|
By
EWAN KENNEDY
22 September 2008
This is the man many thousands of Australian BMW drivers would
love to meet. Drivers who include not only the 3896 Aussies who
have the good fortune to own an ‘M’ (nee Motorsport) model
from the Bavarian marque, but also those who love their standard
BMW model for the sheer driving pleasure it offers.
Ludwig
Willisch is the president of BMW M, the division that improves
BMWs in many ways, particularly on the high-performance front. We
have just had the pleasure of spending a solid hour in his office
talking about the past, the present and – with reservations from
him – the future of BMW M.
Performance
is obviously the key factor of the M cars. But there's a lot more
to these vehicles than sheer straight line speed and excellent
chassis dynamics. Many more features have to be taken into
consideration to get the best in sheer driving pleasure. The
sounds from a car are very important, not only the obvious ones of
the exhaust note, but also the intake system, even the way you can
hear the valve gear working as the engine revs to the heavens.
Even the squeal from the brakes can add to the pleasure of
driving.
Response
is vital to a good driving experience. Not only in the way the car
reacts as quickly as possible to driver inputs on the throttle,
steering and brakes, but also the precision with which the
responses react. Interestingly, too much response can be just as
irritating to a keen driver as too little so there are endless
compromises to be made. Compromise is the name of the game in all
aspects of car design, but it really does have to be kept to a
minimum in any high-performance BMW.
It’s
a sad fact that the guys at BMW M must also work hard at making
their vehicles feel good and work well at low speeds, even in
traffic. Pleasant as it is to take your car out onto your
favourite driving roads early of a Sunday morning, the harsh
reality of life is that you are likely to spend more time in
heavy-duty commuting conditions than on the dream roads.
Again,
there are compromises in making a BMW M car work well in mundane
conditions. So keep in mind the endless hard work the engineers
have carried out the next time you find yourself smiling when your
BMW's tacho says 2000 rpm and the speedo reads just 15 km/h…
What
about the future? Naturally Willisch and his team are working
several years ahead of time. Equally naturally he wasn’t going
to give away any secrets. However, it does appear a
high-performance version of the 1 Series is on the computer
screens in Garching-Hochbruck, near Munich. That will be a
difficult model to improve, because the existing twin-turbo 135i
is already an excellent machine at a pretty modest price. Turbo
engines are notoriously unresponsive under certain circumstances,
particularly on sudden throttle openings at low engine speeds. So
the engineers would have their work cut out to make them please
BMW M owners.
BMW
M is already famed for its M3 and M5, but the name M1 may not be
used if a future small car is built. That’s because the M1 was a
full-on mid-engined supercar built by BMW during the late 1970s
and early ‘80s. There's a feeling the revered name may not be
used on a completely different machine like a high-performance 1
Series.
High-performance
turbo-diesel engines are making a big name for themselves in
endurance racing, particularly in the famed 24-hour event at Le
Mans, where they have taken out overall honours in the last three
years. Other marques are talking about adding diesels in their
high-performance ranges. However, Willisch says BMW M has no plans
for the using them. With the usual proviso of, “Never say
never”.
© Copyright
Marque Publishing Company
|
