Consider: This BMW 1M

In life, there are many things to consider. Should you apply for that new job and take on all the risks that come with it, or should you stick with the stability your current company offers? Would your guitar sound better on different strings, or should you just buy a whole new guitar? How would it have affected Aaron Rodgers' career if he had never met Shailene Woodley? What even is a vegetable other than any edible part of a plant? Today, though, I have something much more important for you to consider: this BMW 1M.

Ultimately, we're talking about a 15-year-old 1 Series coupe with a turbocharged inline-six yanked out of the BMW Z4 and the brakes, dampers, rear subframe, suspension and limited-slip differential borrowed from the BMW M3. Some would call it a parts-bin special, and they would be correct. And with only 335 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque, you won't be winning any drag races against a Tesla Model 3. You could buy a much cheaper 135i, tune it and have a quicker car for way less money than this particular 1M will sell for.

On the other hand, BMW stuffed some of its best handling parts into its smallest rear-wheel-drive car, gave it a six-speed manual transmission, painted it this incredible Valencia Orange and sold it to the public. Now, all these years later, it could be yours, and all you have to do is offer the seller more money than anyone else. Maybe now isn't the right time to spend a lot of money on an old BMW. But isn't it at least worth considering?

If you cared at all about the M badge, you were supposed to hate the 1M. In fact, our own Michael Spinelli said as much when he first drove the 1M:

I had a speech prepared for the day the 1 Series M Coupe arrived. I dreamt of delivering it to BMW executives, pounding my shoe on the table as punctuation. How dare they build a non-M M car, a mix-and-match hack job of parts on hand; a tedious little coupe powered by a plebian engine with a tractor's redline and those spooly things like the cars in the Fast and the Furious movies. I imagined building to a crescendo, where I'd foretell heaps of ridicule the 1M would receive from people whose sanctimony about free-revving, naturally-breathing BMW M cars comes as naturally as breathing: The M purists.

Then he drove it and immediately changed his mind, writing, "Yeah, well never mind that. This is most definitely an M car."

Unlike the M3 that contributed so many of the parts to this project, the 1M is also rare. BMW only ever built about 6,300 of them, which sent used values through the roof. If you get lucky and this auction doesn't get much attention (oops, my bad), you're probably still looking at a minimum of $50,000 here. Since it's painted the correct color, only has 24,000 miles on the odometer and looks to be in incredible condition for its age, you might be looking at $75,000 or even more. For an M coupe BMW cobbled together out of parts it had already developed for other cars. 

And yet, it's widely regarded as one of the best parts bin specials ever built. A parts bin special you could buy. At the time of writing, there are still seven days left on the auction, so you don't have to decide today, but you do have to at least consider this BMW 1M.

Frank Harrington IV / Cars & Bids

Frank Harrington IV / Cars & Bids

Frank Harrington IV / Cars & Bids