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THE POWERHOUSE

CLASSICS 1972–1999

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What drove BMW to create a standalone company dedicated to road cars and racing machines that won a Formula 1 title?

The Powerhouse tells the untold story of BMW Motorsport, from the roots of BMW’s competitive spirit to victory at Le Mans in 1999.

It begins before the M badge existed, when BMW’s survival depended on engineering ingenuity, striking design and a determination to build its reputation through competition and spirited road cars. In 1972, a new team led by Jochen Neerpasch received an audacious brief: make BMW a force on the racetrack and translate that expertise into high-performance road cars. The result was a dynasty that lives on in today’s BMW M3 and M5.

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Steve Saxty, whose BMW Behind The Scenes won a 2024 RAC Book of the Year award, draws on BMW’s archives, private collections and nearly 200 face-to-face interviews. The engineers, designers and executives behind the BMW M cars share their ambitions, challenges and victories, alongside hundreds of rare photographs, design sketches and documents.

With a foreword by Neerpasch, this is the definitive story of BMW M’s classic era, told by the people who created Munich’s performance car powerhouse.​​

THE VAULT

CLASSICS 1972–1999

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This is the book Steve Saxty never planned to write. While researching The Powerhouse, he uncovered so many rare photographs, forgotten prototypes and untold stories that they deserved a book of their own. The Vault pries open a door into the unseen corners of BMW Racing, BMW Motorsport and BMW M’s classic eras.

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Across fifteen richly illustrated files, meet the rally cars that time forgot, revisit the fierce racing battles of the 1970s and get to know the engineers who raced the machines they helped create. Follow the BMW M1’s construction in Italy through a trove of photographs preserved by Italdesign. Unravel the mystery of a BMW 3.0 CSL development car and discover the one-offs and experimental M cars that never reached the showroom.

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Enter the world of BMW Individual, trace the development of BMW Motorsport’s driver training program and see how BMW’s advertising gave the M brand its voice. Each story stands alone, brought to life by exceptionally rare images from BMW’s archives and former employees’ private collections, alongside the recollections of those who were there.

Open The Vault anywhere. Another untold secret or freshly uncovered one-off BMW M car awaits.

THE ART OF M

CLASSICS 1972–1999

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Before a BMW M car could thrill on the road or win on the track, designers had to resolve its aerodynamics, craft its form and shape its style. Drawing on hundreds of beautiful, rarely seen sketches and the recollections of the stylists who designed BMW’s classic-era cars, The Art of M tells the story of how they worked.

It begins with the small team of stylists who found time, often after hours, to help BMW Motorsport shape its first cars, then follows BMW design through the eras of Wilhelm Hofmeister, Paul Bracq, Claus Luthe and Chris Bangle, revealing how each chief designer influenced the cars created on his watch.

Steve Saxty combines exclusive access to BMW Design’s archives with private collections and conversations with the stylists behind some of the era’s most memorable BMWs. Their sketches and recollections reveal how designs took shape, which ideas were pursued or set aside, and how the BMW M cars acquired their character and charm. Part design history, part art gallery, and totally beautiful, The Art of M reveals how classic-era BMW and its M cars were designed through the sketchwork and words of the stylists who created them.​​