Massive Nürburgring gathering saw 135 BMWs meet together but there was one secret V8 build hiding amongst them

The fourth annual 1M Register meet took place at the Nürburgring and brought together BMW 1M Coupes – the one known internally as E82 – from nine different countries.

The gathering featured several BMW 1M Coupes, but it also included a few first-generation E30 M3s.

So far, so great.

But there was also a ‘special’ car that crashed the party.

The BMW 1M is rarer than we think

The first-generation BMW 1 Series – known as ‘E87’ – was very well-received and it sold exceptionally well.

At the time, it was the only compact city car – or hatchback as they’re known in some parts of Europe – with rear-wheel drive.

A few years later, BMW introduced a Coupe variant, which also served as a platform for the model’s range-topping variant.

They called it the ‘1 M Coupe’ simply because they didn’t want people to confuse it with the M1, which is a supercar from the 1970s.

All things considered, you can definitely call this a rare car.

Initially, BMW planned to produce between 1,000 and 2,000, but demand was so overwhelming and the response was so positive and enthusiastic that they ended up building 6,309 in total.

And only 740 of which made it to the US, which makes this rarer than Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, the Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R or even the Ford Mustang 302 Laguna Seca Edition.

Around 80 of these cars were present at the car meet at the Nürburgring.

But there was an ‘imposter’.

The green car at the Nürburgring meet is a ‘clone’

One of the standout cars at the Nürburgring event was a Java Green 1M build that originally left the factory as a humble 120d diesel.

It was heavily modified by AC Schnitzer’s managing director, Imran Arshad, and now packs a P65 V8 engine sourced directly from the Z4 GT3 race car.

What’s interesting is that the only Java Green 1M also has a connection to the event.

Apparently, last year’s meet hosted the only factory-painted Java Green 1M BMW ever made, while this year’s event featured the diesel-turned-V8 track clone in the same shade.

This car actually won an award

This car, as in the original E82 1M, actually won several awards, including the coveted ‘Car of the Year’ award by Top Gear, back when Top Gear was 100 percent centered around Hammond, Clarkson, and May.

It put out 335BHP and it was incredibly fast and incredibly dynamic.

The only downside was the price.

When it was unveiled in the early 2010s, car prices were still more or less under control and this one had an MSRP of around $46,000 in the US, which is close to $70,000 in today’s money when adjusted for inflation.

That’s a lot of cash for what is essentially a compact coupe.

And things were worse on the other side of the pond.

In Germany, for example, the 1M started from €50,500, equivalent to $70,000 back then and around $100,00 today.