9781422279540

INTRODUCTION

T he Bavarian Motor Works (or Bayerische Motoren Werke, in the native German) was created on March 7, 1916, as an aircraft-engine manufacturing concern. Most of the engines made by the company were the design of Dr. Max Friz, a talented design engineer who had previ- ously been employed by Mercedes. The company’s first significantly successful aircraft engine was the Type IIIa, an inline 6-cylinder unit that gen- erated 185 horsepower. The engine was primarily used in Fokker D7s flown by such notable early aces as Ernst Udet and Manfred, Baron von Richthofen—the “Red Baron.” It could power a biplane to 5,000 meters in altitude in just twenty-nine minutes—in 1918, a record. BMW Hits the Ground Running Under the Versailles treaty, the company was prohibited after World War I from manufacturing aircraft and aircraft engines, so BMW started looking for other engine-mak- ing opportunities. Max Friz wanted BMW to get into the motorcycle business, so he designed a prototype that used a 500-cubic-centimeter engine of twin opposing cylinders (called a “boxer” after the cross-punching appearance of the horizontal pistons and connecting rods); it drove the rear wheel through a driveshaft and was mounted on a double-tube frame. Production of the R32 motorcycle start- ed in 1923, and to this day, its basic technology—shaft drive, boxer engine—is a hallmark of the company’s motorcycles. Management had repeatedly discussed getting into the automobile business, and finally did so in late 1928 when BMW acquired the Eisenach Vehicle Factory (named after the city it was founded in), located 200 miles north of Munich. The company had already been making cars for twenty-nine years, and at the time of purchase was en- gaged in making a single model, a licensed version of the British Austin Seven. This was BMW’s first automobile, known as the 3/15 or Dixi; BMW put their badge on it in April 1929.

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