Afternoon With An M

Car spotting can brighten up the most mundane of journeys, but it's a tricky business. Catching a glimpse of something exotic is about the best you can hope for while driving.

Even if you do happen across a rare, special set of wheels, you can't be seen to stop and stare at it while it's parked up, for fear of friends and strangers instantly judging you a car nerd, as you incessantly pour over the details in front of you. Car spotting has to be a subtle, fleeting experience. Anyway, chances are anything special enough to warrant stopping passers by in their tracks will be so rare that they're hardly seen at all.

Take the BMW 1 Series M Coupé. Despite being based on the humble 1 Series, BMW have only built 450 examples, meaning there's only 51 more 'out there' than there are Ferrari Enzos.


I was really keen to catch one in the metal, since, as previous Tyre Roar visitors will know, I was never convinced by the 1M's styling. After it being one of the most exciting new cars of 2011, the reveal of the fussy front and dumpy tail bookending over-inflated flanks let it down somewhat.

And then I saw one. Coming home from work, in the small hours of a dewy summer morning, I pulled off the main road towards my house and there, under the glow of suburban streetlights, with icy water dripping off its muscles, was a Valencia Orange 1M. The very long termer currently being put through its paces by CAR Magazine, published in Peterborough, just a short schlep up the A1 from me.

Having crawled by the car as slow as I dared to take it all in, I decided to try a cheeky Tweet at Ben Barry, road test editor of CAR and neighbour of mine, to see if he'd mind me inviting myself over and having a good poke round what is one of the cars of the moment. Despite his packed pre-Frankfurt schedule, I was welcomed to pop up the road and check out the baby M, and, as offers you can't refuse go, having a private tour of a brand new M car by a professional motoring journalist isn't a bad way to spend an afternoon.

I'lll clear one thing up straight out of the blocks. The 1M looks massively better in the flesh than in the pictures. On a day which quickly turned from bright sunshine to drizzly rain, the paintwork looked great, as did the the sharp crease along the shoulder line, and those wonderful blistered wheelarches.

They're so exaggerated, in the way they seem to pop out of the side, the car looks like a Transformer straight out of Michael Bay's imagination; perhaps one that's frozen midway through transition, leaving the wheels, and chin, straining to be released from the bodywork. The fake wing vent is a bit of a sell out, but all other bases are covered: perfect stance, four shotgun barrel 'pipes, raised bootlid, and yet not at all aftermarket in appearance.

It's so much more special than the dumpy 1 Series, and it marries the corporate M Division design cues with a genuine sense of fun in the way it looks. Very impressive stuff. Needless to say, the M3 CSL-alike multispoke wheels, deliciously dished on the rear, add to the squat, taut proportions and give the 1M a rather racey demeanour.

Mr Barry kindly let me have a explore the interior as well. If anything were to let the 1M down on showroom appeal, apart from the plastic shroud masking the twin turbo straight six, it'd be the very much standard 1 Series interior, only marginally lifted with some alcantara and orange stitching highlights. Yet as I settled myself in the driver's seat, clinched by the generous bolsters in the small of my back, I warmed to its stark functionality. It's not a surprise-and-delight interior, but it's not distracting either. It's a well built, tactile environment in which driving is enjoyed, but it still plays a strong practicality hand. I didn't even think the much-maligned steering wheel was the uncomfortably bloated item I'd been led to believe it was.

Also, from inside or out, the 1M is a wonderfully compact car. Sitting inside, cocooned between the high waistline and looking out over the sueded dial binnacle, the bonnet swells out in front, while a look over the shoulder shows the pert little lip on the boot right over the end of the car.

I can imagine this making the 1M extremely easy to place and manage on the road, whether parking or attacking a B road on boost. With the controls falling easily to hand inside and the extremities easily reined in, the 1M gives off such an impression of usability, it's easy to see why the UK allocation has sold out entirely. As a one size fits all car for a couple or small family with petrolhead tendencies, it's a blinding package.

Enormous thanks to my friendly local motoring journalist, Mr Ben Barry, for giving over his time and enthusiasm to let me indulge myself in his weekend runabout, and providing the rare opportunity of a fully satisfying car spotting session.

I really appreciate immersing myself in the aura of an M car for an hour, and having soaked up all that oozes from its caricatured physique (all while stationary at the side of the road) I have to agree with Mr Barry's three word verdict on the 1M:

"It's very good."

If you're now hungry for a bit more 1M, follow @JethroBovingdon on Twitter, the current lucky custodion of YH11 FXC. You can also read about his updates on the car with CAR Magazine here. May I also heartily recommend you follow @IamBenBarry while you're at it.

Time for one final shot, and fittingly, we'll have the 1M literally bursting off the page:

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