Disappointment: Why BMW's M1 Supercar Will Never Be Replaced

BMW disappoint me. Sure they build fabulous performance cars like the BMW 1-Series M Coupe, the M3, the M5, and the to-be-built 552bhp BMW M6. But that's about it really. No gull-winged, bi-spoilered, extra wide arched, super-low supercars. This irks me as BMW are now, in my opinion, either too profit-oriented, politically correct, socially conscious or environmentally friendly for their own good.

In a recent interview, BMW North America's Product Manager stated that the German brand doesn't feel the need to make a supercar and that they like to build practical cars that are drivers' cars and executive cars that one can use everyday. This thought is further cemented by the statement made by Albert Biermann, BMW M’s development chief who told Autocar last year that BMW and M were struggling to find a business case for a supercar. “We have the skills and we’d love to do it,” he said, “We’ve discussed it several times but we’ve never been able to make the business case. Everything we do has to make money.”

This profit-oriented fact is a royal pain in my butt. This coming from a company that promotes "the joy of driving" in every one of its products. It could be that their engineers are the ultimate in German clinical efficiency and do not actually have a joyous bone in their body. Hence why they seem to love the single-minded purpose-built Porsche 911 GT3s.

A supercar burns more hydro-carbons that a regular car. Fact. It goes fast for the sake of going fast. It cannot usually carry more than 2 people and it cannot cure world hunger, predict earthquakes, cure AIDS or even eradicate poverty. The current crop of BMW M cars may have supercar performance, but are they super cars or supercars? Yes, there is a difference.

No supercar in my opinion is like a cap without its feather, a soccer team without a proper striker, a martini without an olive, Sir Winston Churchill without his cigar or Jerry Maguire without that Renee Zellweger's character to complete him. BMW doesn't have its own pièce de résistance in its line-up of cars. A supercar isn't about being socially irresponsible. It is about having icing on the cake. Something that a catalogue needs to tell wealthy people that they've something outrageous that they can buy.

A supercar is also a way for a company, or their engineers, to push themselves or to push back the boundaries of engineering. Some supercar manufacturers like Ferrari go racing to bring about new technology faster to its road going cars and this shows in cars like the Ferrari 458 Italia. There are others like the Volkswagen Group whose Chairman decides to prove a point and tasked its engineers to come out with the fastest road legal production car in the Solar System – the Bugatti Veyron. And almost everyone including the techno geeks over at Popular Mechanics, Stuff and even Time magazine took notice. Pinnacles of engineering rarely fade away even decades after they're out of production. BMW is without an engineering peak to be proud of.

Now when we compare BMW to its homegrown rivals Audi and Mercedes Benz, both have totally wonderful supercars to cap off their range of vehicles - Audi with its R8 and Mercedes Benz with the AMG SLS. What do BMW M5 or M6 owners graduate to when they have more income to dispose of? A Rolls Royce Phantom? The Rolls may be a good choice, but a leviathan still isn't a performance supercar. It isn't an R8 or a Mercedes Benz AMG SLS like the ones pictured herein. So where does that leave BMW?

If one were to take Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen Group as 'local' examples, the reason these companies allow flagships is that the majority shares in these companies are ultimately owned by investment groups, companies and various institutions. These groups understand the need to be diversified (as investment groups are usually varied in their investments by nature) and the need to have a 'halo' car in their companies' lineup. Take a look at the Audi R8 and the Mercedes Benz AMG SLS again, both are ridiculously extrovert in nature and these are cars that BMW do not have an answer to in its current lineup.

The last supercar BMW ever made was the BMW M1. This car was built from 1978 to 1981 and it was the only mid-engined car ever built by BMW. Only 456 units were ever built. It was powered by BMW's M88 3.5-litre straight-6 engine that was also used in the BMW M635CSi and the E28 BMW M5. Now if sharing a powerplant was feasible in those days wouldn't it be feasible for BMW to save some cost and use the F10 M5's twin turbocharged engine?

So why is this ulitmate quest for profit actually stopping BMW from creating the Ultimate Driver's Machine, a.k.a the BMW Supercar? It lies in the fact that BMW is basically controlled by one slightly reclusive family – the Quandts. This would mean that the company's future lie in the hands of one family unlike Merccedes Benz or even VW Group.

I suppose the Quandts' goal for BMW is firstly as their cash cow and secondly, their cash cow must be environmentally friendly and socially responsible (which is why BMWs must multi-task). Quite a lot of responsibility for a cow. In 2010, both Mercedes Benz (Daimler AG) and the Volkswagen group made over €7billion while BMW made only €5billion. And it can be assumed that both Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen has been making these levels of profit year after year compared to BMW. If you then compare the total asset worth of both Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen against BMW, you would see that they both tower over BMW by about €30billion and €90billion respectively. So you can then realise why the engineers and designers at Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen can go nuts and spend a few hundred million Euros more than BMW when it comes to developing cars.

I believe that it's the need for better corporate profit margins that is the cause for loss in the car enthusiast community. And that loss is a proper supercar made by BMW.