7 One-Off BMWs We Wish Had Made Production

We don’t really have to tell you BMW has made some pretty legendary cars over the years. Think the M1, E30 M3, 1 Series M, F90 M5 CS, E46 M3 GTR… the list truly goes on.

Yet, among the most exciting cars it’s made are some that never actually made the roads. With a habit of making spectacular one-offs without ever putting them into production, here are eight cars we wish BMW had greenlit.

E46 M3 Touring

Given how well-received the current BMW M3 Touring has been (and not just by scruffy, weird motoring journalists), it’s a wonder the Munich outfit took so long to estateify its staple M car.

It almost did it with the E46, though. A single prototype was put together by M engineers in 2000, mainly as a proof-of-concept rather than as a definite plan to put it into production.

Somehow, that remained a secret until 2016, when BMW revealed the one-off to the world. Only to make us all sad about what could’ve come 16 years before…

X5 Le Mans

If we told you BMW once made a car with a V12 derived from a Le Mans-competing prototype and set a Nürburgring record with it, you’d naturally assume some sort of low-slung supercar. Not so much an X5.

Well… yeah. In 2000, BMW shoehorned a 6.1-litre V12 with over 700bhp into the first-generation car, in a time before the idea of a performance SUV was really considered a thing.

Granted, this wasn’t exactly what you’d call a refined effort. The racecar-esque stripped-out interior summed it all up, and the extremely aggressive aerodynamics made it look serious, too. As do the delicious BBS LM wheels.

With a set of slicks thrown on and Hans-Joachim Stuck behind the wheel in 2001, it’d lap the ‘Ring in eight minutes and five seconds. No mean feat.

E92 M3 Pickup

The performance ute is an Australian tradition that has never really taken off around the world. Sure, America has some pretty powerful pickups but the fast saloon-turned-cargo wagon is something nobody else has really had a crack at.

For April Fools’ Day 2011, BMW created a one-off M3 Pickup, which gave the world a glimpse of the European ute. Really, the joke was on BMW – why wouldn’t it make one?

Sadly, the pickup remained a one-off but was often seen lapping the Nürburgring around the time.

E60 M5 CSL

For… reasons, BMW has never made a CSL version of any M5. The closest it’s come is the F90 CS, and that was a pretty magnificent thing.

It’s certainly thought about a full-blown CSL, though. A one-off E60 prototype exists, utilising a bigger 5.4-litre, 621bhp version of the S85 V10. Phwoar. Not only that, but with a carbon roof and no rear seats, it shaved around 150kg off the kerb weight of the regular saloon. It also saw the contentious SMG gearbox replaced with a DCT.

It was taken around the ‘Ring, lapping in 7 minutes and 50 seconds. Given that there was some serious effort put into it, it’s unclear why it never made production.

E36 M3 Compact

Ok, so the E36 3 Series Compact may be seen as a bit of a joke to some. We think time has been a bit kind to it, though, given how the short-wheelbase, six-cylinder, rear-driven manual recipe is on the verge of extinction in the new market.

Had the M3 Compact gone into production, though, it may have been one of the most sought-after M cars ever.

317bhp in a car this small would still have been tasty today, let alone 1996 when the prototype was put together. BMW reckons, had it gone into production, it would likely have had to dial that figure down for drivability.

The recipe would eventually live on in the 1 Series M and M2, but we can’t help but think ‘What if?’

E31 M8

Yeah, we’ll never not be sad about this one. It’s pretty common knowledge that BMW toyed with the idea of making an M8 with the original 8 Series, and that one prototype was long-rumoured to exist – finally becoming public in 2010.

Using the S70 V12 (you know, as seen in the McLaren F1), the E31 M8 prototype had a monstrous 631bhp and 479lb ft of torque. Figures that, while not a shock by 2025 standards, would’ve sent shockwaves in the 1990s.

An M8 would eventually go into production in 2019 with those sort of power figures, but effectively as a reskinned M5.

F87 M2 CSL

This is one that, quite honestly, could’ve gone down as one of the greatest M cars to ever exist. Based on the F87 M2 Competition, the CSL shed the rear seats, gained buckets up front and a carbon aero package.

Production was considered with the CSL presented to the people in BMW capable of greenlighting production cars, but the nod was given to the slightly tamer CS instead. How we weep.