You can’t trust your eyes. Not on a black night in the most distant corner of Scotland when the headlamps are two drops of rheumy yellowed light. I see a ghostly dead tree picked out against the memory of a purpling sky, just have time to think “I’m sure that wasn’t there a couple of hours ago” before the whole branch structure turns and trots off across the heathered moor.
I wouldn’t usually spend this much time on an analogy, but that was a moment. I’d already been having one, realising as I guided the 3.0 CSL back to Lochinver how harmoniously its gentlemanly yet commanding demeanour suited the tone and flow of these roads, this landscape. And then the stag appeared and the stars aligned: car, animal and landscape all imbued with the same dignified grandeur.
Images: Lee Brimble
This feature was originally published in issue 289 of Top Gear magazine
You thought the Batmobile was a hardcore charger, right? It’s not. The concept of sports __cars was different in 1972. BMW was different in 1972. We might be celebrating its 100th birthday, but if this was a car anniversary rather than a company anniversary we’d have to delay for another 16 years. BMW started out with aero engines, then motorbikes before it began rebadging Austins. Still in its infancy, it had to abandon car production to aid the German war effort and, when it stuttered back into life, was initially only allowed to make pots and pans. As late as 1959, it came close to being sold to Daimler-Benz.
And yet 13 years later they were building __cars like this. And soon after the 2002 Turbo, the M1 and the M535i. That’s quite some turnaround. So what had happened?
The year 1959 was the watershed. BMW had been selling big, expensive cars when the post-war world wanted small, cheap ones. So that year they instigated the Neue Klasse project, and, in the BMW 1500, basically gave the world its first compact sports sedan. That arrived in 1962. The following year BMW was able to pay dividends to its shareholders for the first time in 20 years. Good cars turned it around, but the following decade gave birth to legends.
BMW in the Seventies. The Ultimate Driving Machine (that motto arrived in 1975). Just wow. Between them these four cars are responsible for setting the tone for BMWs all the way up to the present day. What is the M2 if not a direct replacement for the 1973 2002 Turbo? The Batmobile is so iconic that BMW famously recreated it for the hottest concept of 2015, the CSL Hommage R. And 1979’s M535i was the very first M car, so influential it can trace an unbroken line through to today’s M5.
What, then, of the M1? It was designed to be an out-and-out racer, developed in conjunction with Lamborghini to comply with Group 4 racing regs. But then Lambo hit the skids, costs soared and race regs changed, leaving the M1 in no man’s land and BMW unconvinced they needed a supercar in their sales line up. Just 430 road cars were made in total.
This one is insured for £600,000. I think it might just be the most wonderful road car I’ve ever driven. So let me tell you about it. It doesn’t feel like a racing car and it doesn’t behave like a mid-engined Seventies supercar. The ride is delightfully placid, the centre of gravity is low and so is the scuttle, so the ground comes zapping back under your toes, under a cabin free from pretence or luxury, but replete with dials, square edges and a chassis coquettishly hidden away behind the flimsiest of trims and carpets.
You don’t chase the speed, but instead let it come to you, the 3.5-litre straight-six giving its baritone best between 3,500 and 5,500rpm. A good dose of revs, the sound rich in your ears, the view out through the flattened windscreen perhaps the best that roads on this planet have to offer, all the more so for taking in the rear wing of the CSL, which promptly squats on its haunches, picks up its nose and heads off for another sniff of heather.
The M1’s clutch is heavy, the gearbox needs a deliberate hand, the brakes a firm foot, the steering a good fist, but at least the control weights are even and beyond that there’s a supreme tactility, deftness and balance to the M1. At the core of everything is sensation, so I find myself blipping upshifts as well as downshifts, driving with the window down to hear the inlet gurgle and gasp as it sucks air in, mixing it with fuel from the twin tanks, just trying to open myself to the whole experience and absorb, absorb, absorb…
It’s talkative: open, friendly and trustworthy in a way I never thought a Seventies supercar could be, and from behind I watch the Batmobile’s spoiler flex like a wobble board as it bounces and heaves where the M1 glides. As I understand it, the CSL’s spoiler wasn’t technically road-legal, so it was delivered in the boot and it was your choice whether to fit it. Of course everyone did because, well, can you imagine it without?
The CSL is an unbelievably atmospheric car. I drive it like a convertible, dropping the four pillarless windows to open up the magnificent cabin and make it more part of the environment it’s in. Crank an elbow up on the sill, stick it in third and hoof around. As a platform from which to drink in the Highlands, it’s unparalleled, the scenery inside as majestic as it is out. Light pours in past the thin pillars, glinting off the chrome, your view forward is past rubber fins, backwards over the top of Scheel one-piece bucket seats, a clean view out to the rear spoiler. Beautiful.
The CSL lollops and wafts, skirting lochs and carving past granite walls, unhurried and yet making purposeful progress. It may not be red-lined until 6,400rpm, but the straight-six sounds anxious beyond 4,000, so you guide it with the long-travel accelerator, finger-tipping the spindly wheel. Further down the chain of command you’re aware that the front wheels are heavy, the communication woolly, and if you push harder it doesn’t exactly understeer, but the front tyres suggest they’ve done what they can and start to run wide. It’s not alarming, but combined with the roll and slack, it makes you slightly wary.
But sunk deep into those seats, driving the CSL is splendidly decadent, the car itself surely one of the coolest the motor industry has ever produced. I mean, name me another car that rocks chrome wheelarch trims as well as this.
The M535i is a mite more assertive, but a tad less eventful to drive. This is chiefly down to the cosmetically baggy cabin, which doesn’t stir the emotions into such a heady cocktail, and leaves this M535i feeling like a slightly poor relation in this company. It’s not as special as the others, but there’s somehow more honesty, more sense of a car that’s lived a life, not had the ravages of time burnished away.
It’s a roguish car, the M535i, confident in itself, intimidation imparted by the chin-scraper airdam and soft rubber spoiler, overt additions which do nothing to hide the early 5 Series’ clarity of lines. Such a handsome saloon. And healthily rapid too. It’s somehow a surprise to find a dogleg gearbox in here, but a welcome one, carrying a motorsport vibe. The shift is long, which separates out the bursts of noise and muscular thrust delivered by the 3.5-litre straight-six. Its 218bhp is enough to properly exercise the chassis, revealing a car which holds itself together commendably well. It’s less ponderous than the CSL, has the feel of an ageing athlete – the mind is willing, but the flesh has weakened.
Barrelling along the A894 towards Scourie, engine revving lazily, the original M car is a peach – it rolls, but I revel in its balance and adjustability. There’s one section in particular, as you plunge down out of some trees, lochans to either side in the dip, then sweep up through swift, easy left and rights, where the M535i feels tremendous. Not overly taxed, just capable, relaxing, garrulous. Good company.
Cars were more easy-going back then, connected yet calm. And then I get in the 2002 Turbo. Meet the terrier. It’s small, eager, massively energetic and a whole heap of fun. The straight-six engines that underpin the others are soft, smooth things, their gearing is long, they have reach and muscularity. The 2002 proceeds in a series of zapping, whistling explosions of energy. It’s absolutely hilarious. You press the throttle, the wee four digs deep but basically goes nowhere, then the hissing starts, a gauge on the dash springs to attention and – wahey! – you’re away.
It squats at the back and fires itself at ancient scenery that seems to draw back, as if startled by the energy contained within this rowdy little object. On board, the steering flutters in your hand, the chassis trembles with feel – it’s small, light, direct and very, very happy. It’s so anxious to please, so delighted to be of service, it charges and cannons about, always giving its all.
It’s not the most suited to these wide, gently sinuous roads – there’s too much space to play with for a chassis this alert, always sniffing out the next direction change. But there’s something close to perfect about its behaviour. It pulls you in, demands your attention, forces you to drive.
And driving up here is no hardship whatsoever. So the 2002 and I go exploring, finding smaller roads, seeking distant views. It’s a great companion for charging about, the only one that feels nothing like as old as the years tell us it must be.
All four BMWs have a story to tell, an edge to their character. I don’t think it’s just a matter of age and patina that makes them this way – modern BMWs (all modern cars, in fact) are simply more homogenous, less characterful. Of course they’re slower, but getting the speed out of them? That’s enthralling. It’s enthralling too to just absorb the experience.
The stag was merely the first of many loitering near the warm road that night. Quietly marvelling at these huge beasts, we pick our way back to Lochinver and park up. The cars are quiet; the hotel bar is still open. I grab a pint and stand outside in the silence. Water laps gently at the harbour wall. I walk around the cars. The ugly orange illumination of a sodium street light fails miserably to diminish their visual stature. I yearn to drive the M1 again, hate that our two days are up, pray this won’t be the last time…
I want to transport the CSL to the Riviera, the 2002 to the Grossglockner Pass and just growl about in the M535i doing daily stuff. The greatest BMWs ever? Possibly, although I think every decade since has had its fair share of humdingers. But the influence of these four, their role at the cusp of the legend, mean that, if BMW ever loses its way, it can use them as a template to get itself back on track.
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