History of BMW Documentary

[Music] ostentatious almost a vulgar apparently in Italian it's called SAP Aneta like a little bar of soap it's got such an aggressive look to it it just looked somehow the future of Motoring they only sustain the part really is the vomit slight driving little tank this is the one layer the story of BMW starts in the 1910s before the First World War when a company was set up in Munich to build aircraft engines military aircraft engines in the late 1920s Germany of course was still banned from indulging in this sort of activity BMW look round and bought into a car company in eisenach in another part of Germany which was already building cars called Dixie's Dixie's were small cheap and cheerful little cars which were actually likely modified Austin 7s from Britain BMW had great ambitions it didn't take them long to decide to modify this car much further and to put in the BMW design of engine that then became the staple of the 1930s product throughout all this period BMW was very careful to maintain its identity right from the word go the badge had been the blue and white spinner an artistic impression of a rotating propeller which is to tell us that BMW started by making aero engines and incidentally BMW in English it means quite simply Bavarian motor works in a period of not more than three or four years a whole sequence a 300 series models appear the most important car technically was the 3 to 8 sports car because here was a smart smooth 2-liter two-seater machine with a very advanced engine well this is a 1938 BMW three to eight important is this country in early 39 by frozen ash it is a pure BMW the only frozen ash input was in fact put their own badges on it and then sell the car in this country under their name because frozen ash were a very noted manufacturer of bespoke sport cars from the late twenties through into the 30s until all the sudden in 1935 the strange little manufacturer from Bavaria came along called BMW and suddenly started beating them at their own game of a rapidly concluded they could never compete with it and the sensible thing to do was to take the agency traditional frozen - owner switched across to the BMW product because it was such a huge leap all within all engineering terms of motor car and the pierced resistance as far as the three - wife was concerned was a really brilliant piece of engine work that produced a hemispherical head engine that develops a lot of power very deep breathing engine really an awfully long way ahead of his day I think one of the main attractions of the three to eight was that it looked very different from the average mid-1930s sports car 1930s mg for instance very square-rigged upright front radiator grille separate headlamps suddenly here comes the three to eight flowing front wings smooth and rounded front end it just looked somehow the future of Motoring [Music] [Music] well I can remember sitting in my push chair and my father was pedaling his motor cars he was a Reilly man we had lots of space around us at home and father the good sense to give me the remains of a motor car when I was 9 which got me out of his workshop so they went away and learnt about nuts and bolts somewhere else and didn't confuse his cars and I bought my first three to eight in 1968 this is the one for me III have no cause to change at all this motorcar does absolutely everything I want if I want to compete a bit I can compete if I want canid across Europe it'll do it and it'll do it speeds that nowadays one mustn't talk about and I see no cause to have to change by the late 1930s the whole idea of Motorsports supremacy in Germany was all-important they entered specially streamlined three 2/8 for an event in Italy called the Mille Miglia in 1940 which was a year after World War two started one of those cars driven by hooker von lahnstein won the event very convincingly indeed when world war ii broke out BMW with three major factories was making cars in one of them motorcycles in one of them and aero engines in the biggest Factory of all in Munich naturally those factories then receive the attention of the RAF and the United States Air Force an even bigger problem was that the factory which had built cars in the 30's eisenach found itself behind the Iron Curtain and suddenly BMW not only had ruin factories but no car making expertise on the West German side of the border either and in fact they couldn't start making motor cars again for six or seven years after the war there were so many huge shortages in Germany that they couldn't announce a new motorcar until 1951 when the original post-war 500 series car was shown behind the launch of that car but was a new family of v8 engines BMW obviously had ambitions to move up market the white and blue BMW crest the BMW means elegant styling silent running proverbial dependability [Music] my car is a 1957 BMW 507 it actually came to me after I'd tested one of the works cars at the Hockenheim racing circuit where I'd been riding in the Grand Prix and I'd seen this car which Vaughn Falcon House and the chief engineer of BMW had and he saw me looking at it so he said take it for a run so I took it for a run and thought this is rather nice III can imagine myself whisking over the continent between Grand Prix's in something like this so I thought well how do I pay for it that's the next thing well Agusta counter coaster who I rode for had suggested that you'll to get me a present inside won him his first 500cc motorcycle championship the previous year and so I thought well dare I ask for 507 BMW well I did and he did in fact contribute the majority of the payment for it which worked out about 2,700 pounds when I actually got my car I was frankly disappointed because it didn't match up to the one I test it but I went back to the experimental apartment and twisted their arm and I became sort of the experimental driver I they test a few things on my car and they updated the engine in those days of course there wasn't that much traffic on the road you used to be able to go along and 120 130 Eve and wasn't dangerous you didn't come across too many traffic jams and I used to I think average 70 mile an hour door-to-door from Milan to Bromley with no trouble at all and no hassle and I think about 22 miles to the gallon so no it was it served me very well [Music] okay it wasn't a racing car type performance from it but it was a car which gave you a good message and this is the important thing you need to relate to a piece of machinery I you could go along and it would adjust itself to suit you and that's what appealed it was a very attractive looking car but it wasn't fleet enough it wasn't nimble enough to catch the attention of sports car buyers so it only sold in hundreds rather than in thousands and I think at this point we can say BMW began to stumble they decided to make smaller cheaper motor cars in bigger numbers as a complete change from the 500 series took out a license to build bubble cars this was the Isetta they were small they were fine and they sold in big numbers but they weren't making money after the war they were struggling to find an image this is shown most graphically in a range brochure of the mid fifties which has a motorbike a bubble car the large prestige diplomatic cars and finishes it with the exotic 507 and they weren't really sure which of these cars they were marketing most strongly the crunch for BMW came in about 1959 when the company came perilously close to being closed down in came some serious investors gentleman they said you must start making middle-sized smart middle-class motorcars and in 1961 a completely new generation of BMW was born it established BMW in the company that we now know in the late 1990s once the BMW 1600 went on sale in the early 1960s this signaled the birth of the modern BMW company [Music] the motorcar was very carefully thought-out a technically modern car for the middle class's distinctive style a very modern engine and a very modern chassis and suspension underneath [Music] everything that BMW tried to prove with that car has been carried on with other models ever since the German economic miracle was well and truly in place BMW are exporting tens of thousands of cars all over the world and to Britain and into North America in particular the story might have gone sour when the Americans began to introduce lots and lots of restrictions on exhaust emissions BMW or up to that they installed a large engine the 2,000 engine in the small body called it the 2002 [Music] I was on to 2002 and I used to have a bicycle and cycle into college into the library and every morning I used to see this 2002 parked in the library carpark and I cycle a couple of times around it and think wow when I'm rich I'll get one of those so I actually wanted to find the person who owned it cuz I thought there's this wonderful man that probably had fall madly in love with I never met him [Music] [Applause] at had a series of company cars and used other people's cars and different things and I've never really bought a car of my own [Music] so I thought yeah hit the big three-o gotta get got to be my own woman got to get a car that I love I bought it because of the shape of it apparel in Italian it's called sucka meta like a little bar of soap and if you think about a child when they draw a card it's very sort of like that's a very simple shape when I first got it I couldn't believe that I'd got it and I kept on looking out the window and in fact I woke up in the middle of the night several times and looked out just to sort of look at it at the shape of it but wow it's all mine brilliant in the 60s and 70s BMW were much clearer about their image like the other German car mercedes-benz they were very keen on presenting technical excellence solidity and safety but unlike Mercedes Benz they wanted to present glamour they wanted to present speed and style you have much more likely in their brochures two-seat cars in exotic locations cars photograph for their own sake whereas in a Mercedes brochure you'll always see them photographed to show the car technically the clothes I file things that I have I like very simple design quite sleek design they don't like patterns and that's why I like the curly because it's it's quite sleek it's not ostentatious it's quite simple put anything else on and it looks cluttered take anything away and it would be missing something there's a little bit of Chrome but not too much and it just is just quite solid everything about it is solid it's quite reliable there's no messing around sort of car sight driving a little tank and quite like that [Music] [Applause] [Music] so I like I like the design of it from the outside when I first set about buying it but then now I'm sort of inside it and using it there are lots of things inside that I really like as well I like the horns there are four horns and they're all on the little arches around the steering wheel which is brilliant I like the little quarter lights and the windows because you can open those and it's just like having their condition the sound of the indicators is wonderful it's very soothing it's very gentle it's very sort of low and it's also got a hazard warning light as well which is it just you think oh it's going to stop but it just sort of ticks through to the next one I also like on the petrol cap there's a little tiny tiny little cover over where and it's on a spring-loaded cover we put the key and it's just really dinky every time I fill up with petrol I really like just moving it one particular day this very beautiful black man in a double-breasted suit as I was waiting the traffic lights walked in front of me stroked the bonnet and mouthed very nice car lady so I'd fluttered my eyelids and waved and drove on so that was quite nice I was supposed to go from nought to 60 in about 10 or 11 seconds and I don't think I've ever tried doing that but I wouldn't let anyone try to do it anyway but you know there is quite a lot of power in the engine the 2002 people that I've spoken to on the phone can we describe themselves as quite laid-back baggy jumpers beards you know kind of take life as it comes sort of people enjoy life they enjoy their cars they're proud of their cars but it's not you know it's not the sort of status thing and a lot of the B M drivers you know they're kind of into all this badge Society whatever and I think you can buy an m3 sticker as well you know pretend that you've got a car that's hand-built it's a little bit sad and they all kind of company boys so I'd like to go to a car rally and to see that in action I said all the to 2002 sort of in the corner everyone enjoying themselves and the rest of the BM owners club you know kind of out there showing each showing off [Applause] by the mid-1970s the smallest BMWs were 3-series middle-sized BMWs were five series the large BMWs the 7 Series and there was usually a coupe a line as well they were now covering a sporting market from 1.6 liters although up to 3 or 4 liters and they said if we grab him when he's 30 we'll keep him to this 65 [Music] [Applause] [Music] they've always been interested in motorsport but towards the middle of the 1980s it became clear that production car racing in particular was becoming very important for publicity a new category called Group A was being introduced and BMW said we have to get involved in this not just to turn up but to win in Group A racing the result was the m3 the m3 arrived in 1986 immediately became a successful production saloon car fortunately for everyone particularly enthusiasts in the next few years there was a running battle between BMW and Ford with the Sierra Cosworth each of the companies had its own particular trumpet to blow BMW said well of course we're winning races with a motor car that doesn't need turbo charging and the m3 was just a superbly developed normally aspirated motor car that could win production car racing all around the world [Applause] this is a bmw m3 it's a 16-valve 2.3 liter twin Ken it's made in left-hand drive only and was initially built as for the purpose of racing although were to get homologated for racing so many road cars out to be like this is quite a lot different from the standard body body 3 series the roofs different the wings are different the doors differently only stand apart really is the vomit this is the first of the entries there's other editions of it it's got such an aggressive look to it it's block starches and the engineers we've just got a phenomenal engine in it such a small wind even even a parrot it's there in the late 80s the yuppies were clearly a target market for the bmw m3 the brochures to feed this market were gigantic ostentatious almost vulgar they were full of glamorous pictures rich colors and text that reflected the racing pedigree the whole purpose of these brochures was to impress and to seduce ly a reader into buying an m3 BMW rather than another equally ostentatious car I've seen the car advertised in a magazine decided that now was the time to have one the prices were coming right back the wife and kids in the car and show off then to Weymouth looked at the car and decided straight away that that I was going to have it went out for a test drive and the guy Mike whose had come out of the army was basically trying to find out what I knew about beings unbeknown to me while I was out the wife was being grilled on how well I looked after my cars and then they decided that I was to be the suitable owner and that I would bring out and deliver it to me I think was absolutely gutted that it they were open to let it go and then he's asked for me to sell it back to him and I've decided to sell it which at the moment it's very unlikely my daughter's world to two and a half now and she's into PMS as well she's got her own little BMW pedal car and can actually pick out my m3 in a crowd of crowd of cars which is quite amazing really and even those mummies three one I ought so she's a bit of a BMW fan herself as well there's some nice cars on the market but the BMW marks means they've just got it right everything's right the cars made for a purpose and they do their job really BMW is convinced that it's won the battle for the sporting image it has a complete range of tools which is added a sports car the Zed three sports car of course [Music] they have a totally consistent teutonic reliable image it's a wonderful image that the rest of the world wishes it could mine and use for its own purposes but if you or I went out to buy BMW today we're buying an image we're buying performance and more than that we're buying the ability to say to the world look at me I've arrived [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 81,964

Rating: 4.8873239 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: gs_WjtFaHuc

Length: 23min 41sec (1421 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 04 2018