Friday June 20, 2025 by René Fagnan
A particularly special monotype series was born in 1979: the Procar series which featured a fleet of the brand new BMW sport racing car, the M1.
The M1 finds its origins in the BMW E25 Turbo, work by Paul Brack and unveiled in 1972. A few years later, BMW wishes to run in the World Endurance Championship to face Porsche. BMW must therefore create a sports car that meets the rules of group 5 of the FIA. However, BMW does not have the capacity to produce so many cars to comply with approval and requires help from Lamborghini. Gianpaolo Dallara designs the chassis and Giorgetto Giugiaro draws the body. The M88 atmospheric engine is the 3.45 -liter BMW online bmw that develops 273 horsepower.
The project is late and the FIA changes the regulations. BMW must now produce at least 400 copies of the M1 to respect the approval of group 5. It is no longer the same thing at all. Jochen Neerpasch, boss of the competition at BMW, then decides to create a monotype series with M1 modified for the competition. About twenty M1 all new are prepared by BMW Motorsport, Project Four de Ron Dennis and Oslla in Italy.
After modifications, the M1 PROCARs are remarkable. Paul Rosche de BMW increased the power of the engine to 470 horsepower at 9000 rpm. The brakes and suspensions are improved, the weight is lowered to 1023 kilos and a rear fin is added to this car which can now reach 310 km/h. The sound of the engine screaming at high speed is simply captivating.
The idea of Neerpasch is to have automobile runners of different categories on board these M1 “identical”. With the support of Bernie Ecclestone of the F1 Brabham stable, he obtains that the Procar becomes a series of support for the Grands Prix and that F1 pilots participate.
Niki Lauda, fine fox, negotiates for his M1 to be sponsored by Marlboro and prepared by the Project Four stable by Ron Dennis. We know that at that time, Dennis and Marlboro were in negotiations to take control of the F1 McLaren stable.
Several well-known pilots are registered in the series: Elio de Angelis, Mario Andretti, Alan Jones, Nelson Piquet, Marc Surer, Hans-Joachim Stuck, Jochen Mass, Dieter Quester and Walter Brun to name a few. Note that only eight pilots participated in all races in 1979; The majority contenting themselves with running one, two or three times during the European Grand Prix season.
The season begins to zolder in Belgium. Jacques Laffite inscribes pole position and Angelis won the victory. Lauda wins pole and victory in Monaco and Piquet does the same in France on the layout of Dijon-Prenois. Australian Alan Jones won pole in the following five rounds, but he won no victory. Lauda wins twice, Laffite once and stuck twice. Lauda is crowned champion with 78 points, five more stucks.
The F1 pilots were not remunerated to run, but Lauda and Ron Dennis received a M1 of standard each, and Stuck was entitled to a BMW 528i.
A year later, in 1980, the Procar series moved away from the Grand Prix of F1 and became the main set of certain European races. The new rounds are won by six different pilots: Jan Lammers, Manfred Schurti, Hans-Joachim Stuck, Carlos Reutemann, Didier Pironi and Nelson Piquet. The latter, who missed two races, is crowned champion ahead of Alan Jones and Stuck.
Note in passing that Gilles Villeneuve did not run in Procar series, because his concrete contract with Ferrari prohibited him from running behind the wheel of racing cars other than those linked to Fiat or Ferrari.
The Procar series is stopped after two seasons. All the efforts of BMW Motorsport are then devoted to the development of the F1 Turbo Turbo engine intended for the Brabham stable in… Bernie Ecclestone. The racing M1s are sold to private interests and found themselves running in endurance, at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in IMSA and even in rally.
