When was BMW founded?
3772#5
After the end of World War I in 1918, BMW was forced to cease aircraft engine production by the terms of the Versailles Armistice Treaty. To remain in business, BMW produced farm equipment, household items and railway brakes. In 1922, former major shareholder Camillo Castiglioni purchased the rights to the name BMW, which led to the company descended from Rapp Motorenwerke being renamed Süddeutsche Bremse AG (known today as Knorr-Bremse). Castiglioni was also an investor in another aircraft company, called "Bayerische Flugzeugwerke", which he renamed BMW.The disused factory of Bayerische Flugzeugwerke was re-opened to produce engines for buses, trucks, farm equipment and pumps, under the brand name BMW. BMW's corporate history considers the founding date of Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (7 March 1916) to be the birth of the company.
BMW
12708734#2
After the war, BMW survived by making pots, pans, and bicycles until 1948, when it restarted motorcycle production. Meanwhile, BMW's factory in Eisenach fell in the Soviet occupation zone and the Soviets restarted production of pre-war BMW motorcycles and automobiles there. This continued until 1955, after which they concentrated on cars based on pre-war DKW designs. BMW began building cars in Bavaria in 1952 with the BMW 501 luxury saloon. Sales of their luxury saloons were too small to be profitable, so BMW supplemented this with building Isettas under licence. Slow sales of luxury cars and small profit margins from microcars caused the BMW board to consider selling the operation to Daimler-Benz. However, Herbert Quandt was convinced to purchase a controlling interest in BMW and to invest in its future.
History of BMW
12708734#1
The initial products were exhibited in 1922 in Munich plant. These souvenirs were not intended for sale. It was resulted with the historical exhibition which was organized in 1966. BMW became an automobile manufacturer in 1929 when it purchased Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach, which, at the time, built Austin Sevens under licence under the Dixi marque. BMW's team of engineers progressively developed their cars from small Seven-based cars into six-cylinder luxury cars and, in 1936, began production of the BMW 328 sports car. Aircraft engines, motorcycles, and automobiles would be BMW's main products until World War II. During the war, against the wishes of its director Franz Josef Popp, BMW concentrated on aircraft engine production, with motorcycles as a side line and automobile manufacture stopped altogether.
History of BMW
32906410#1
BMW de Mexico has two production facilities in Lerma, Toluca, Mexico State. In one, the company manufactures BMW motorcycles, and in the second, the company manufactured the BMW 3 series and BMW 5 series. ending in 2003 when BMW de Mexico ended local assembly.
BMW de Mexico was initially set up in 1994 as a joint venture between BMW AG of Germany and a group of Mexican investors to manufacture BMW 3 series vehicles for the local Mexican market as Mexican law at the time required all vehicles sold in the country to be assembled locally. Initially only the 3 series vehicles were manufactured by the joint venture from kits using both Mexican and German components while other vehicles simply used entire kits shipped from Germany. By 1996 all models had begun to use at least 50% Mexican components as Mexican law dictated.
BMW Mexico
4219484#1
Founded in Boston in 1969, the organization began as an owner-support network, the club exists as a separate entity from BMW AG and its North American subsidiary, although there is a close working relationship, such as discounts on vehicles and parts provided to club members by the company. Currently headquartered at 2350 Highway 101 South Greer, SC, the BMW CCA is a not-for-profit corporation, governed by an elected board of directors that meets quarterly. Five Regional Vice Presidents, who serve on the board, represent the interests of the chapters. Each chapter is an independent corporation chartered by BMW CCA and operates within with minimum standards of service to the membership. All chapters are geographically based except for the E30 and E31 Chapters, which are non-geographic model-specific chapters.In March 2002, the BMW CCA formed the 501(c)(3) BMW CCA Foundation, a charity aimed at preserving the history of the BMW marque in the U.S., the club's history and to fund and operate what it terms the Teen Driver Safety School Program, known more commonly as Street Survival, aimed at teaching young American drivers, age 15-21 the importance of safe driving through emergency and accident avoidance training conducted in their own cars by qualified volunteers and professionals. Since 2002, over 1000 Street Survival Schools have been conducted in the United States and Canada.
BMW Car Club of America
467319#3
BMW merged with Bayerische Flugzeugwerke in 1922, inheriting from them the Helios motorcycle and a small two-stroke motorized bicycle called the Flink. In 1923, BMW's first in line crank with two horizontally opposed air cooled cylinders boxer engine was designed by Friz. The R32 had a engine with and a top speed of . The engine and gearbox formed a bolt-up single unit. At a time when many motorcycle manufacturers used total-loss oiling systems, the new BMW engine featured a recirculating wet sump oiling system with a drip feed to roller bearings. This system was used by BMW until 1969, when they adopted the "high-pressure oil" system based on shell bearings and tight clearances, still in use today.
History of BMW motorcycles
12696441#9
With World War I over, the company was forbidden from aircraft design. This necessitated the need for new avenues of growth for the company. Friz, with his designs and engineering expertise, launches BMW into the motorcycle market with the development of the R32 motorcycle, which established the foundation for all future boxer powered BMW motorcycles (in addition to numerous motorsport titles and world records).
Friz and his team of engineers design the first "boxer" (or opposed twin) engine was the fore-and-aft M2B15, based on a British Douglas design. It was manufactured by BMW in 1921/1922 but mostly used in other brands of motorcycles, notably Victoria of Nuremberg. The M2B15 proved to be moderately successful and BMW used it in its own Helios motorcycle. BMW also developed and manufactured a small 2-stroke motorcycle called the "Flink" for a short time. When BMW Gmbh went public in 1922, Friz was named the first Chief Engineer and Design Director of BMW AG, a post he would hold until 1937.
Max Friz
5774335#26
Founded in 2004 and originally known as Formula BMW USA, the series changed its name to Formula BMW Americas starting with the 2008 season. The series was sanctioned by IMSA, and it has appeared on the support bill for ALMS, Champ Car, Grand-Am, Indy Racing League and Formula One events. In its first four years of existence (2004–2007), the Formula BMW USA series supported both the Canadian and United States Formula One Grands Prix.
Formula BMW
12708734#9
In 1917, Karl Rapp's son-in-law, Max Wiedmann, held about 80 percent of the shares in Rapp Motorenwerke. He had obtained most of these shares from his father-in- law in 1914 and had thus become a figure of great influence in the business. Even after the name-change to Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH, Wiedmann remained the principal shareholder in the company. Wiedmann’s capitulation in July 1918 opened the way for the founding of a public limited company. On 13 August 1918, BMW AG was entered as a new company in the Commercial Register and took over from BMW GmbH all its manufacturing assets, order book and workforce. The old BMW GmbH was renamed "Maschinenwerke Schleißheimerstrasse" and was wound up on 12 November 1918. The share capital of BMW AG amounting to 12 million reichsmarks was subscribed by three groups of investors. One third of the shares was taken up in equal parts by the Bayerische Bank and the Norddeutsche Bank. A further third of the shares (worth 4 million reichsmarks) was acquired by the Nuremberg industrialist, Fritz Neumeyer. This ensured that 50 percent of the capital (6 million reichsmarks) was in the hands of Bavarian businesses or banks. The Bavarian government placed the highest value on this strong local shareholding. The final one-third of the BMW shares were taken up by a Viennese financier, Camillo Castiglioni.
History of BMW
1199354#4
The M1 coupe was hand-built between 1978 and 1981 under the motorsport division of BMW as a homologation special for sports car racing. The body was designed by Giugiaro, taking inspiration from the 1972 BMW Turbo concept car. Originally, BMW commissioned Lamborghini to work out the details of the car's chassis, assemble prototypes and manufacture the vehicles, but Lamborghini's financial position meant that BMW reassumed control over the project in April 1978, after seven prototypes were built. Since the engineering of the car was still incomplete, a group of former Lamborghini engineers that had founded a company named Italengineering offered to complete the car's design. Less than 10 miles away from the Lamborghini shop, the engineering for the M1 was finished. Only 453 production M1s were built, making it one of BMW's rarest models. Of the 453 produced, 20 were race versions created for the BMW M1 Procar Championship. 
The M1 had various successes in motorsports. In 2004, "Sports Car International" placed the car at number ten on their list of top sports cars of the 1970s.
BMW M1