The History of BMW, The Ultimate Driving Machine
BMW mastered motorcycles before becoming a legend auto-making. The first BMW car was the Dixi that debuted at the Berlin Auto Show in 1927

It’s a quartered blue and white circle, ringed in black with three letters at the top. Sounds pretty simple, but the cars it embellishes are anything but. Rendered in Bavaria’s representative colors, this logo is the mark of long-earned prestige and one of the world’s most recognized icons. The sight of it drives grown men to drool.

That’s because the rear-wheel-drive road machines built by the company in question truly do supply the “Sheer Driving Pleasure” that their maker emphasizes. Just in case you weren’t listening that time around, they’ll tell you again with the key word repeated: BMW is “The Ultimate Driving Machine.”  

Like Sweden’s Saab, a descendant of the Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget jet manufacturer, BMW had its roots in flight as Rapp Motor, which came to be called Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH. That entity formed in 1916 when it merged with Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, which had been founded by Gustav Otto, son of the inventor of the four-stroke, internal combustion engine. BMW garnered much praise in the Roaring ‘20s for its aeronautical accomplishments, and that proved a driving force for the company’s foray into automotive endeavors.

BMW mastered motorcycles before moving along with its legendary auto-making. The first BMW car per se was the diminutive Dixi, which debuted at the Berlin Auto Show in 1927. In retrospect it now looks like a bit of foreshadowing to BMW’s Mini cars of the 21^st century, which are based on the British Morris estate cars of the 1960s and are built right there in the Morris factory (now BMW-owned). In the ‘30s the Bavarians concentrated a bit more on race cars, including the remarkable 303, which was the first 6-cylinder Beemer as well as the first to sport the familiar “kidney” grille.

BMWs have always been named almost entirely with digits. Today’s cars are categorized into series, generally denoted by a number: the 1 Series (not sold in the U.S.), the entry-level 3 Series, the junior-level luxury 5 Series, the 6 Series of coupes and convertibles (which shares the 5’s platform), and the ultimate 7 Series. Two more digits follow the initial series-denoting number, for example: the 530i. The 3 and 5 Series also each include a station wagon.

There are letter-based series, too: the high-performance M (which makes souped-up versions of the 3, 5, and 6 series), the utility-oriented X, which debuted in this decade, and the ultra-sporty Z series of roadsters and coupes. The X Series denotes SUVs, or as BMW likes to call them, SAVs: Sport Activity Vehicles. For now there’s just a pair of those tall, rugged fellas: the mid-sized X5 and the super-cute X3.

As recognizable as the BMW logo is, so too is its split-kidney grille, a familiar face since 1933’s 303 (which was also the first BMW powered by 6 cylinders). The “face” of the BMW sedan hasn’t ventured far from its original round-eyed look.

A lot of the changes to the BMW look in the past decade have been the work of American-born designer Chris Bangle. The designs used under his watch have covered a full range from conservative to controversial; most infamously the two-tiered rear-end style employed on some 6 and 7 Series BMW sedans. Believe it or not, serious vitriol can arise from something as innocuous as an automotive design trend, and apparently many zealots have too much time on their hands. Negative comments and even entire websites spread like poison ivy across the Internet, with flame-fingered bloggers denouncing the aforementioned rear-end styling change, which came to be known as “Bangle-butt.” Look here, we can’t even type—never mind say—Bangle-butt without chuckling, so how, pray tell, could somebody could stay worked up about it long enough to put together a website just to vent? The best part, though, is that several other car makers loved (and copied) the style.

Don’t you fret, though. If you want this level of quality, you’re sure to find a BMW body style that strikes your fancy whether your needs are suited by a fully-loaded 7, a cargo-toting wagon, or an SAV that does the trick for weekends as well as carpool. That is, provided you know the value of top-notch workmanship, ride, and handling ability and realize that it’s all worth paying for.