BMW

BMW is an abbreviation of Bayerishe Motoren Werke AG, commonly known in English as Bavarian Motor Works. It is a German car, motorcycle and engine manufacturer and was founded in 1916.

BMW’s headquarters are based in Munich in German and is also the owner of the Mini Brand and Rolls Royce Motor Cars. They produce over 1.1 million automobiles every year across all of its brands. It is also part of the German Big 3 luxury car makers.

The first successful car produced by BMW was actually based on the Austin 7 and licenced from the Austin Motor Company in Birmingham, it was called the Dixi.

In 1994 BMW bought the Rover Group, this consisted of Land Rover, MG and Rover but included the rights to Austin and Morris. BMW owned Rover Group for 6 years and after Rover incurred huge operating losses, BMW decided to sell. MG and Rover were sold to the Phoenix Consortium, Land Rover to Ford, but BMW purposely kept Mini so that it could squeeze itself into the small car market.

BMW has also been heavily involved in motorsport over the years, with both Motorcycles and Automobiles, including Formula One up until it withdrew in 2009. Other motorsports events BMW took part in include Le Mans 24 Hour Race, 24 Hours od Daytona and Touring Cars.

BMW do a wide range of automobiles starting with the BMW 1 series which it introduced in 2004 to big SUV’s such as the BMW X5 and X6. They also do a number of M models which are high-performance derivatives.

For more information about the current range of BMW’s, please visit their website: BMW Model Range