Autumn
’72, I’m into my second year with the UK BMW importer and still marvelling that
in this, my first post-education job, it’s not work at all. And the prospect of even more enhanced fun is
conjured when I’m instructed to prepare for my first trip to the Munich
factory. So, shortly after, I was revelling
in my first four days in Bavaria. There
were many things to enjoy about the city, the South German culture and the
ambience of the Lerchenauer Str. BMW campus – not least the recently completed,
splendid Four Cylinder Tower – but the single experience that most inspired me
was being allowed to get close up and personal with the fabulous Turbo which
had made its debut appearance at the previous year’s Paris Motor Show. As a vision of our automotive future, Paul
Bracq’s creation even managed to trump the Mercedes C111-II that had so
impressed me a couple of years earlier.
There was so much to like about Bruno Sacco’s bodywork design though I
thought it could look even more purposeful if its height was reduced and its
width increased just a touch. That was
exactly what Bracq did with his styling of the Turbo. And all the talk around BMW was about the possibility of such a wonderful
car being put into production.
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Meanwhile, Niki Lauda was ‘Stateside’ in October for the Canadian and U.S. Grands Prix. He may well have wished he was elsewhere, as the car at his disposal for those races was a March 721G – not even a fully-blown F1 machine, but one of the marque’s Formula Two cars equipped with the ubiquitous Cosworth DFV engine. It was, however, more competitive than the 721X – an innovative design by March’s Robin Herd. Herd’s aim had been to improve the balance/handling of the car by incorporating a transverse gearbox. However, from its debut in May ’72 at the Spanish Grand Prix, it was evident that the 721X was a very difficult car to drive. So difficult in fact that after just three races, the team reverted to a conventional format with the 721G. Lauda’s dismay, was compounded by the fact that he had had to borrow $250,000 to ‘buy’ his ’72 March drive. Niki’s results for those two Grands Prix? – denied a likely, though lowly 15th place finish in Canada as he had received help from marshals when stranded, and thus was unclassified (last on the road running) at the Glen. His morale must have been further undermined by teammate Ronnie Peterson’s performance in his similar 721G – strong showing throughout the weekend and a 4th place finish in the race. Any dreams of being a future champion Lauda might be having over the winter would surely be very fleeting and unconvincing.
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| Courtesy graham64.wordpress.com |
What was convincing in late ’72 was a spirit of optimism at the
Lamborghini factory in Sant’Agata, where, by then, nearly 800 Miuras had been
built and the ‘replacement’ Countach model’s development was progressing well –
well enough, indeed, for a prototype to be shown at the following March’s
Geneva Motor Show. Coming up to its 10th
year as a car manufacturer, the business was riding the crest of a sales boom,
increasing revenues and praise for the panache and innovative nature of its
products. For Ferruccio Lamborghini
himself however, the outlook was very different. His tractor business became especially
problematic, prompting him to sell it out in ‘72 as a pre-emptive measure,
fearing that it might become insolvent. At
the same time, he sold a significant chunk of his holdings in Automobili
Lamborghini to Georges-Henri Rossetti. Two
years later he relinquished his entire stake in the business, leaving it in the
joint ownership of Rossetti and René Leimer.
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| Courtesy Supercars.net |
Late
in ’71 Bernie Ecclestone had paid Ron Tauranac £100,000 for Motor Racing
Developments/Brabham and was preoccupied with remodelling the business. At the same time he was developing his
interest in a role beyond team ownership and into the realm of the sport’s
organisation, governance and commercial evolution; this would lead in ’74 to
his involvement in the establishment of the Formula One Constructors
Association.
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| Courtesy Sport Pro History |
One
more thing happening in autumn ’72 was the growing influence of Jochen Neerpasch
on BMW’s plans for development of its motorsport ambition. After a successful driving career, ’60-’68,
Neerpasch was hired by Ford Germany to run its racing division. His achievements in the role led to his being
offered a similar position by Bob Lutz, Sales Director at BMW, which he took up
in May ’72. With the appointment, the
company sought to establish an elite brand, BMW Motorsport GmbH, (‘BMW M’)
within the marque, its objective being to prove in the Group 4 and 5 racing
categories that anything Porsche could
do, BMW could do better! Initially, Neerpasch
focused on establishing a general perception of the company’s excellence in
design and engineering for motorsport applications by means of a highly
successful engine supply programme for Formula 2. Alongside, the E9 Coupe was developed for top
flight Touring Car racing. A lightweight
version had first been evolved in ’71 in collaboration with Alpina. Neerpasch added to that by having a 3 litre,
200 bhp version built and homologated for Group 2. Thus began a run of success for the CSL, starting
by winning the ’73 European Touring Car Championship and sustaining success
right through to ’79.
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| Neerpasch, (right) with Martin Braungart, 1972 Courtesy PressClub USA |
These
people and situations began to be drawn together when Neerpasch, together with Martin
Braungart (overall project management) and Paul Rosche (engines) collaborated
on a study of two possibilities – 1) BMW’s participation in Formula 1, and, 2) Creation
of a coupe designed (rather than adapted to being such a vehicle) as a racing
car. Their findings and outline
proposals were first reviewed by the BMW Board in September ’75. The following month, a go-ahead was given not only to the start of
work on an engine for Formula 1, but also for the coupe, specifically a
mid-engine type with 8 cylinder power. The
proposed configuration of the coupe was not something with which BMW had had
previous experience, so Neerpasch requested and received permission to
negotiate with Lamborghini for the Bolognese manufacturer to engineer and build
the cars. As a result, Lamborghini
contracted in Spring ‘76 to handle all aspects with the exception of the engine. Central to the agreement was the obligation
for 2,000 cars to be made at Sant’Agata over a four year period. As regards the body, it’s styling was
entrusted to Italdesign, the carrozzeria founded by Giorgetto Giugiaro after he
had stopped working with Ghia. The brief
from BMW was for a car with functional and production practicality but with the
‘spirit’ of Bracq’s Turbo preserved.
There was enough interpretive room to allow Giugiaro to incorporate the
wedge element themes he had been evolving in ’74, ‘75 and early ’76 with the
Lotus Esprit, Alfasud Sprint, Alfetta GT, VW Scirocco and Maserati Medici II. Back at Munich, the M team was consolidated
with the appointment of additional senior personnel, Rainer Bratenstein (Engineer,
Development), Hans Erdmann Schönbeck (Sales Strategy) and Dr. Karlheinz
Radermacher (Board member responsible for Research & Development). So far, so good.
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| Giorgetto Giugiaro Courtesy Mahan But,
as the early months of ’76 came and went, the outlook deteriorated. Judging by the speed of early progress on the
F1 engine project, it became clear that it would require significantly more
time than originally anticipated, and a strategic rethink was necessary. Accordingly, it was decided to suspend work
and focus on the coupe. Indeed, this too
had become a source of concern, not only because a growing number of the
project team members were feeling discomfort with the scale and scope of the
programme – was a sales volume of 2000 really feasible, and how did the
costs/benefits ratio look with the creation of a new engine involved? Regarding this second consideration, there
was a practical solution readily to hand – utilisation of the existing 6
cylinder in line engine.
This reappraisal of the project, whilst fully justified from a BMW viewpoint, was bad news for Lamborghini. Whilst the company’s financial status, as mentioned above, had been secure during the early years, a much less lucrative era had set in following the first fuel price crisis in ’73. For Lamborghini, the situation was especially difficult given that its products were relatively expensive and its engines large and highly fuel-consumptive. With the volume of sales of its own products thus likely to contract, the anticipated revenue from building 2,000 M1s had become an essential support of the Italian firm’s ongoing financial health rather than a nice bonus. In Sant’Agata, it was thus a severe shock when BMW advised that it was withdrawing from the contract for 2,000 units. In its place a revised agreement was proposed based on some fundamental changes to the vehicle’s specifications and a lower volume of just 800. Lamborghini had no option but to accept this and duly agreed to a new contract in mid-October ’76. Central to the revised specification of the M1 was the substitution of a purpose-developed version of the existing 6 cylinder twin cam M49, a unit of 3.2 litre capacity which had been powering the works CSL race cars. Designated M88, this became highly regarded as an emblem of the M Division’s engineering excellence with subsequent utilisation in the models considered by many as iconic, E24 M635CSi (E24) and M5 (E28). Paul Rosche sought and achieved a quantum leap in the engine’s performance potential by again incorporating a twin cam head, this time with 24 valves. BMW had begun to make 6 cylinder engines in the Thirties. By the Sixties, it had become recognised for particular expertise with this power unit type, acquiring a good reputation for efficiency, reliability and smooth power delivery characteristics. As that decade came to an end, a version of the engine, designated M30, became an important element in the company’s evolution beyond the ‘Neue Klasse’ (1.5-2.0 litre) models through which its fortunes were very successfully revived. The M30 was produced in 2.5, 2.8 and 3.0 litre capacities and powered the marque’s reputation-enhancing models – 2.5, 2.8 and 3.0 ‘E3’ saloons and the ‘E9’ coupes. The fastest 3 litre versions of these models were rated at just under 200 bhp, while the further developed ‘3.5’ for the racing CSLs was considerably more powerful. The M88 as specified for the M1 generated just under 280 bhp – enough to address any possible assertions that the M1 would fail to fulfil the original objective of being a ‘junior supercar.’ That classification was conventionally assigned only to cars with an eight cylinder engine – as had been BMW’s original intention. However, the performance of the M88 was sufficient to render the six versus eight issue purely academic. After all, the M88 would make the M1 a 280 bhp/243 lb/ft torque machine, while the Ferrari 308 GTB, even in Quattrovalvole form, deployed just 240 bhp and the Lamborghini Urraco P300 harnessed not much more at 247 bhp.
Part 2, to follow, covers the M1's development period, finalisation and start of production. |
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