85 BMW 1M Coupes And 50 E30 M3s Met At The Nurburgring, And One Of Them Hides A Z4 GT3 V8
by Horatiu Boeriu · BMWBLOGArticle Summary
- BMW built 6,309 1M Coupes for customers between 2011 and June 2012, and only 740 of them went to the US.
- A Java Green 1M clone that started life as a 120d now runs the P65 V8 from the Z4 GT3 race car. It was built by Imran Arshad, the new managing director of AC Schnitzer.
- The #1ermregister now tracks about 650 1M Coupes from 58 countries, roughly one in ten of the cars built for customers.
The Ring Boulevard at the Nurburgring hosted 85 examples of the BMW 1 Series M Coupe for this year’s #1ermregister meet, and they weren’t alone: 50 first-generation E30 M3s joined them as guests of honor. It was the fourth edition of the annual gathering organized by Oliver Lindstedt of the register.
Of the two, the E82 1M is the rarer car. BMW built 6,309 of them for customers between 2011 and June 2012, plus 33 development and test cars, and only 740 went to the US, with another 220 for Canada. The E30 M3 ran from March 1986 to June 1991 and reached 17,970 units across all body styles, since BMW needed at least 5,000 road cars to homologate it for Group A touring car racing.
Why Pair The 1M With The Original E30 M3?
On paper, the two have little in common. The E30 M3 was built around the S14, a 2.3-liter four-cylinder that revved to 7,250 rpm and made 192 hp in US trim. The 1M arrived more than two decades later with the N54, a twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline-six rated at 335 hp and 332 lb-ft, with up to 369 lb-ft on overboost.
Park them side by side, though, and the pairing makes sense. The original M3 and the 1M are less than 4 cm (about 1.6 inches) apart in length, and both stick to the same recipe: a small two-door body, an engine mounted lengthwise up front, and power sent only to the rear wheels.
The M3 didn’t stay that small. Every new 3 Series grew, the M3 grew with it, and by the time the 1M showed up in 2011, the M3 of the day was a much bigger car. BMW M built the 1M largely from E92 M3 components, yet it ended up closer in spirit to the E30 than the E92 ever was. Two generations of M2 have followed since, and the current G87 M2 is the 1M’s direct descendant.
A Java Green 1M Clone That Started Life As A 120d
The most unusual 1M at the meet wasn’t a factory car at all. Evolve Automotive brought a Java Green 1M clone that began life as a humble 120d diesel and now carries a P65 V8 from the Z4 GT3 race car. The swap was done by Imran Arshad, who co-founded Evolve and Eventuri and was just named managing director of AC Schnitzer after Dutch holding company AM Group agreed to buy the tuner from the KOHL Group.
The P65 is the racing derivative of the S65 V8 from the E92 M3. In the 4.4-liter form used by the Z4 GT3, which raced with it from 2010 to 2015, the naturally aspirated V8 made roughly 500 hp.
Java Green has an odd history with this meet. Last year’s edition hosted the only 1M BMW ever painted in that color at the factory, and this year the shade came back on a car that left the factory as a diesel and now runs a GT3 engine.
Owners Drove In From Nine Countries Across Europe
Cars came from Norway, Spain, Hungary, Luxembourg, England, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. The 1M count was down from the 105 cars that showed up last year, but with the 50 M3s added, 135 cars filled the Ring Boulevard.
The rest of the field covered everything from untouched stock cars to heavily modified builds, which is about what you’d expect from people who still care this much about a car 14 years after production ended.
The 1M Register Now Counts 650 Cars From 58 Countries
The meet is the offline side of a much larger online project. The #1ermregister now lists about 650 1M Coupes from 58 countries, which works out to roughly one in ten of the cars BMW built for customers. Lindstedt calls his approach “Community Management 2.0.” Rather than run things like a traditional car club, with its formal structures, he’s building a community that lives online and gets together at the Ring each year.
If the meet keeps its annual slot, the 2027 edition will fall almost exactly 15 years after the last 1M was built. On this year’s evidence, the E30 M3s should get a standing invitation.
[Photos :flapsandspoiler / 1ermregister]
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