This year at the Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard we’ve been celebrating 50 years of BMW M, the Bavarian marque’s beloved motorsport subsidiary turned performance megabrand. As is convention, the Central Feature elevates a number of special models from the marque’s history into the skies over the House. Let’s go through these five incredible M racing cars.
BMW M: The cars of the FOS central feature
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BMW 3.0 CSL
The very first BMW Motorsport project was the E9 3.0 CSL, a European Touring Car Championship challenger for 1972. CSL stands for Coupe Sport Leicht, referring to the thinner steel in the bodywork as well as the use of alloy panelling, among other measures taken to reduce weight. The car on the Central Feature is one of the 1,265 road cars built to homologate the racer, with which six drivers titles were won during the 1970s.
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BMW M1 Procar
This is the car many think of when asked to imagine the first M car, because it sort of is, wearing its M at the front and centre. It was the first M-badged car for sale to the public and was first shown in 1978. This is BMW Motorsport, though, so the M1 wasn’t a supercar for the sake of it. Originally intended for Group 5 racing, the M1 arrived too late as the rules for the class changed. The side effect was the creation of the Procar BMW M1 Championship, a one-make series that followed F1 around for the 1979 and 1980 seasons, with Procars going on to compete in Group 4.
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BMW V12 LMR
Of course, this is arguably BMW Motorsport’s crowning achievement, the 1999 Le Mans win with the BMW V12 LMR. This took BMW M’s S70 V12 engine first used in the McLaren F1 supercar, that also powered an F1 GTR to a Le Mans win four years prior, and cemented it as an all-time great. Fighting the might of Mercedes-Benz and Toyota, the BMWs had the better aerodynamic platform, the stronger engine and proved to be the more drivable, raceable cars throughout. It’s a credit to all the collaborators that brought it together and especially the Schnitzer team that raced it.
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BMW E90 320i
The backbone of BMW M’s provenance has always been touring car racing, going back to the ETCC-winning 3.0 CSL and indeed, the incredible DTM and TCC monster that was the E30 BMW M3. Carrying on that legacy of dominance in the truest fashion was the E90 320i, with which Andy Priaulx won the World Touring Car Championship in both 2006 and 2007.
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BMW M Hybrid V8
The sculpture is topped by the brave new future of BMW Motorsport. Called (for now) the BMW M Hybrid V8, it’s the marque’s new top-level endurance racing entry, confirmed for now for the Daytona 24 Hours and the IMSA series, but almost a dead cert for Le Mans. This is BMW picking up where the LMR left off 20 years ago, gunning for global motorsport glory. We can’t wait to see it in action and it was fantastic to see it topping our Central Feature.
Photography by Pete Summers.
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