Motoring heritage: SA’s exclusive BMW M-cars

[FearLess]

Ferdi de Vos

To celebrate 120 years of SA motoring heritage, Ferdi de Vos arranged a meeting of the first ever ‘M-car’, the South African built BMW 530 MLE, and the latest special, SA-specific M5 model, the Pure Metal Edition.

Johannesburg - Bavarian automaker BMW is celebrating its centenary in 2016 and South Africa is commemorating 120 years of motoring heritage this week.

Bringing together these two milestones is an exclusive and very rare 5 Series performance model (conspicuous in its absence from BMW’s world-wide celebrations) and the latest instalment in the local 5 Series M-car tradition - the limited Pure Metal Edition.

In contrast to all the hype surrounding this run-out F10 model (all 20 were sold before they reached local shores) the role of the MLE in establishing the M-brand has been very much downplayed.

Taking into account that this lightweight E12 sedan actually preceded the BMW M1 supercar - universally regarded as the first M-car - by four years, this is a travesty.

It all started in 1975 when an experimental E12 528 manual was shown to the South African media. It was received with such enthusiasm that BMW entered into negotiations with BMW Motorsport in Germany to develop a modified production racer. 

A concept car based on the 525 was built under the guidance of Jochen Neerpasch and Peter Stark, while the Schnitzer brothers finalised the development work.

The first race car was prepared in Germany, and the second in South Africa - both set to compete in The Stat Modified production car racing series, at the time the top saloon racing formula in the country.