The most meaningful letter: M. BMW Motorsport.

The "M", a letter which for many enthusiasts means assured sporting performance and a big smile on the lips. This seal stands for the BMW sports department: Motorsport. Founded in May 1972, it is now 50 years old! It was founded at the behest of the Munich company itself, which wanted a department dedicated to the development of extremely sporty cars for racing and also for the road market, given the huge demand from the 1960s onwards. At the start, only eight people worked there, including founder Jochen Neerpasch, a former BMW driver with a wealth of racing experience.

The logo, consisting of the aforementioned M flanked by three vertical stripes, was designed by Giorgietto Giugiaro's Italdesign studio. Excuse me for saying so, but most of the designs that have made history have an Italian hand in them.

The first car entrusted to the capable hands of this department was the 3.0 CSL, which gave birth to the famous "Batmobile" version, named for its flashy aerodynamic appendages.

The letter M was used for the first time in an abbreviation to identify a specific model with the M1 of 1978. An extremely iconic car for this reason and because it carried for the first time a 6-cylinder multi-valve engine on a non-competition car. This car was once again designed by Italdesign while the chassis was entrusted to Lamborghini who delivered it directly into the magic hands of a certain Gian Paolo Dallara.

Just to name a few notable racing collaborations, in 1998 Motorsport delivered to McLaren the 6.1-litre V12 engine that was fitted to the F1 car, and in 1998-2000 it worked with Williams F1 to build the sport-prototype V12 LM and later V12LMR that won several endurance races.

Returning to the present day, BMW has decided to celebrate this important anniversary in 2022 by giving M car buyers the chance to choose the original BMW M logo and 50 liveries, some of them in sublime colour. Why not take advantage of it? If you have the budget...