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- Herausgeber: Batsford
- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
A glorious exploration of BMW, one of the greatest car brands of all time, with dynamic photography and lively text that explains why people love them. Known as 'the ultimate driving machine', BMW is one of the world's most prestigious car brands. Renowned for their smooth handling, precision engineering and sleek looks, BMWs pair driving comfort with powerful engines. Originally formed during the first world war, the company reached new heights of popularity in the 1960s and is still going strong today. This captivating book outlines all the most iconic BMW models, from their first car, the Dixi of 1927, to today's high-performance models, including the beautiful 1955 507 roadster, the instantly recognisable 2002 from the 1960s, and the iconic E30 M3, first manufactured in the mid-1980s. Each evocative vintage photograph is accompanied by insightful explanation. The ideal gift for every car enthusiast, whether they're a BMW owner or just aspire to be, this beautifully illustrated book conveys perfectly the joys of this classic brand.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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THE SPIRIT OF
BMW
50 REASONS WHY WE LOVE THEM
THE SPIRIT OF
BMW
50 REASONS WHY WE LOVE THEM
Vaughan Grylls
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
01. THE BMW IMAGE
02. MODEST BEGINNINGS
03. A BRILLIANT CAR DESIGNER
04. REINVENTING BEAUTY
05. CUTE BMW
06. THE 1 SERIES
07. THE 2 SERIES
08. THE 3 SERIES
09. THE 4 SERIES
10. THE 5 SERIES
11. THE 6 SERIES
12. THE 7 SERIES
13. THE 8 SERIES
14. THE X SERIES
15. THE I
16. THE M
17. THE Z
18. THE CUSTOM
19. THE ULTIMATE DRIVING MACHINE
20. GO COMPARE
21. POLIZEI BMW
22. BODY BUILDING
23. HOLD THAT ROAD …
24. BMW ADS
25. BREAKDOWN BMW
26. ABANDONED BMW
27. THE DESIGNERS
28. ART CAR
29. THE ICONIC LOGO
30. THOSE KIDNEYS
31. THE FRONT END
32. THE KINKY SIDE
33. THE REAR END
34. FROM THE TOP
35. THE COCKPIT
36. CONVERTIBLE COOL
37. BACK SEAT DRIVER
38. CLEAN LINES
39. THE WHEELS
40. HOMAGE TO SPEED
41. THE IDRIVE
42. THE COLOUR
43. THE ENGINES
44. SKI BMW
45. BIMMER SPECIALS
46. RACING AND RALLYING BMW
47. BMW IN AMERICA
48. HEADQUARTERS MUNICH
49. THE BMW MUSEUM
50. SHOULD YOU BUY ONE … OR TWO?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
The Ultimate Driving Machine
This is not a technical book. It is about BMW, a German company that designs superlative cars. These cars entice you into taking for granted how good they actually are, until you drive a car of another make. Then the difference becomes glaring.
Why has BMW climbed to global pre-eminence? Simple. A BMW is a stylish, high-performance automobile that is sporty and easy to drive. Before BMW, high-performance cars could be challenging to master.
When BMW’s 3 Series hit the market, its rivals were caught on the back foot. Mercedes had to rethink its legendary construction costs, ponderous design and performance. It was to little avail. BMW would overtake Mercedes in the world’s key automobile import market – the USA. A Mercedes may have been classy, but a BMW was fun and young too.
Lesser makes struggled even more. Few today remember the Dolomite Sprint, promoted embarrassingly in the UK by British Leyland’s Triumph as ‘The BMW Eater’. Not after covering a hundred miles in an hour on a German autobahn it wasn’t. Saab and Audi were the nearest European style rivals in the US, yet Saab was a minnow of a company next to BMW, while Audi was just not as sexy and didn’t have the model range.
BMW – Bayerische Motoren Werke, or Bavarian Motor Works – was established in 1916 as a manufacturer of aero engines, which it produced from 1917–1918 and then from 1933–1945. In 1928 BMW bought Automobilwerk Eisenach, which held a licence from Austin in England to build the Austin 7 model known as the Dixi. BMW made some changes and put their badge on it.
1970s BMW magazine advert.
The BMW 328 Mille Miglia Touring Coupé winning the race in Brescia, Italy, 1940.
The BMW Dixi Cabriolet.
Throughout the 1930s, BMW designed their own cars at Eisenach. A particular eye-opener was the 328, a sports model built between 1936 and 1940. Using their impressive 2-litre straight-six, an engine that would become a BMW hallmark, the 328 won important races such as the 1936 Nürburgring Eifelrennen, the 1937 Tourist Trophy, the 1940 Mille Miglia and the 1939 Le Mans 24 Hours race.
In the Second World War, BMW focused on military production, from army motorcycles to the engines for airplanes such as the Dornier bomber. But by the end of the war, BMW’s factories lay totally destroyed thanks to British and US air raids.
Like most industrial conglomerates in Nazi Germany, BMW had used slave labour. Although no BMW director or employee has ever been prosecuted for war crimes, at BMW’s centenary in 2016 the company issued a statement: ‘To this day, the enormous suffering this caused and the fate of many forced labourers remains a matter of the most profound regret.’ The mea culpa appeared inadequate.
After 1945 BMW were not allowed to manufacture automobiles because of their involvement in the war, so they produced bicycles and pots and pans to keep the company going. Car production resumed in 1952 with the 501 and then, in 1959, the rear-engined 700. In 1955 BMW introduced the Isetta, a bubble car, built under licence from Iso of Italy and re-engineered by BMW. But by 1959, BMW was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It was saved by the German industrialist, Herbert Quandt, who himself had a Nazi past.
From the early 1960s, BMW began to hit its stride as a mass-producer of upmarket, high-performance compact cars. These were the 1500 and 1600 models, leading to the 2000 CS and the 2002ii. BMW had invented a new class of car, pitched between the mass producers and the small-production luxury marques.
It was an opportunity that BMW would capitalize on by launching a numbered series of models – the 5 in 1972, the 3 in 1975, the 6 in 1976 and the 7 in 1978. The motoring celebrity Jeremy Clarkson called these BMWs the same car but in different sizes. This was a little harsh, but in any case these BMWs were German-designed, reliable and fun. They sold like hot cakes throughout Europe and North America – not very surprising when you could choose a sporty, six-pot 323i sedan with extras for the price of a four-pot Mercedes.
BMW promoted these cars as ‘The Ultimate Driving Machine’. Yet, if BMW’s sporty German image wasn’t enough, 1978 saw the launch of the company’s Motorsport division. Their products may have been branded ‘M’, but to all intents and purposes these were Q cars. The M5, for instance, launched in 1984, looked deceptively like a regular 5 Series, yet its performance was faster than a Porsche 911 of the day.
In 1995, BMW launched its Z sports range and in 1995 its X range – SUVs, something of an image challenge for a company that had concentrated on sporty sedans and sports cars throughout its history.
The growing threat of climate change would provide yet another image challenge for a company wedded to designing and refining the internal combustion engine. In 2010 BMW’s first hybrid was created, followed by its xDrive plug-in hybrids. In 2013 the i3, BMW’s first all-electric automobile, came on the market.
Over the next three years, BMW will be spending one billion euros on preparing its e-drive system at its Steyr plant in Austria. Time is of the essence, because by 2035 the sale of new internal-combustion-engine cars will be banned throughout the EU and in other parts of the world too.
High performing, sophisticated, reliable, user-friendly, low depreciation, good value – you would be hard-pressed to name a mass manufacturer of cars offering all this before BMW. But now the company must hold fast to its philosophy as it enters an all-electric future. A tough call, but BMW will deliver.
And here are 50 reasons why we love them…
01
THE BMW IMAGE
We are in Stoke-on-Trent, England, the world-famous pottery town. A young woman at the wheel of a BMW 5 Series is checking her rear-view mirror.
And here is the First Day’s Vase, one of four surviving, designed and made on 13 June 1769 by the potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood to mark the first day of his new factory in Stoke-on-Trent.
Wedgwood’s company designed elegant, high-performance ceramics. They became instant classics. That wasn’t all. Wedgwood innovated with marketing methods: promotion, production and world-wide export. His company’s research and development was ground-breaking. It all meant that rival potteries would be forever playing catch-up.
The Wedgwood image. Elegant, high performance, understated, classic. And now BMW. Seen here in a Stoke-on-Trent car park.
At the wheel of a BMW 5 Series.
The Wedgwood First Day’s Vase on display at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, UK.
02
MODEST BEGINNINGS
In the mid-1920s Automobilwerk Eisenach in Germany was struggling to sell its cars, unsurprising as the country was in a deep depression because of the war reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War.
The company decided the only way forward was to make a very small car. But without the money to build one, they had no choice but to take out a licensing agreement with a company that did.
