Happy Birthday BMW!

On 7 March 2016, BMW Group will be celebrating 100 years of existence as a company. Over this period of time, a small aero-engine manufacturer based in the north of Munich has been transformed into a world-leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles, as well as a provider of premium finance and mobility services.

Everything started back in 1916 with the Rapp Motorenwerke GmbH, a company building aircraft engines, which were some of the best back then. In August 1916, this company was renamed in Bayrische Motoren Werke GmbH , former known as BMW. BMW builds nowadays not only cars, but also motocycles.

BMW manufactured its first motorcycle in 1923, the R32, which featured a flat-twin boxer engine. BMW Motorrad still uses the flat-twin boxer configuration, but now manufactures motorcycles with a variety of engine configurations.
The most extreme of the BMW Motocycles (the street legal ones) is the BMW HP4, which is shown in the pictures below.

But back to the main company, which nowadays holds besides BMW, also the companies of BMW M, BMW i, BMW Performance cars, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, MINI, MINI John Cooper Works, DriveNow and BMW Financial services.

The cars most CTzens will know, are BMW M cars. BMW M was initially created to facilitate BMW’s racing program, which was very successful in the 1960s and 1970s. 1972 BMW M was founded and began to supplement BMW’s vehicles portfolio with specially modified higher trim models. These M-badged cars traditionally include modified engines, transmissions, suspensions, interior trims, aerodynamics, and exterior modifications to set them apart from their counterparts. All M models are tested and tuned at BMW’s private facility at the Nürburgring racing circuit in Germany.

The first car BMW M worked on was the famous BMW 3.0 CSL “Batmobile”. They built the homologation for the race spec.
The first M-badged car was the M1. The 6-cylinder engine with the code M88 is, especially in the race trim, one of the best sounding Inline-6 ever made.

So lets make a giant jump to the present. Or the future?

BMW is well known for his all electric vehicles BMW i3 and i8. Yeah, the future. How will it be? What are we expecting?
I don’t know, but i know 1 thing. It will be a great Future as long BMW builds cars like the i8, M3 or the M2. This is BMW.
I wonder what we are going to say in 100 years.

The BMW M2 F87

Please post your birthday wishes in the comment section down below!

Thank you for reading.