To mark 50 years of BMW M, we drive an M5 CS to satisfy M’s authentic boss on the website of its first race win
Le Mans, September 1968. Not June? Not this 12 months.
This 12 months, the 24-hour race is postponed after summer-long civil unrest within the staunchly patriarchal France of Charles de Gaulle, though that’s one other story. So far as we’re involved, the story is at Le Mans, in September. It’s the ultimate leg of the World Sportscar Championship and the decider between Porsche and Ford. Who will prevail? The 4.9-litre GT40s are slender favourites after wins at Spa and Watkins Glen however one unbelievably juicy and nearly incomprehensible sub-plot led to by the calendar change is that Ford’s new motorsport chief is on the wheel of the #33 works Porsche 908.
Quick-forward 20 years. In one other life, the identical man is tasked with main Mercedes’ return to manufacturing facility motorsport operations after 33 years of self-imposed exile. It’s a shrewd little bit of HR, and never solely as a result of Mercedes-Benz goes on to safe the 1989 World Sports activities-Prototype Championship, within the course of taking an emphatic one-two at Le Mans with the good-looking Sauber-Mercedes C9. Arguably the extra momentous growth that 12 months is our man’s establishing of an all-new junior driver programme for the Silver Arrows. Its inaugural trio of signings contains the fresh-faced son of German bricklayer and devoted father Rolf Schumacher.
But right here’s the exceptional factor about Jochen Neerpasch. The beautiful intrigue of 1968, the rehabilitation of Mercedes into motorsport greater than three many years after the Le Mans catastrophe, giving arguably the best Method 1 driver of all time his first huge break: any considered one of them could be legacy-defining occasions for most individuals, however that’s not fairly the case for this 83-year-old.
Neerpasch is greatest identified, and greatest identified by far, for founding BMW Motorsport GmbH after leaving Ford in 1972. It implies that 2022 marks 50 years of arguably the best entity the automotive trade ever gave to petrolheads of abnormal means. That roaring, oversteering, vivacious however in any other case usable, incognito and principally inexpensive entity often called the M automotive.
So pleased birthday, M, and what higher solution to have a good time than to hitch the dots between road and monitor with a race weekend, a street journey and a rendezvous at division HQ within the Munich suburb of Garching?
The way it all started
Let’s return to the beginning. “Completely sudden” is how Neerpasch describes it. From the plush confines of a contemporary BMW M Motorsport truck within the Nürburgring paddock, he’s turning the clock again greater than half a century to a time when the marque’s competitions operation consisted of simply 5 rally mechanics and an M5 was an anti-tank gun. Again when he was nonetheless boss at Ford Motorsport, Cologne.
“I bought a name late in 1971, at house within the night, and Bob Lutz stated he wished to reorganise BMW’s motorsport actions,” he remembers. At the moment, Lutz hadn’t even hit 40 however was already vice-president of gross sales at BMW, having himself been pinched from Ford. Neither was he hanging round, remaining with BMW solely till 1975 however instantly lobbying CEO Eberhard von Kuenheim to type an in-house racing division. Why? “An organization is sort of a human being,” Lutz would pronounce when BMW Motorsport GmbH burst into life on 24 Might 1972. “So long as it goes in for sports activities, it’s match, properly skilled, stuffed with enthusiasm and efficiency.”
Lutz, who went on to develop into an trade big within the US, knew the time was proper. BMW almost went bankrupt in 1959 however the Neue Klasse automobiles launched within the Nineteen Sixties had induced revenues to quintuple, so the coffers had been wholesome. Extra straight, the corporate’s E9 coupé had lately been reworked for Group 2 racing duties within the wildly thrilling European Touring Automobile Championship, however solely with privateer groups that might by no means make this huge, elegant tourer fairly mild sufficient. With current and future F1 world champions on the grid and machines that had been tantalisingly associated to showroom fashions, the sequence was well-liked and the good thing about BMW having a works set-up was clear. Lutz’s downside was that he wished Neerpasch on the helm, and Ford man Neerpasch’s downside was that the Capri RS he had developed was dominating the ETCC. Why on earth forsake all of it?
“This might be an opportunity, let’s say, to have a mission for the longer term,” says Neerpasch. From immediately’s vantage level, it appears ludicrous that M’s existence may ever have been unsure, however the fact is that Neerpasch wouldn’t enroll till he had a cast-iron assure from Lutz that 1000 light-weight ‘CSL’ variations of the E9 could be made to homologate one thing that might vanquish the Capris. Issues had been delicate. Making these CSLs wasn’t the issue. Karmann could be commissioned and was succesful. However promoting them? Fairly dangerous, says Neerpasch. With out success on circuit, these massively costly fashions – in 1972, the CSL value two-thirds of what Ferrari was asking for the already eye-wateringly expensive Daytona – may have been a humiliation for Motorsport GmbH and a fiscal chopping block.
But it surely by no means got here to that. After an abnormal begin, some well-documented, wing-based sort approval skulduggery resulted in an aerodynamic improve package deal being homologated for the CSL halfway by way of the 1973 season. The Batmobile was born, with the often-airborne works automobiles thrashing the opposition on their debut on the Nürburgring 6 Hours.
As an organisation, this was additionally an actual lift-off second for M. Come the top of the season, the Capris and the privateer CSLs had been crushed, though Neerpasch and firm nonetheless weren’t out of the woods. The oil disaster in 1974 noticed M GmbH resorting to promoting branded rally jackets (cool then, sub-zero immediately, if you will discover one) and Paul Rosche-designed Method 2 engines to Max Mosley, marking the corporate’s first step to wiping its personal face commercially. It was contact and go however M survived. Extra importantly, the road-focused creations for which M would develop into broadly worshipped had been additionally beginning to materialise, such because the E12-based BMW M535i, developed so Kuenheim’s safety element may sustain along with his highly effective and really quick BMW 7 Sequence.
“We had been versatile like this,” says Neerpasch. “We took the 5 Sequence and put the bigger 735i engine in, completely different dampers, brakes, wheels and also you couldn’t see from the surface that it was a quick automotive. The sellers seen and requested [if they could] have a automotive like this.” Nicely, wouldn’t you?
Then there was the fabulous BMW M1 of 1978, about which there’s a definite tone of remorse in Neerpasch’s voice. This Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed supercar, of which solely 453 road variations had been made, is a surprising signifier of M’s early ambition and was very a lot the chief’s child. Not content material with chopping Ford right down to dimension within the ETCC, its subsequent goal was the Porsche 935 in Group 5, at which the mid-engined M1 was aimed.
Alas, a direct hit by no means got here. It’s an advanced story, and one involving the late transferral of manufacturing duties from ailing Lamborghini to Baur, BMW’s growth of the M88 straight six (sire to so many excellent M division engines of yore) and the single-make, star-studded Procar sequence, the likes of which has by no means been seen since. Finally, regulation adjustments in sports activities automotive racing killed the M1 mission early, however what’s attention-grabbing from a road-legal perspective is that Neerpasch nonetheless feels the thought has a spot.
“Once I left BMW [in 1981], the precedence was F1,” he says. “I believe it was a mistake as a result of they forgot concerning the M1.” He suggests an M1 remains to be lacking from the line-up immediately
The prospect of a Porsche 911-esque lineage of M-badged mid-engined halo automobiles is mouth-watering, which is why Neerpasch’s successors typically appeared eager on the thought. Within the post-millennium period, legendary M boss Albert Biermann is thought to have longed to construct a solution to the Mercedes-Benz SLS. “From an engineering perspective, we’ve the talents and we’d like to do it,” he informed Autocar in 2011. A couple of years later, his successor, Carsten Pries, advised that the BMW mothership’s principal reservation in green-lighting such a machine – the questionable enterprise case – is likely to be softening, though because it transpired, by no means sufficient.
M division bigwigs aren’t the one ones to have banged their heads up towards this wall. In a backroom in Buchloe are the elements for an Alpina conversion of the plug-in hybrid BMW i8 with fatter tyres, a better cylinder rely and significantly better intent than the genteel manufacturing model. It was by no means permitted to see the sunshine of day, and the BMW Group’s overriding stance on the matter has this 12 months been bolstered but once more.
M’s fiftieth birthday current to itself is “essentially the most highly effective BMW M automotive ever” and “its first stand-alone automobile because the legendary BMW M1”. The official literature additionally refers to “strikingly sculpted surfaces” and “extravagant traces”; nothing lower than “an entire reimagining of the high-performance section”, in reality. All of it sounds splendidly supercar-y, however the 740bhp BMW XM is not any such factor. With dispiriting predictability, it’s an SUV.
Dutchman Frank van Meel will oversee the introduction of the XM after returning for his second stint at M’s helm in November final 12 months. He additionally occurs to be within the room with us, having respectfully listened to the person for whom his put up was invented. An engineer, he’s an attention-grabbing man: one whose lottery-win acquisition could be an M1 however who additionally appears to be an genuine advocate for the crossover facet of the equation. Perhaps that’s simply realism. He describes the XM as “logical”, and in 2022 maybe logic is the one perfect any accountable automotive exec can attempt for.
Van Meel is taking cost of M on the most safe, worthwhile and diversified time within the marque’s historical past, but it surely’s additionally a way more difficult and complicated one. Every thing within the line-up will quickly have to be hybridised, however when and to what extent are questions that also want answering. Sooner or later, full electrification beckons – an M-badged technology-demonstrator idea can be revealed later this 12 months – however as of now, the precise power-weight-price relationship isn’t thought of viable.
This a lot we already know. The BMW i4 M50 is quick and succesful and it’ll even do neat little powerslides but it surely’s no M automotive, missing the underlying aggression and the trademark free-flowing agility. An all-electric BMW M3 it’s not, however that can come. Van Meel says it’s unlikely the following M3 will comply with within the tyre tracks of its Mercedes-AMG rival and dramatically downsize its engine. The upcoming Mercedes-AMG C63 will sacrifice its V8 for a four-cylinder hybrid however van Meel says the M3 will maintain on to all six pistons (albeit probably with e-assistance) proper up till it does ultimately go all-electric. Motorsport will inform the choice.
He says: “On the finish of the 2020s, is hybrid nonetheless the precise reply or is the expectation then that you just do a very high-performance electrical drivetrain that may also be utilized in racing?”
That’s good to listen to. Clearly, racing stays integral to M, regardless of the scales shifting so dramatically in favour of road automobiles over the many years.
“It might be incorrect to assume you don’t want racing,” says van Meel, who reckons the legitimacy of any motorsport-rooted marque can final solely 10 years or so after monitor actions finish. “That you must know how one can do race automobiles [in order] to do high-performance automobiles, as a result of in any other case it’s only a brand.”
He describes a pyramid: racing automobiles on the apex, street-going M automobiles within the center and M-lite M Efficiency fashions because the broad, high-volume base. Again within the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, the highest tier of the pyramid was chunkier, however even immediately, although proportionally a lot smaller, it’s nonetheless on the prime in an ideological sense.
Positive, a BMW X6 M weighing 2.3 tonnes and costing £120k doesn’t appear aligned with something Cecotto or Ravaglia would recognise or condone. However once more: logic. Final 12 months, M offered greater than 160,000 automobiles, a considerable proportion of them SUVs.
Perhaps that’s why the BMW M4 GT3 seems so irresistibly good on monitor this weekend, right here on the fiftieth working of the Nürburgring 24 Hours. They’re a tonic – all the things an X6 M will not be.
That is the debut season for the brand new competitors automotive, which replaces BMW M6 GT3 so barge-like when seen on TV that it was the supply of a whole lot of memes on social media. The M4 is completely different. The awkward aggression of the 150mm-narrower road M4 is subsumed by the aero equipment, decrease trip peak and wild liveries. The traditional 3.0 CSL Batmobile silhouette is there. Witnessing the BMWs battle their Audi R8, Porsche 911 GT3 and Mercedes-AMG counterparts feels innately particular. Timeless, even.
Extra so on the website of M’s very first victory, again in 1973. At evening, the Nordschleife takes on the ambiance of a medieval military camp, the automobiles as battered and gladiatorial as grizzly troopers. That you must expertise N24 to know the edgy heat that pervades. Vibrant flares and branded neon indicators minimize by way of the darkness, accompanied by the aroma of sizzling brakes and lighter fluid, all of it overlaid with six-, eight-, 10-cylinder thunder, Journey the Lightning and entrance splitters crashing to earth at Pflanzgarten with a meaty scrape.
’Ring romance apart, the weekend is a chastening one for M, Neerpasch included. Even at 83, he was up till 3am final evening and is right here as advisor and mentor to the kids of the works BMW Junior Workforce, who’re, or had been, racing the #72 M4 GT3, putting in its German colors. As one mechanic kindly places it, a “miscalculation” getting into the flatout double-apex Mutkurve resulted within the mom of all swappers and the automotive being collected by each side of Armco. No one was damage however birthday disappointment is compounded by the client groups, who contributed their share of DNFs through the evening, regardless of the #99 Rowe M4 GT3 qualifying on the entrance row. In the end, only one M4 GT3 takes the chequered flag, the consolations being that that is solely the automotive’s difficult first season, and the uncooked velocity actually appears to be there.
The ‘Ring to Garching
Say-essss! If the Alcantara-wrapped wheel and the M Carbon buckets that set your hips to low-slung perfection by some means didn’t give the sport away, you’d know you had been inside one thing particular simply by opening your ears and tuning into the crowds. That you must pay attention past the induction hiss, the light however clear turbocharger whine and the unvarnished engine word, a lot of which comes over in excessive constancy as a result of the automotive’s composite bonnet appears to permit the frequencies to permeate it much better than does metal.
Drive the brand new BMW M5 CS by way of any concentrated mass of German petrolheads and individuals are going to excitedly level out these initials, repeatedly and once more. We should have heard say-essss uttered from the roadside 50 instances this weekend as our limited-production, luxe-extreme saloon ferried us from paddock to Adenau; to the slippery, downhill Brünnchen; to Hohe Acht at evening so we may trek right down to Karussell.
Equally, for our 320-mile stint from the Nürburgring to Garching and M’s growth centre, it needed to be the CS. For one factor, even an abnormal BMW M5 is already a finer GT automotive than any Ferrari 812 Superfast or Aston Martin DBS Superleggera. Sorry if that doesn’t persist with the script, but it surely’s true. Large, unhealthy M saloons have at all times been excellent on this respect. Velocity, dealing with, consolation, and simply sufficient specialness within the powertrain and cabin make it so. And as our buddies on the ’Ring proved, there’s meat on the bone by way of cachet.
However right here’s the factor: slightly than torching these strengths in pursuit of fractionally faster lap-time efficiency, as you would possibly anticipate of any gold-wheeled, bonnet-vented flagship spinoff with bucket seats even within the again, the ‘hardcore’ 626bhp CS solely enhances them.
There’s an excessive amount of element to enter right here, however the main revisions that morph M5 Competitors into M5 CS quantity to 70kg saved largely by way of the carbonfibre bonnet and removing of isolation supplies, plus an overhaul of the suspension and anti-roll bar settings. Shorter springs additionally drop the trip peak 7mm, which is likely to be one other trigger for concern had been it not instantly obvious that the CS strikes with a silky deftness the common M5 can not match. There’s a softness and a willingness to breathe with the street that makes you wonder if the ex-Ferrari engineers that developed the Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA have been seconded to M. And but, simply when progress is beginning to really feel slightly un-Germanic, there it’s: an iron core of physique management and steering precision that you would be able to’t fairly imagine exists in one thing so substantial.
It’s a exceptional machine, the M5 CS: monolithic in its stability on the autobahn because the ripe 4.4-litre S63 V8 fires it the far facet of 180mph, but flowing with cultured, responsive poise when the driveline is flicked into rear-drive mode for these quick, clean Bavarian nation roads. You wield the M5 CS in a approach you’ll be able to’t fairly obtain with any of its rivals, Porsche Panamera included. Is it a masterpiece? Doubtless. When you think about what this automotive needs to be, and the style through which it fulfils that difficult, multi-faceted position, you would possibly even go additional and chalk it up as the perfect automotive on the planet, if that’s not too soppy. It’s simply excellent.
The importance of the CS goes deeper, although. Like all issues within the efficiency automotive recreation, in 2022 BMW M has a weight downside. Security tech, ballooning footprints, added NVH supplies and, in some instances, battery packs are taking their toll. At present’s M3 carries extra kilos than the millennium-straddling E39 M5 and, as van Meel admitted contained in the M Motorsport truck, “there is no such thing as a approach of reversing”. Neither does he assume any silver bullet can be incoming. Turbochargers, four-wheel drive (considered one of van Meel’s main, and profitable, initiatives), automated gearboxes: M has adopted all of them when crucial, and principally with a mastery that has meant the completed merchandise at all times remained fascinating and fascinating. However weight? It’s troublesome to get excited a few near-1800kg sports activities coupé, which is precisely what the present M4 Competitors is. Even the upcoming ‘child’ BMW M2 is predicted to muller the scales at 1650kg.
So on the wheel of an M4, you’re always conscious of its mass. And whereas we’ve but to expertise the brand new M2 on the street, its M240i understudy is decidedly hefty. Hybridisation will make issues worse, but when the M5 CS proves something, it’s that M can nearly overcome even the load conundrum. The sheer high quality of the M5 CS’s mix of trip and dealing with, and the way in which it disguises its 1950kg, ought to act because the benchmark for all future M division merchandise, particularly the electrical ones. This unbelievable super-saloon is a beacon for M, but of its personal making. In essence, the cat’s out of the bag.
Inside M’s headquarters
Our journey attracts to a detailed with Hans Rahn at 19 Daimlerstraße, Garching, M’s house since 1986, when Motorsport GmbH wanted larger amenities for an all-out assault in Group A touring automotive racing and made the transfer from Preussenstraße. Rahn is head of prototyping at M and has oversight of not solely the manufacture of the M3 GT4 and GT3 twins but additionally M’s many developmental street automobiles, that are dotted across the place, partly camouflaged. Life-cycle updates and all-new M automobiles hatch right here, with experimental elements typically 3D printed after which bolted on.
Be aware, nonetheless, that the completed street automobiles aren’t truly constructed right here. It’s too intimate at Daimlerstraße, and nowadays, the volumes concerned with these automobiles are far too giant. Any M3, M8 or X5 M is assembled alongside its extra humdrum brethren on BMW’s common traces. The exception was the E34 M5, each instance of which was born in Garching between 1987 and 1996.
It implies that each machine we see right here immediately – from the wild new M4 CSL, to mules for the upcoming M3 CS, to even an early model of the next-generation, twin-turbo V8 hybrid M5, due in 2025 – is a few type of take a look at mattress not supposed for public consumption. Not that this prevented a camouflaged M2 from dicing with us on the autobahn en route right here, its driver giving our M5 CS an M-certified thumbs up earlier than peeling off and up a slip street.
There have been some much more clandestine actions right here through the years, in fact. Growth for the E46 M3 CSL didn’t finish when the showroom mannequin arrived in 2005. M as a substitute plumbed within the 4.9-litre V8 from the E39, protecting the outside completely the identical however for a second round consumption within the entrance bumper. How dreamy is that? An E60 M5 CSL was additionally conceived, solely with the rev ceiling taken from 8250rpm to 9000rpm and the cumbersome SMG gearbox swapped for the Getrag-built dual-clutch ’field that appeared within the E92 M3. Simply think about the fantastic, F1-esque sound that makes. The Chris Bangle-era M6 was additionally fitted with energetic aero and lightweighting measures, and the experimentation continues to at the present time, though simply how a lot time M spends on these initiatives is one thing most of us won’t ever actually know.
As with all successor to the M1, the enterprise case is the explanation many of those fantastical initiatives fail to make it out of the workshops. Nevertheless, if nothing else, they reveal an encouraging and persevering with need to do Very Cool Stuff throughout the halls of M GmbH. That the background of one of many screens within the M4 GT3 meeting corridor (the exact same corridor the place the Group A M3s had been made) exhibits a Jägermeister-livered M1 Procar in full assault mode helps this notion. Naturally, rock music additionally rings out, though on this case quietly, and towards a backdrop of spotless flooring and actually jewel-like suspension elements slightly than the darkish, anarchic vitality of the Nürburgring at evening.
It’s an interesting place, right here on Daimlerstraße. Reassuring, too. It’s fairly one thing to have met Neerpasch, who delivered BMW M into this world, on the circuit the place it took its well-known first victory, and to have then pushed to the venue the place, 50 years later, the identical vitality remains to be being expended within the growth of racing M automobiles and their street-based counterparts.
I assume that, among the many flurry of butch crossovers, fats grilles and piped-in exhaust sounds, it’s simple to lose that all-important sense of authenticity. However relaxation assured: past the ‘logic’, that authenticity stays intact. Let’s hope we are able to nonetheless say the identical factor in 2072. For now, pleased birthday, M.
Le Mans, right here we come
BMW was beneficiant with our stage of entry in Garching – apart from one merchandise. Awkwardly (rapidly?) hidden below a sheet within the shadow of half-finished M4 GT3 automobiles was BMW’s new worldwide prototype sports activities automotive racer. They stated we couldn’t rapidly whip off the sheet, and even take a lot as a peak beneath it, however affirmation wasn’t crucial. The bulbous haunches, the immense scope of the wing, the hardly hip-high roof of the bubble cockpit, all towards the relative tininess of the footprint. Pure prototype racing automotive.
Precisely one week later, the factor was formally revealed in correct works livery because the BMW M Hybrid V8 – a part of the brand new era of LMDh endurance racers. Two automobiles will initially compete within the IMSA championship subsequent 12 months with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, en path to an look at Le Mans in 2024, though that’s nonetheless to be confirmed.
BMW could try to attract a line between the automotive’s twin-turbo V8 hybrid powertrain and that discovered within the new XM SUV – {hardware} that may also seem within the subsequent M5 – however in reality there are few similarities. The racing automotive’s 10,000rpm coronary heart is alleged to be the reprised P66 DTM engine initially used between 2012 and 2018, whereas the hybrid bit is a standardised system by Xtrac with a motor-generator unit housed contained in the gearbox casing. Porsche, Audi, Alpine, Lamborghini, Cadillac and almost definitely McLaren will all use the identical hybrid set-up, though alongside its 4.0-litre engine, the M Hybrid V8’s Dallara-built chassis is exclusive to BMW.
The automotive is of restricted relevance to the sorts of M merchandise you or I will purchase, then, but it surely’s nonetheless vital. For the primary time because it left Method 1 in 2009, and top-tier sports activities automotive racing within the wake of the Le Mans-winning V12 LMR, BMW has a talismanic motorsport machine to shout about. For such a storied outfit, that feels proper and correct.
