Okay, I missed St. Patrick’s day, but we’re close enough. What we have here is a 1980 BMW M1. I won’t bore you again with its history since I recently dove into that in a look at a very impressive dark blue one:
But if dark blue is fairly rare, today’s car is even moreso. That’s because it was repainted Irish Green. Sacrilegious though it may be, the result is pretty undeniably awesome:
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1980 BMW M1 at Bousten Classic Cars
Year: 1980
Model: M1
VIN: N/A
Engine: 3.5 liter inline-6
Transmission: 5-speed manual
Mileage: 68,800 km (~42,750 mi)
Location: Monaco
Price: On Request
Highlights
• 68,800 km
• ZF Gear Box
• Total Restoration
• Irish Green ColorThe car’s first registration is dated on 9/06/1980.
It was sold brand-new to a French dentist by the BMW dealer of Besançon. He kept it until his death in 2007. The car was then kept in a shed until 2015 when the heirs put it up for sale as is where is via the auction company Chayette et Cheval.
The second and last owner bought it at that time. It was a “barn find†car covered with dust and original paint (midnight blue).
The car has been completely restored. The supervisor of this restoration was Pascal Obrecht, from Seven Classic.
Everything has been revised as new: chassis, running gear and suspension, engine, clutch, gearbox, tank, hoses, etc, with original parts (many of them are specific to the M1 and very difficult to find).
The engine has been completely dismantled and renovated by WS compétition, specialist of BMW mechanics.
The ZF gearbox was rebuilt by ZF specialist GR BOX, in Italy.
The bodywork and painting were entrusted to LPCP and Ponce, the saddlery was done by Dominique Bonfils, from the Mont Ventoux saddlery.By personal choice, the current owner decided to paint the car in a different tone than the original one, because he thought that the midnight blue was sad and didn’t highlight the design. The color is now “Irish Green”.
Asking Price : P.O.R
Okay, where do we start. Let’s start with the dealer – does Boutsen ring a bell? Yep, it’s Thierry Boutsen, the Belgian ex-Formula One star, who also drove in the European Touring Car Championship, Group C, and ended his career split between the Porsche 911 GT1 and the Toyota GT-One. Legend. How about where his dealership is located? Yeah, Monaco. Then we have an M1, which originally was one of the 58 dark blue examples like the last I looked at. But the owner decided to paint it green. Not only that, it apparently went through a full restoration to end up looking factory-fresh in a non-original color. Do you know what that must have cost? Well, we can bet it’s a lot less than the current asking price. This is effectively a one-of-one M1 at this point. The last M1 I saw sell hit $650,000 on BaT, so if I had to guess I’d wager that the asking price on this one is closer to €850,000.
-Carter
I like the green!
Yeah green is so nice….but other than that these super expensive “vintage†watershed event type cars don’t do much for me – I don’t know this for a fact but it prob drives Terribly…now that 280SL from the previous post..I can get behind that 100% :))
What a fabulous colour and what a gorgeous restoration. The only BMWs I ever owned were a 1972 2002 TII and a 1988 525i, both manual and I can only imagine what fun this car would be to drive, especially in the hills above Monaco on an early summer’s morning!!
These are very cool cars, but not for the faint of wallet to maintain. I know a fellow rebuilding an engine for a customer. Green actually looks very good on this car. The colors I saw at a reunion of these cars in Salzburg were red, orange, midnight blue, black and a variety of white with graphics versions. Some were the competition versions from the race series.
These do seem to have risen in value in the last few years….I would not be surprised at 850K
You don’t see one of these everyday and when you do it is never green.