The hit producer’s red M1

How a 1980 Berlin new car travelled via Boney M., a Procar conversion and Sweden to Villa d’Este.

One of only 71 road-going M1s delivered in red, driven by the man behind “Daddy Cool”, trimmed to Procar looks at BMW Motorsport – and in May 2025 the star of an all-BMW auction on Lake Como.

Model	BMW M1 (E26), model year 1980
Chassis number	WBS59910004301170
Engine	M88, 3,453 cc, straight-six
Power output	277 PS (204 kW) at 6,500 rpm
Colour	Red – 1 of 71 red road cars
Mileage 2025	approx. 91,000 km
New price 1980	113,000 DM
First delivery	February 1980, Berlin

A supercar born from a collapsed partnership

To this day the M1 remains the only mid-engined production car BMW has ever built – and it emerged from an emergency programme. It was meant to be developed at Lamborghini; when the Italians ran into financial trouble, BMW took over the project in April 1978 after seven prototypes. Giorgetto Giugiaro drew the wedge-shaped body at Italdesign, the tubular space frame came from Marchesi in Modena, the plastic body from Italy, final assembly was handled by Baur in Stuttgart, and final inspection by BMW in Munich.

BMW allocated 460 chassis numbers; deducting test chassis and two cars never built, 453 vehicles were produced, of which 399 were road versions. The colour statistics for the road cars explain why this M1 stands out: 163 were delivered in white, 98 in orange, 71 in red, 59 in blue, plus a handful of special finishes.

Because homologation for Group 5 failed, BMW simply invented its own racing series: the Procar series of 1979 and 1980, in which Formula 1 drivers competed against each other in technically identical M1s as a support race for the Grands Prix. Niki Lauda won in 1979, Nelson Piquet in 1980. It is precisely this racing look that is the key to the story of this red example.

Frank Farian, the hit supplier from Kirn

The car was delivered in February 1980 in Berlin – to Franz Reuther, who worked under the stage name Frank Farian. The trained chef from Kirn an der Nahe, born in 1941, was at that point at the peak of his first major success: Boney M. delivered worldwide million-sellers with “Daddy Cool”, “Rasputin” and “Rivers of Babylon”. Far Corporation, La Bouche, No Mercy followed later – and Milli Vanilli, whose Grammy had to be returned in 1990 after Farian himself confirmed on 14 November 1990 that others had sung. Farian died on 23 January 2024 at the age of 82 in Miami.

That the M1 originally belonged to Farian is well documented: the auction house points to the original vehicle registration document in Reuther’s name as well as a factory birth certificate for the chassis number.

1987: from series-production wedge to Procar double

Farian had the car modified in two stages. First came the music: a Clarion 150EQB equalizer was fitted below the standard Becker Mexico cassette radio, three-way speakers went into the doors – which required the door panels to be sawn open –, two further speakers sit on the dashboard. The fabric upholstery of the bucket seats gave way to a leather interior.

1987 brought the striking part: front splitter, wheel arch extensions, 16-inch BBS wheels and a large rear wing – the look of the Procar racing cars, but with road registration. The auction houses consistently attribute the conversion to BMW Motorsport; German-language sources are somewhat more cautious, stating that Farian had “presumably” commissioned the work directly from BMW Motorsport GmbH. A factory commission is therefore plausible and has been reported as such several times, but it is not backed up by a publicly available document.

A collector’s item with its own biography

The appeal of this M1 lies in its individual specification. Its proportions stem from one of the most unusual BMW developments; its wide stance and the sound system tell the story of the person who received it new. For one collector this exact combination may be appealing, while another may prefer the narrow standard-production body. A quantifiable celebrity premium cannot be isolated from a single sale.

For s14, the red Farian M1 is therefore a revealing piece of the E-era: motorsport aesthetics, personal taste and later collector culture come together in one specific car. Its verifiable stages already carry the story. The open questions, too, are part of a careful portrait.

For collectors, that is the most interesting point about the car. A Procar conversion lowers the value of most M1s because it moves away from original condition. Here it enhances it – because it is contemporary, commissioned by the first owner, and part of the vehicle’s history rather than a later dress-up.

Four decades, five hands

02/1980	Frank Farian, Berlin New car delivered in red. In his possession for around ten years, during which time the audio system was installed, a leather interior fitted and, in 1987, the Procar conversion carried out.
1990	Erwin Schwedka An employee of Farian’s takes over the car and keeps it for 18 years.
2008	Belgium The M1 goes to a Belgian owner; German-language reports name Frank Jennen.
2012	Return to Germany Another change of ownership, the car comes back into German hands.
2020	Salon Privé and auction Appearance at the Salon Privé Concours in the United Kingdom with the Owner’s Choice Award and a second-in-class placing. On 14 November 2020, Silverstone Auctions (now Iconic Auctioneers) sells the car at the NEC Classic Live Online Auction in Stoneleigh Park for £382,500 – with an odometer reading of 90,235 km.
2021–24	Restoration in Sweden A Swedish specialist restores, among other things, the bodywork and repaints it in the original red. In 2024 the car appears at the Aurora Scandinavian Concours in Sweden.
05/2025	Villa d’Este Consigned to Broad Arrow’s first all-BMW auction on Lake Como.

Villa Erba, 24 May 2025

The Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este took place in 2025 from 23 to 25 May; for the first time, Broad Arrow Auctions was the auction partner of the event. For its debut, the house chose an unusual format: on Saturday, 24 May, an all-BMW auction with 16 cars and one motorcycle was held at Villa Erba, followed on Sunday by the multi-marque sale.

The red M1 was the top lot of the BMW day. Called up with an estimate of 450,000 to 550,000 euros, the hammer fell at 530,000 euros; including buyer’s premium, that came to a final price of 602,500 euros. Both figures circulate in the coverage – whoever reads the lower one is looking at the hammer price, whoever reads the higher one is looking at the final price for the buyer.

This made the M1, according to market observers, the lot with the clearest overshoot of the upper estimate that weekend – notable because the rest of the BMW catalogue performed rather modestly: 14 of the 16 cars found a buyer (88 percent), the total turnover of the BMW auction stood at around 2.15 million euros, a 507 Series II remained unsold, and a 1981 M1 formerly owned by Vijay Mallya was returned to the consignor. Over both days, Broad Arrow took in around 31.1 million euros, with a sell-through rate of around 76 to 78 percent.

The takeaway for the market: it was not the M1 as such that attracted attention, but this one provenance. An average road-going M1 was trading at around the level this car had already achieved in 2020. The roughly 60 percent premium within four and a half years is explained by the combination of first-owner celebrity, contemporary factory conversion, fresh restoration and concours history – and by the stage: a single-marque BMW auction in front of the Villa d’Este audience is the best possible setting for exactly this kind of car.