its second rally in 1982 with a new sponsor Motul, and begun the season at the famous Tour de Corse, famous for having very tight and narrow corners the BMW would struggle but the driver Bernard Darniche gave it his best shot and even without a hand break was nursing the M1 to a Finnish and it looked like it would finish well on target for a 4th place but in the very late stages of the rally the car had other ideas as it would rip off one if its oil pipes and was forced to retire from its second rally.

So it was 2 rally’s down and none were completed, and unfortunately the rest of the season would be filled with parts breaking and cars crashing until Darniche on his 7th rally of the season managed to keep the car in one piece and was able to actually Finnish a rally coming in at 9th place, and there was even more good news on the way as a driver named Fritzinger Klaus drove a similarly prepared M1 in the German event “Klaus at the 1982 Rallye Vorderpfalz” and managed a 2nd place podium finish thanks to BMW’s newly developed engine for this rally.

It used a 3.5 litre inline 6 engine witch was tuned my BMW’s M division from only 277 hp which the road car had and it was boosted up to a huge 430 hp, this coupled with its kerb weight of only 1150kg made this car very fast in a straight line and through the corners it was great to this is because the rally version was 5 inches wider and used massive fender flares to house huge sticky tires and a mighty wing for added downforce now if only it could hold together for an entire race then maybe just maybe this could have been another well known group B legend like the cars it raced against.

after its retirement of the championship last year the driver Darniche had been very successful, so for 1983 he quit the BMW team to peruse another racing series. He was replaced by another experienced French rally hero, Bernard Béguin, 3 times French rally champion and one time European rally champion so if anyone could make something good out of the incredibly unreliable M1 it was him.

For 1983 season, Group 4 cars could get automatic Group B certification if the manufacturer applied for the change, and naturally BMW wanted another sot at redemption. However, the car in itself remained unchanged. At this point, the Group B “evolution” feature was not available to the M1 since it would have required BMW to commit to producing special and expensive parts for homologation. BMW obviously had other concerns at the time unfortunately so it wouldn’t be throwing any more money into the project

so it was onto the 1983 rally championship and everyone had high hopes for the M1 to succeed in this tarmac rally but yep you guessed it a short while into the race parts of the engine decided it wanted to be on the road now and yet again the M1 rallye would prove to everyone that is was unreliable and not cut out for rallying at all.

BMW at this point were so determent to actually finish a season they focused a lot more attention on the 1984 rally and gave out some more money to the team in the hope that they could keep the cars running, however, this was not to be since the M1 yet again proved to be highly unreliable and scored a string of 16 yes 16 retirements in total since 1983 this was not good news for the M1 and the whole of the BMW team

But there was light at the end of the tunnel as it was completing what was its very last rally it managed to stay together for the entire time and finished in 2nd place and it would have been a valiant effort until you relies the O37 in front finished 37 seconds ahead of second place but who really cared because at last the M1 had completed a rally and finished it in second place.

eventually after pretty much every rally entered was a DNF BMW decided enough was enough and pulled the plug for any future M1 rallys but hey subsequently would help bring honour back to the BMW name in rallying with exceptional performances in the Group A M3 from 1987 through 1989 so BMW were back in the rally game well for a few years anyway.

So the moral of the story is BMW tried to take the supercar away from its comfort zone and made it take part in some gruelling events in its time and it never ended well for the manufacturer and the car. but at least the M1 was successful in other areas so even though it made a horrible rally car it made an brilliant fire breathing pro car

thank you for reading everyone and also i know my English and spelling is probably terrible so sorry in advanced. also let me know if you enjoyed it and would like to see more in the future, bye.