BMW's Head of Development Albert Biermann has admitted to Inside Line that the M division would love to develop their own car. Mercedes-Benz AMG has their SLS and even Audi has the R8, albeit with a bit of help from Lamborghini, so it stands to reason that the high-performance M engineers would like to get their teeth stuck into a project all of their own. "From an engineering perspective we have the skills and we'd love to do it," he said.

"We've discussed it several times but we've never been able to make the business case. Everything we do has to make money." The business case has to be strong, but surely not that strong if the 1-Series M is anything to go by, which was a constant worry to the financial boys at BMW. In the meanwhile, M car developers will be concentrating on adapting to the development of powertrains as we have seen with the new M5 whose twin-turbo V8 has replaced the V10. "Our job is to sell emotion and fun, using the technology that's socially acceptable at the time. Whether that's a combustion engine or an electric motor, we don't care."

"It's about employing the right technology at the right time and we're on a steep learning curve with turbos. We're getting damn close to matching the response of a naturally aspirated engine but with much lower fuel consumption." Hopefully one day we'll see a modern day M1 built that will challenge BMW's closest rivals and also make the company a few extra Euros.