The original "M" car, the BMW M1. Only 450 of them were built! Just like some other models on this site, I already built (and loved) this car as a child. Unlike most people, who probably favor Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches or whatever, I would prefer to own and drive this moto-rized jewel over ANY other car in the world.

But I must admit that the bodywork of the M1 was in fact created by Lamborghini in Italy, and their timeless design makes this BMW a real dreamcar, and by "dreamcar" I mean a car that is most unlikely to own because it is way to expensive, even (or because) almost 25 years have passed since BMW introduced the M1 in 1978.

At the "Essen Motorshow 2002" in Germany someone was selling a red BMW M1 for a price of "just" € 89.000, but unfortunately still a sum way out of reach for me.
Just for comparison, when the M1 was released in 1978, you had to pay around DM 120.000 DM / $ 60.000 for a new one.

I took a different building approach this time, because I built the chassis and bodywork of the car first and then checked which official Lego set contains wheels in a size that that would fit to my model.

It turned out that the only matching tires were the 56x28 ZRs from the 8475 RC Race Buggy set. These are some really cool tires, too bad they are available in only one rather expensive set right now.

Dimensions of my:
Lego model:
(Street version)

length: 38 cm
width: 16 cm
height: 10 cm
wheelbase: 22 cm

Dimensions of the real M1:
(Street version)

length: 436 cm
width: 182.5 cm
height: 114 cm
wheelbase: 256 cm

I used images of the M1 I found on the internet and pictures I took myself (of the red M1 at the "Essen Motor-show '02") as reference. In addition to that I had several different scale models and 3 BMW books at hand.

Right from the start of the project it was clear to me that the model had to have concealing headlights which could be folded up and down.
I used the 3937/38 hinges for that mechanism.

I definitely wanted to use transparent red 1x2 45° slope bricks for the indicator lamps, but they are not available as inverted parts, so I had to mount them in an upside down position.

Also I didn't want a stud being visible in that 1x1 clear brick in the front. Due to the concealing headlights there was very little space left, so in the end I came up with a solution using several 1x4 and 1x2 tiles, where the upside down 1x4 tile with the red 45° slope brick attached is fixed by an 1x1 plate and another regular placed tile.

I didn't want it to be visible right away that the doors could be opened when they are in "closed" position. And as I used vertically placed plates at the outside of the bodywork, a single hinge wouldn't do the trick, so I used 2x three contrary placed 2429/30 hinges on each side for the mechanism.

To open a door you first have to pull it a little bit towards the outside and then bend it open (sort of like with a real car). This mechanism takes only 2 studs of width off the interior space (minus the inside of the door, which needs 1 stud of space too and even has a little compartment to store some smaller stuff.

The narrow wheel housings leave very little space for the wheels to be steered, but I opted in favor of a good look of the car rather than a narrow steering radius. I used the "old" steering suspension, because for the narrowest wheel housing possible, the axle had to be in the middle of 2 studs, which is not the case using the 4261 part.

The rounded slope brick used at the side of the front spoiler was 1 stud too long, so in order to complete the wheel arch I had to fill the "gap" with an inverted 45° slope brick mounted sideways.

The car has a differential, but it drives no pistons because an engine block with six Lego pistons in a row was too large for a car of this scale. And even without actual pistons the engine block is too big now.

As with most models, a good looking and recognizable front part is very essential for the whole project. Here you can take a look at how I built the distinctive BMW kidney grille. Due to the proportion between horizontally and vertically placed bricks the middle part had to be two plates wide, but it looks "BMW'ish" anyway.

The rounded black slope bricks for the front spoiler are from the UCS Naboo Fighter, only that I rubbed off the printed screen pattern (One of them was a misprint anyway, and Lego service had replaced both of them)

At first my model didn't have that openable front compartment, because the M1 is a mid-engine car, so there was nothing really interesting to see underneath. But when I saw that cool picture above, my model had to have such a hatch, too.
You can not actually tell that it is openable while in "closed" state.

I achieved this by using two contrary placed 4275/76 hinges. At least now you can see that my model really has steering, although the narrow wheel housing wouldn't suggest so at first.

I modeled the interior of the car after the black&white picture above and one of my scale models, so it's all there: The dashboard with all the instruments, knobs and switches, 3 pedals, handbrake, even an ashtray and "black leather" seats. By looking at the above picture you also get an idea of how the doors swing open.

Building a good looking A column is a real challenge with most Lego cars. But the technique with the 2429/30 hinges works pretty well, with two 1x1 horizontal clips holding the whole construction in place. For a more "sports coupé" look I built my model without the B column, which would only be black anyway.

The back of the car: Nothing really special here, just two chrome exhaust pipes and a lot of transparent bricks. Two BMW stickers (and maybe a license plate, too) would be a nice addition though.

Due to my construction utilizing several 3937/38 hinges to create a realistic look of the rear bodywork of the car, the rear flap of my Lego model cannot be opened the same way as the one of the real M1. And even if it were possible, the construction would not be sturdy enough to hold the bodywork and the roof together.

But to get a glimpse at the engine compartment anyway, I opted for the compromise to open only the middle part with the "sun visors". At least better than not being able to see the engine at all.

And what a powerful engine it is: The M88 in the street version has 3453 ccm and 277 hp which led to a top speed of 262 km/h. Some procar engines had up to 850 hp which catapulted the car to a whopping speed of 360 km/h. Characteristic of this engine are it's six individual intake pipes, which are also featured in my Lego model.

To build those six intake pipes with half a stud of space between them, the engine block had to be 9 studs long, leaving very little space for the gearbox in the rest of the engine compartment. But although the engine might be a little bit oversized in accordance to the scale of the rest of the car, I think it still looks pretty cool with all those chrome parts, and you could even see the individual spark plugs represented by those tiny antennas.

The sloped bodywork at the rear side of the car is held in position by seven 3937/38 hinges at the bottom and a 1x2 grille tile at the top, giving the whole construction a perfect fixation.

The roof is held in place by 2 1x2x3 panels which are hidden behind the headrests.

The "sun visor" above the engine com-partment was quite hard to build. There wasn't enough room for a distance of one plate height between the five individual panels, so I had to find a way to build it with a distance of only half a plate height. And in additions to that, 4 of them had to be the uneven number of 11 studs wide.

When I first had the BMW M1 project in mind, I planned building it with the distinctive 3-colored "Motorsport" stripes. But I still haven't enough light-blue parts to do so, especially parts like hinges etc. are missing. An alternative to red, blue & light-blue would be red, violet & blue, but then again, violet bricks are equally rare.

The only differences between my street version and my procar M1 are the color of the front spoiler and the addition of the rear wing. I did built the procar first, and later decided that the street version looks more classic and was the model to keep. I still left the huge front spoiler attached, only build in black, making it look less striking.

I used a lot of "regular" bricks to create the overall shape of the M1. Especially the good old 45° slope brick proved to be quite useful as it fitted perfectly for the air inlets at the rear side of the car and in the front hood. Additionally 33° slope bricks were used at the front, back and for the rear window frame.
The new 2x4 wing pieces give the wind-screen a perfect shape. Also notice the central mounted single wiper.

I had to mount the rear wing of the procar version upside down also, but those airplane pieces at the sides were too perfect not to use them that way. The top of the rear wing is faced "studs up" again.

The fuel caps on both sides of the car were a bit tricky, because exactly at the desired position were those 3937/38 hinges, so I first decided to leave them out, but later found a way to include this little detail also by leaving 1 stud of space between the hinges and using a 1x1 brick with hole plus a 1x1 round plate as cap.