BMW supercar news - M-Mission - 2009

With Mercedes soon to unleash the SLS and Audi's R8 kicking lumps out of the competition, BMW is looking noticeably short in the German supercar stakes right now.

OK, we saw that M1 concept last year, but it looks unlikely to reach production any time soon.

So South African designer Idries Noah has taken matters into his own hands with this, the M Concept. It isn't, we should stress, an official BMW concept, but it's not bad, is it?

Even better than the Corvette Fireblade concept that Noah showed us last year, in fact. We love the wraparound rear deck and the neat diffuser, and though there might be just a bit too much going on down the flanks, just check out the way Noah has incorporated BMW's trademark ‘kidney grilles' into the M's front end.

Noah hasn't specified what engine might power the M Concept, but it's always fun to speculate. The 4.0-litre V8 from the M3? The 5.0-litre V10 from the M5? Or how about some mega-turbocharged version of the straight six from the 335i, putting out - ooh, about 500bhp?

What would you like to see in there?