After the end of the war, railway brakes and inboard engines were manufactured following the prohibition on the production of aero-engines. After the company was sold to Knorr Bremse AG in , financier Camillo Castiglioni acquired engine production along with the workforce and production facilities, the company name and the blue and white logo.
The main plant and the headquarters of the BMW Group are still at this location today. BMW announced its first motorcycle, the R 32, to great excitement in Until then the company had only supplied engines rather than complete vehicles.
BMW became an automobile manufacturer in by purchasing the company known as Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach. The first BMW small car was built under licence from the Austin Motor Company in , but was superseded by the company's own designs in During the era of National Socialism, BMW underwent a transformation from a mobility company to an armaments firm and became one of the most important enterprises operating in the German war economy. New sites were developed and production was massively ramped up to meet the demand for armaments.
Starting in , aircraft construction in Germany received substantial financial support from the government. By , the plant had been significantly expanded for industrial production of aircraft engines.
Since BMW had been classified as an armaments company, machines and tools were dismantled. This meant that BMW lost the power of disposal over its assets until ; in Allach, this loss of control in fact lasted until A large proportion of the intact machines were dismantled at the Munich-Milbertshofen plant and shipped all over the world as reparations. The first BMW vehicle to take to the road after was the R 24 motorcycle, introduced in March , an enhanced version of the pre-war R 23 model.
Shortages of materials and machinery delayed series production until December , but the sales success of the R 24 then exceeded all expectations, and 9, were sold in alone. BMW's first post-war automobile was the , built from onwards. A large saloon capable of seating up to six people, it was powered by an enhanced version of the six-cylinder engine used in the pre-war BMW As a luxury car, the BMW was not a commercial success, but it nevertheless restored BMW's status as a manufacturer of high-quality, technically exciting cars.
As the s progressed, the position of the company became increasingly precarious. In late , Daimler-Benz submitted a restructuring offer for BMW subject to a time limit for acceptance. But small shareholders and the workforce rejected this offer at the Annual General Meeting held on 9 December.
Their perseverance and his confidence in the BMW motivated Herbert Quandt to expand his package of shares. Fast forward to the end of the war, and BMW remained in business, producing motorcycle engines, farm equipment, household items and railway brakes. BMW was already making a name for itself and being linked to greatness, as this motorcycle set a world speed record that remained unbroken until In , BMW was able to produce its first car since the war — a large saloon vehicle that sat comfortably up to six.
While it was designed for the luxury market, this car did not succeed. BMW resumed its car production in Bavaria in with the BMW luxury saloon, and then went on to expand its range of cars in In fact, by , the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and nearly taken over by rival Daimier-Benz.
This is where its history takes an upswing. It was in that same year that BMW pulled out of its financial slump, with German entrepreneur Herbert Quandt acquiring a controlling interest in the firm and BMW launching its series, followed by the equally successful and sought after models.
If that was not enough to kickstart the company, BMW introduced a new series of motorcycles that were extremely popular in the United States, and still are to this day! Throughout the s, BMW continued to expand its range, adding coupe and luxury sedan models to its line up. In , BMW moved to its new and its current headquarters in Munich, a truly unique building based on a four cylinder engine.
In that same year, the automaker unveiled its first V12 engine in the i luxury sedan. The car was powered by a cc straight four engine and had a front engine rear wheel drive FR layout. The Dixi had a top speed of 75mph, which was pretty fast considering that the car had only 15bhp. Acceleration from an 8mph running start to 25mph was 10 seconds and the mileage was a very economical 51 miles per gallon.
While most of the cars produced by BMW were tourers, the Dixi was available in a range of body styles from the coupe to roadsters and sedans. Since then, BMW has been very successful and is a benchmark for automotive engineering. Jonno is the hype-man for some of Australia's most rad brands.
His passion for adventure, new tech, and off-roading, means there is no really automotive topic beyond Jonno's interest. At that time, automobiles had not yet broken through into the mainstream. If you wanted to travel long distances on land, you went by train. Rapp Motorenwerke had its headquarters in the Bavarian capital, Munich — as did the factory where the engines were fitted into the aircrafts, Gustav Otto Flugmaschinenfabrik.
But the end of the First World War brought a halt to the construction of aircraft engines, as the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany from building them. So BMW shifted its focus to railway brakes and built-in motors.
Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH as an independent company disappeared temporarily from the scene — albeit not for long. In , the major investor and aircraft construction pioneer Camillo Castiglioni was the main shareholder of Knorr-Bremse AG. He bought the BMW company name and took over engine construction operations, along with the employees, production facilities and company logo, and transferred everything to BFW, Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG.
It was the successor of Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG, founded in
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