BMW 1M Coupe: Long term test

> Click here for the evo review of the BMW 1M Coupe.

Word has obviously spread fast about the brilliance of the 1M. When I took ours to the final evo trackday of the year recently I had more people asking for a passenger ride than ever before. Unfortunately for them I had to turn all requests down, as Adam Hance had won an evo.co.uk competition to drive it all evening, with me offering tuition from the passenger seat.

As it turned out this was perhaps a blessing in disguise for the rest of the trackday crowd, as they would have been seriously unimpressed by the 1M’s brakes. We could run no more than a lap or two before they would begin to grumble in the tiresomely familiar way the brakes of all performance BMWs seem to do on track. With very regular cooling-off laps we were able to extend the number of runs, but I reckon it’s an embarrassing hole in the 1M’s otherwise fine armoury.

Adam drove well despite this annoyance, revelling in the BMW’s balance and exploiting its propensity to shake its tail at every opportunity. He also brought along the mk2 Golf GTI he’s just started racing and we did a few laps in it every time we left the Bee-Ems anchors cooling off in the pitlane. My tips appeared to help – Adam finished seventh in a race at Thruxton the very next day. Good work.

> Click here for the evo review of the BMW 1M Coupe.

Running Costs