eBay Find of the Day: 1979 BMW M1

[Autoblog http://atu.ca/e1de5 ] - One of the rarest of
(relatively) modern BMWs is the M1. Back in the mid-1970s,
the gang in Munich were tired of Porsche getting all the
glory in sports car racing with its 911-based 934 and 935.
BMW decided to design a car specifically to compete in
Group 4 and 5 racing against those Porsches, and because
Group 4 required that a minimum of 400 road going cars be
built for homologation, BMW designed the race car and then
changed only what was necessary to make the car acceptable
for the street. Unfortunately, by the time they got the 400
cars built, competition was already moving on and few M1s
were ever raced.

BMW did build a small run of cars based on the Group 4 spec
car for an all-steer all-star series called ProCar that was
ran in conjunction with some F1 races, and the 3.5L twin-
cam 24-valve inline-six eventually found a home in the
first generation M5 and M6. Some of the 456 road cars were
later converted to replicas of the ProCar machines,
including one that has popped up on eBay this week [eBay
auction: http://atu.ca/1979BMW ].