BMW M1 enthusiasts assemble professional cars from spare parts

The BMW M1 Procar was a racing version of the iconic M1 supercar, built for a short-lived one-make series. Only a very small number of the originals were built, but one of the mechanics involved in this project managed to recreate several of them from spare parts.

As explained in the BMW video, Fritz Wagner began buying parts until he had everything from small nuts and bolts to entire body shells. He then assembled them into a complete car. Although not specified in the video, there appear to be at least three cars in Wagner's workshop. This represents a small increase in the population of M1 ProCars.

The Procar series ran for only two seasons, in 1979 and 1980, and became popular because it featured Formula 1 drivers in the same cars; Niki Lauda won the 1979 championship and Nelson Piquet won the 1980 championship. Wagner owns Piquet's championship car and says in a video that he wants to sell it to the former F1 champion.

Wagner also owns an original BMW M1 prototype built by Lamborghini; BMW initially partnered with the Italian company for the M1's engineering, which was eventually dissolved. In the video, Wagner says he wants to convert the prototype to run on hydrogen.

BMW originally planned to race the M1 in the FIA Group 5 class, but when the FIA changed its rules regarding the number of road cars required for race car homologation, it decided to start a Procar series instead. It is estimated that a total of 453 road cars and Procars were built

.

The M1 was not a success either as a road car or a race car. However, it remains an iconic design and the seed of BMW's M division. An evolution of the inline 6-cylinder engine was used in the first E28 BMW M5.