KEY POINTS:
Full-speed ahead and maybe a bit sideways - BMW's iconic M-division has produced its 300,000th car in 30 years.
The milestone vehicle, an Alpine White M3 coupe, was handed over to a customer in Regensburg.
The Bavarian town is also home to the BMW plant where the high-performance sports car is made.
BMW M-vehicles account for 1 per cent of those sold, but in image terms the M-halo surrounds every pseudo-sporting model the company makes.
The Motorsport division began as an experiment.
The M road car brand was born in 1978 with the mid-engined M1 supercar - albeit as a homologation special for the Procar racing series.
At its launch, the M1 was Germany's fastest series production sports car. Just 445 were produced between 1978 and 1981, one of them immortalised as a BMW Art Car by Andy Warhol.
But BMW M soon became famous for making supercar versions of its practical family models.
The first BMW M5 came with a 210kW straight six-cylinder engine.
Two years later, a further M model laid the foundation stone for a new vehicle category.
The BMW M3 was, and is, the most successful M-car.
The first-generation car was also a force to be reckoned with in touring car racing, although it was also the last roadgoing M-machine to have a direct motorsport heritage.
In the first 10 years, BMW M sold about 35,000 cars.
In 1994, it sold 10,000 cars in one year for the first time.
They are very European, but America remains its most important market.
