Gallery - Fly BMW M1 99041

Fly 99041 (E54) BMW M1

Clay Regazzoni 1979

The M1 has a very unique history and was produced between 1978-1981. The purpose of theM1 was to build a production racing car that was available to the general public. Only 450 cars were built making it one of the rarest BMW models. Powered by a 3.5L 6 cylinder fuel injected engine.

In 1979 Jochen Neerpasch (head of BMW Motorsport) devised a BMW M1 championship using modified M1's called the Procar BMW M1 Championship as a support race for Formula One. The championship was unique in that it featured 5 of the top qualifying F1 drivers and 15 independent drivers who had the chance to race against some of the biggest names in F1.

The series ran for two years 1979-1980 with Lauda and Piquet taking out the respective championships. The BMW's qualified as Group 4 cars and went on to be raced in various World Championships/National Series.



The Fly car is modelled from the 1979 BMW M1 Procar which finished 9th at Norisring in June. Regazzoni best finish in an M1 was a 2nd place at Monaco in May 1979.  If you play spot the difference you'll probably be able to see quite a few differences between the real car and the slot car. The biggest difference is the Kreistelefonbuch logo.

Sadly for Clay his competitive racing carrer was ended in 1980 after an accident at the US Grand Prix which left him paralysed from the waist down. Regazzoni ironically died in a car accident in Italy on 15 December 2006.

The Fly BMW M1 car range is made up of a 25 cars (*) (28 if you include FlySlot) in some very attractive liveries. This particular car is a limited edition that was sourced from Cincy Slots in the US at a very reasonable price of $60AUD landed. With the current depression in the slot car market you can easily pickup most of the cars for around $60AUD.

(*) Releases [11 - standard, 4 - racing versions, 10 - special editions]

CHASSIS

I must point out that great care must be taken when removing or replacing the motor. I have broken two (2) chassis by not taking enough care. There is not much plastic connecting the motor cradle/rear axle to the rest of the chassis and it is prone to cracking.

Gears - 11/36
Tyres - pretty awful out of the box
Motor - Standard Fly white end can which is rated at about 18,000 RPM.

ON THE TRACK

This car is pretty good car out of the box and it is one of the better Fly cars which were notoriously bad mechanically with noisy gears that would on occasion be striped. I am happy to report that the M1 is an exception and it runs pretty well for a FLY out of the box

Of course in this day and age of urethane tyres and aluminium hubs and gears you ay be tempted to swap out some of the parts. As I race the BMW M1 at club level in a Lemans GT class I have made the following changes to the standard model:

• Slot.it aluminum hubs on rears
• Pauls urethane on front and rears
• Slot.It crown gear
• Glued tires on to the rims

You will also notice that I added about 15g of weight and I used a drill to add a hole to the motor mount to allow the motor to be screwed in to the chassis to stop it moving around.

This car is always a favorite at our race evenings and always attracts plenty of attention including comments about it's attractiveness. I don't take cars off the shelf very often but this is an exceptional car.

Some of you may not like the idea of swapping out most of the internals for performance parts, however

CONCLUSION

If you hadn't already guessed, this is one of my favorite cars at the moment and it has a lot going for it. It's relatively cheap, can easily be acquired and it doesn't take that much to get it going really well on either plastic or wood tracks.


What are you waiting for? Get online and find yourself a Group 4 M1 and you to could have one running around the track in next to no time - everyone will be asking questions, particularly if you able to pickup one of the better liveries such as the Marlboro, BASF or Jager.

Why not check out these other Fly BMW M1 galleries/reviews below

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