Out now: the Autocade Yearbook 2024
Join us on our Facebook page Written by humans

BMW
Out now: Autocade Yearbook 2024

From Autocade

Revision as of 01:41, 14 June 2009 by WikiSysop (talk | contribs)
Jump to: navigation, search

BMW was founded originally as Rapp Motor by Karl Friedrich Rapp, who originally began making engines. Under contract to Austro-Daimler, the company began making V12 engines, and Rapp Motor became Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH in 1917. Complications from over-expansion, thanks to aircraft engine manufacture for World War I, saw to Rapp’s departure, and the company was taken over by Franz Josef Popp and renamed BMW AG in 1918.

The BMW logo, designed in 1920, is said to resemble the spinning propellers of an aircraft engine. Some have interpreted the blue and white to allude to the chequered flag of Bavaria, BMW’s home region. The same year, the company diversified into motorcycle engines, due to a prohibition on aircraft manufacture under the Treaty of Versailles, before making its own motorcycles from 1921. In 1928, BMW bought Automobilwerk Eisenach, which was manufacturing a Dixi model under licence from Austin (it was a version of the Seven), related to the US Bantam and the Japanese Datsun. It was briefly renamed the BMW Dixi.

By 1933, BMW began manufacturing its own models, with the 3/20 PS, with the 303, 327 and 328 models following during the decade. World War II interrupts BMW’s growth, and war production took over, including the use of slave labour.

It München factory destroyed, automotive production did not resume till 1952. Eisenach was taken over by the Soviets and offered BMWs for sale till 1951, when BMW successfully prevented its trade marks from being used when the company was transferred to the East German government. Reparations saw the 326, 327 and 328 models go to Bristol in the UK.

BMW’s 1950s’ record is less distinguished. While it created exotic models such as the 507, they were low-volume, and it produced the Isetta bubble car under licence.

In 1959, financier Herbert Quandt became a shareholder, later the majority shareholder. BMW had almost gone to Daimler-Benz AG, but opposition from the workforce and trade unions, and advice from the chairman, Kurt Golda, prevented this. Quandt prompted the reorganization of the firm.

The 700, launched the same year, featured a Michelotti-designed body and the 697 cm³ engine from the R67 motorcycle. It was a hit, and BMW continued with the 1500 in 1961, developed by Hofmeister, Fiedler, Wolff and von Falkenhausen. This car set the template for modern BMWs as a sporting saloon, with the 1600, 1800 and 02 series following. The three-tiered saloon range was put in place by 1972 with the launch of the 5er-Reihe, and the three model lines have formed the basis of BMW’s marketing since.

The company wished to be a volume player, and took over Britain’s Rover Group (the successor to Austin, which had given BMW its start in automotive manufacture) in 1993. The takeover proved ill-fated, and BMW sold Rover in 1999, keeping the Mini brand as well as competing trade marks such as Triumph. Rover went to a consortium, which collapsed in 2005, and Land Rover went to Ford. There was also an upmarket expansion as BMW bought the rights to the Rolls-Royce name for automotive manufacture in 1998, producing its first Phantom model in 2003.

 

Search Carfolio for full specifications


Out now: Autocade Yearbook 2024