DriveTimes five
Coolest BMW M-cars ever created BMW has built a lot of brilliant cars over the years and some of the best of them have had the hallowed M badge on the boot lid. Today we celebrate that fact by picking what we consider to be the five coolest M cars BMW has created. This means we have had to leave loads of awesome cars out, so no tears please; we understand your pain if your favourite isn’t here.
BMW M1 (E26)
BMW’s first mid-engined car (the second being the current i8) was also the M division’s first official production car. And what a way to start. The result of BMW asking Lamborghini to build them a racing car, Lamborghini not being able to and BMW figuring ‘‘huh, let’s just do it ourselves’’, the gorgeous M1 was designed by Italian legend Giorgetto Giugiaro and packed a brilliant 3.5-litre twin-cam inline sixcylinder engine that pumped out 204kW in road-going guise. But it was wound up to a staggering 305kW for the turbocharged racing versions.
BMW M3 (E30)
While all M3s are pretty awesome, the timelessly elegant and very pretty little original – the E30 that was built between 1985 and 1992 – is very special indeed. Unlike any M3 to come after it, BMW actually used the E30 in many forms of motorsport, including touring cars (in the BTCC, DTM, WTC and French, Italian and Australian championships), as well as rallying. In full race trim the 2.3-litre inline fourcylinder engine produced 224kW of power, but the roadgoing version only got 143kW. For a car that weighed less than 1200kg that was more than enough, really. Although it did eventually creep up to 160kW.
BMW M5 Touring (E61)
The M5 is cool. Wagons are cool. V10s are cool. Combine all of those things and you get the mighty E61 M5 Touring built between 2007 and 2010. Only the second M5 wagon ever built (the E34 also had a wagon variant) the E61 packed the mighty S85 V10 engine that chucked out 373kW and 520Nm, and screamed up to its impossibly high 8250rpm redline! Scream it did, sounding like a cross between a Formula 1 car and a chainsaw shooting angry bees, as it propelled the big fella to 100kmh in 4.1 seconds.
BMW 3.0 CSL (E9)
While never officially badged as an M car, the E9 3.0 CSL is the car that started it all. Introduced in 1972, the CSL was a homologation special to make the car eligible for the European Touring Car Championship and, as such, only 1265 were ever built. Just 500 were exported to the UK and it was never sold in the USA. The 3.0 CSL utilised a thinner steel body, aluminium doors, bonnet and bootlid and perspex side windows, as well as dropping things like sound proofing and interior trim. The 3.0-litre inline six was actually 3003cc to allow the CSL to compete in the ‘over 3.0-litre’ category of the ETCC.
BMW M3 Pickup (E93)
Okay, so there was only ever one of these built, the ute version of the V8-powered E93 M3 is pretty damn cool. Not only is it based on the only M3 ever to pack a V8 (the mighty 309kW 4.0-litre S65), the ute was actually built by M GmbH’s employees, interns and engineering students and was based on the E93 convertible version. It was claimed that the M3 ute had a load capacity of 20 standard golf bags, which is apparently a standard unit of measurement for utes in Germany. But the coolest part? The M3 ute was actually used as a workshop hack by M GmbH and, we believe, still is in use today!