Tuesday 9th December 2014

BMW M1 Procar: Time For Tea?

Only a simple onboard but you must see it. Or rather hear it

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Hopefully you've seen across PH social media that we have a BMW 1 M Coupe in at the moment. There will be a full PH Hero story on it in due course, plus a great deal more excitement about the car until then. It has rather captivated those who have driven it thus far.

On conventional naming strategy it should have been called M1 but of course that had been done previously. And how. This is not the place to detail the M1 story, instead to briefly celebrate the glorious Procar racers spawned from the road car. Using a 470hp version of the road car's straight-six, the M1 Procars raced in an F1 support series for 1979 and 1980.

Oh, that straight-six. The BMW M88 is pretty special in its road car installations but this racing version is something else again. Apparently it revs to 9,000rpm. The noise is divine. Fortunately this video is decent quality so you get the full effect. There's a case for this being the best straight-six noise in the world, in my humble opinion of course. See below for proof!

Vid here (headphones advised...).

 

 

[fatboy69]

Loving that noise so much.

All race cars should sound like that. Perfect.

[daytona365]

More articles like this one please. This is really something special.

[3795mpower]

I love my S38 and obviously I love it's father too !

Gorgeous noise.

[EskimoArapaho]

The only BMW that makes me giddy. Pop-ups FTW! Sounds absolutely fantastic, too.

[Sloppy]

Would be even better if the driver learnt how to double the clutch and blip between down changes!!

[V8 GRF]

Fantastic sounds.....

Saw those in the day on that very circuit and the following year at Brands Hatch. Awesome sight and sound. Happy days.

[urquattro]

Am really fortunate and lucky to have S38 re 3.6 and 3.8 versions of this fantastic straight six, that was the culmination of bmw engineering prowess.

Edited by urquattro on Tuesday 9th December 15:48

[urquattro]

edit messed up post. !!

Edited by urquattro on Tuesday 9th December 15:49

[soad]

urquattro said:

Am really fortunate and lucky to have 3.6 and 3.8 versions of this fantastic straight six, that was the culmination of bmw engineering prowess.

e34 M5 then.

[urquattro]

soad said:

e34 M5 then.

yes a pair, avus blue and sebring silver - buy now before they go through the roof. !!

[Leins]

The M88/S38 is a fantastic engine. Would love to experience one in an E30, ala the Hartge H35-24

Richard Branson used to own an M1, but not heard mention of it anywhere for years

[stats007]

Sloppy said:

Would be even better if the driver learnt how to double the clutch and blip between down changes!!

Just changing gear seemed a challenge...

[anonymous-user]

What a noise!

[Chris Stott]

Very nice noise... but my vote for the best sounding straight 6 goes to the Lister Chris Harris drove at the FOS last year.

[Outrun]

I've always said that the S38 in the E34 M5 is one of the best road car engines ever. BMW at it's very best.

[Mermaid]

One of the best sounding cars at Le Mans in the yester years.

[JuniorD]

Amazing cars. I had the good fortune of being taken for a short spin in this kevlar bodied M1 art car (Ernest Fuchs) when it was an exhibit in a collection in Michigan.



http://www.dtmpower.net/article.php?id=48

[Ahonen]

Excellent - that's the car I engineered for about four years. I remember that day well. It was only a shakedown, so the car was nowhere near running at full speed. Sean can and does heel and toe perfectly well, so I'm not sure what he was playing around at that day. The 9000rpm mentioned in the article is a touch optimistic, but I think we made it up to 8800 in the last year I ran them (2011).

The M1s are superb. We ran the only two Procars in the UK: this one (which was a BMW development car in '79/'80 and never actually raced until the 2008 CER championship) and the ex-IMSA Jim Busby car, which looked the same but was very different underneath. We won the GT class of the CER for something like 5 years on the bounce, beating all the other M1s and the Porsche 935s - despite the 935s running nearly 300bhp more than us. Then at the Le Mans Classic in 2012 Sean managed to win his category, which I think was the last time the M1s were used in anger.

One of my all time favourite racecars to work with.

[BIRMA]

There were quite a few turned out at the Classic LeMans this year, great sound on track.

[Slippydiff]

Ahonen said:

Sean can and does heel and toe perfectly well, so I'm not sure what he was playing around at that day.

Pedals not positioned where he wanted/needed them ? Either way, painful both to watch and listen to.

RE Engine noise, sounds like an E46 M3 CSL turned up to 10