As a kid, I had a marvelous collection of little cars, mainly 1:43 Burago, and some Majorette.
Starting from today, I will evoke the memories to some of them I liked most and share with you.
The car number 1, positioned at the first upper row, left,
BMW M1
Don't be confused with the small but fierce hatchback 1M, this is different.
If you want to sell the car today, the approach is simple: make it practical, make it green and make it be a gentle giant. Yes, just make the SUV and it will be fine even if it looks like the SsangYong.
Back in the 70's or 80's in order to sell a car you needed to win some race, some really, anything that would prove that your machine is the best. And in order to race the cars, manufacturers needed to get homologation, which meant they needed to sell some number of that particular model (somewhere between 500 and 2.500 cars).
Thanks to this, we got some remarkable cars such as Stratos, 288 GTO or... The M1.
The engine was 3.5 L, 6 cylinder injection capable to produce 277 PS, not bad for 1978-1981. This was more than the entry level Ferrari 308...
Acceleration time, not bad:
- 0–100 km/h 6,0 s
- 0–120 km/h 8,3 s
- 0–140 km/h 10,5 s
- 0–160 km/h 13,1 s
- 0–180 km/h 17,5 s
- 0–200 km/h 21,8 s
Racing versions came with the turbocharger and immense power of about 850 HP.
Who was capable to drive this?!
Well, not very famous drivers, such as Niki Lauda (1979, Champion of the M1 Series), Nelson Picquet in 1980, also, almost anonymous man :)
As always, we will finish with the video:
Sources:
Jalopnik
Buying Guide
Composite image
Great Text
Image, Lauda