The BMW E24 M6 and the E28 M5 were the first of their kind. Both were very special, both rocked the automotive world, and both solidified BMWs reputation in what now stands as a 40-year long span of building extraordinary M cars.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of this very special division inside BMW. M1s and 1Ms, four door rockets and two door missiles, M Coupe ‘bread vans’ and Z4M Roadsters – every M car picture we’ve hung on our bedroom wall and every M car Youtube clip we’ve ever watched can all be traced back to the Motorsport division that was created in 1972 as a subsidiary to manage BMW’s racing operations.

To celebrate we’ll show you the following bits of media.

The pictures were sent in yesterday by our Twitter friend Matt Bubbers, who photographed this gorgeous E24 M6 with an original CSL Coupe in the background at the US Press Launch of the Gran Coupe and M6 Convertible in Santa Barbara, California.

Meanwhile, Freelance journalist Chris Harris is on a mission to drive every significant M car ever produced by the end of the year. He’s kicked things off by dusting off his very own E28 M5. The video is wonderfully reminiscent and stirs up quite a bit of emotion in the way Chris loves his imperfect M5 so unconditionally.

Thanks to DRIVE, Chris Harris (@harrismonkey), and Matt Bubbers (@MattBubbers) from Sympatico Autos.