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Despite being killed off in 1981, the BMW M1 supercar did not have a true successor. The BMW Nazca C2, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro of Italdesign in the early 1990s, would have been a likely candidate, but the German manufacturer decided against making it a production vehicle. One could argue that the i8 mid-engine hybrid was a spiritual successor, but as previously stated, this is debatable.
The 2019 BMW Vision M Next hybrid supercar concept raised hopes for a Bimmer super sports car. The automaker even stated that if there is enough interest, it will produce one. However, it never happened.
But that doesn’t mean BMW has given up on developing its own supercar, an M1 replacement. BMW M boss Frank van Meel said in an interview with Autocar that it’s always something they can look at.
“As car enthusiasts, we are always fantasising about building such vehicles.” It doesn’t mean we’ll make them, but we’re still looking into it,” van Meel said.
“I’m always figuring out how it [would] work,” he added.
The Vision M Next concept may not have been realised, in part because the XM became the company’s top priority. Van Meel went on to say that BMW M does not need to demonstrate that it is a sporty company and that a supercar is not absolutely necessary for the company.
“It wasn’t priority number one, but it always has a high priority from the heart, and that’s what we’re always looking at,” van Meel concluded.
The BMW XM is the company’s standalone model and the future of the M brand. It would be interesting to see a low-slung sibling next to it, but for the time being, all we can do is wait. It’s encouraging to know that the automaker hasn’t given up on the concept just yet.
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