The history of BMW, through British eyes

Why is there a history of a German car maker on a site called The British Car Scene?

BMW has always been a German company, based in Munich. But you cannot tell the story of BMW without Britain, and you cannot tell the story of British motoring without BMW. Its first car was a British design. Its pre-war sports cars were sold here under a British name. One of its engines powered the greatest British supercar ever made. And today it owns two of the most British car brands there are.

This is the history of BMW, told through British eyes. It runs from 1916 to today, and at every stage I have picked out the part Britain played.

Open the snapshot: the whole story in five points ▾

• BMW’s first car, the 3/15, was an Austin 7 built under licence, so the first car to wear a BMW badge was a British design.
• Before the Second World War, BMWs were sold in Britain as Frazer Nash-BMWs. After it, Bristol used BMW’s designs for its 400 of 1947, twin kidney grille and all.
• In 1959 BMW nearly became part of Daimler-Benz. The Quandt family kept it independent, and the Neue Klasse saloon of 1962 saved the company.
• BMW engines won in British cars: a Brabham-BMW took the 1983 Formula 1 world title, and BMW’s V12 powered the McLaren F1 that won Le Mans in 1995.
• Since 2000 BMW has been a British car maker too, building MINIs in Oxford and Rolls-Royces at Goodwood. In 2025 it brought back the Neue Klasse name for its new electric cars.

In this article

• 1916 to 1929: where the BMW name comes from, and the first BMW car
• The 1930s: the 328 and the Frazer Nash-BMW
• 1939 to 1945: war
• 1945 to 1959: pots, pans, Bristols and bubble cars
• The 1960s: the Neue Klasse and the 2002
• The 1970s: the numbers arrive, and so does M
• The 1980s: the M3, the yuppie and a world title
• The 1990s: a British supercar, Le Mans and Rover
• 2000 to 2025: a British car maker too
• 2025 onwards: the Neue Klasse returns
• Test yourself

1916 to 1929: where the BMW name comes from, and the first BMW car

BMW counts its birthday as 7 March 1916, when an aircraft maker called Bayerische Flugzeugwerke was founded in Munich. A neighbouring aero engine firm, Rapp Motorenwerke, was renamed Bayerische Motoren Werke in 1917, and that is where the name and the blue and white badge come from. The idea that the badge shows a spinning propeller only appeared in the late 1920s.

After the First World War BMW needed something else to make. In 1923 it launched the R32 motorcycle, with a flat-twin “boxer” engine. BMW still builds bikes to that layout today.

Cars came next, and this is where Britain first enters the story. In 1928 BMW bought a car factory in Eisenach that was building a small car called the Dixi. The Dixi was an Austin 7, made under licence. The earliest cars had even been supplied from Britain as kits. So the first car ever to wear a BMW badge, the BMW 3/15, was a British design with the steering wheel moved to the other side. BMW did not build a car entirely of its own design until 1932.

The 1930s: the 328 and the Frazer Nash-BMW

Through the 1930s BMW moved upmarket and found the layout it is still known for: a smooth straight-six engine in a car that is good to drive. The 328 roadster showed it could build a winner. It won its class in the 1938 Mille Miglia, and a streamlined racer based on the 328 won the race outright in 1940.

British drivers noticed early. In 1934 a small British sports car maker called AFN, the company behind Frazer Nash, became BMW’s British importer. Until war broke out in 1939, BMWs were sold here as Frazer Nash-BMWs. If you see one at a show today, that double name is the clue that it was a British market car.

1939 to 1945: war

In the Second World War BMW went back to building aircraft engines. This part of the history has to be told plainly. BMW used forced labour on a large scale during the war, much of it prisoners from concentration camps.

When the war ended, the car plant at Eisenach was under Soviet control.

1945 to 1959: pots, pans, Bristols and bubble cars

The Allies banned BMW from building cars and motorcycles, so it made what it could sell: pots, pans and bicycles. Motorcycles returned in 1948 and cars in 1952.

While BMW was making saucepans, its pre-war designs were starting a second life in Britain. The Bristol Aeroplane Company got hold of BMW’s pre-war designs and hired BMW engineer Fritz Fiedler. The result was the Bristol 400 of 1947. It used the chassis of the BMW 326, a development of the 328’s engine and a body based on the 327. It even kept the twin kidney grille. Frazer Nash built its own post-war sports cars around the same engine.

Back in Munich, BMW’s new cars were not selling in the numbers it needed. The 507 roadster is now one of the most admired BMWs of all, but only 253 were ever made. What kept the factory busy was the opposite kind of car altogether: the Isetta, a tiny Italian bubble car that BMW built under licence from 1955 and sold more than 160,000 of.

Britain got its own Isetta. From 1957 it was built in part of the old railway works in Brighton. The factory had no road access, so parts arrived by train and finished cars left the same way. It sold best here as a three-wheeler, because a three-wheeler could be taxed as a motorcycle and driven on a motorcycle licence. Brighton built them until 1962.

None of it was enough. By 1959 BMW was close to collapse, and at a shareholders’ meeting on 9 December a takeover by Daimler-Benz was on the table. The proposal was defeated, and Herbert Quandt and his brother Harald took a controlling stake that kept BMW independent. The Quandt family still own about half of the company today.

The 1960s: the Neue Klasse and the 2002

BMW needed one car to save it, and in 1962 it arrived. The Neue Klasse, or New Class, was a compact four-door saloon that was practical enough for a family and good to drive. It sold, and it laid the foundations for the BMW saloons that followed.

A shorter two-door version followed in 1966, and in 1968 BMW gave it a 2.0 litre engine and called it the 2002. This is the car that made BMW’s name with enthusiasts. It weighed about a tonne, had 100 PS in its basic form and up to 170 PS as the 2002 Turbo, and still carried four people.

The 1970s: the numbers arrive, and so does M

In the 1970s BMW became the company we recognise now. The model names settled into the pattern still used today: the 5 Series in 1972, the 3 Series in 1975, the 6 Series coupe in 1976 and the 7 Series in 1977.

In 1972 it also set up BMW Motorsport GmbH, the division that became BMW M. A year later the lightweight 3.0 CSL coupe, nicknamed the Batmobile for its wings, won the European Touring Car Championship. In 1978 came the M1, a mid-engined supercar and the first road car to carry the M badge.

Britain was becoming an important market. On 1 January 1980 BMW took direct control of selling its cars here, replacing the independent importer with its own company and a new headquarters in Bracknell, Berkshire.

The 1980s: the M3, the yuppie and a world title

The 1980s made BMW a household name in Britain. The second 3 Series, known to enthusiasts by its code name E30, became the car of the decade for anyone doing well. “BMW driver” became a phrase in its own right, and not always a compliment.

For enthusiasts the decade belongs to one car. The M3 of 1986 was built so that BMW could go touring car racing, with a high-revving four-cylinder engine and boxed wheel arches. It won championships across Europe. The first M5, a year earlier, did the same trick with a discreet four-door saloon.

British circuits saw plenty of it. Frank Sytner won the British Touring Car Championship in an M3 in 1988, Will Hoy did it again in 1991, and Tim Harvey took the 1992 title in a BMW 318is.

There was a world title too, and it had a strong British accent. In 1983 Nelson Piquet became Formula 1 world champion in a Brabham-BMW, the first driver to win the title with a turbocharged engine. The engine came from Munich. The team was British.

The 1990s: a British supercar, Le Mans and Rover

The decade opened with BMW’s finest British collaboration. When McLaren built its F1 road car, it went to BMW for the engine. The result was a 6.1 litre V12 that made the McLaren F1 the fastest production car in the world, and in 1995 a racing version won the Le Mans 24 Hours.

BMW won Le Mans under its own name in 1999 with the V12 LMR, a car developed with the British Williams Formula 1 team. Away from the track it moved into new kinds of car. The Z3 roadster arrived in 1995 with the best product placement a car maker could ask for: it was James Bond’s car in GoldenEye, and sales jumped while the film was in cinemas. BMW’s first SUV, the X5, followed in 1999.

The biggest British story of the decade was a purchase. In 1994 BMW bought the Rover Group, which brought it Rover, MG, Land Rover and Mini. Six years later it sold almost all of it. That story, and what BMW kept, deserves an article of its own, and it has one: How BMW saved MINI and Rolls-Royce, and offloaded Rover.

2000 to 2025: a British car maker too

Since 2000 BMW has been a British car maker as well as a German one. The MINI has been built at Oxford since 2001 and Rolls-Royce at Goodwood since 2003, with engines made at Hams Hall near Birmingham.

The BMW range itself has kept growing, with smaller hatchbacks at one end and a long line of SUVs at the other. British drivers have kept winning in them. Andy Priaulx won three World Touring Car Championships in a row for BMW from 2005 to 2007, Colin Turkington has won the British Touring Car Championship four times in BMWs, and Jake Hill added another title in a 3 Series in 2024.

BMW’s first mass-produced electric car, the i3, arrived in 2013.

2025 onwards: the Neue Klasse returns

In 1962 the Neue Klasse saved BMW. More than sixty years later the company has brought the name back for the biggest change to its cars in a generation.

The first of the new Neue Klasse cars is the electric iX3, revealed in September 2025. It has a new, pared-back look, and BMW says its upright kidney grille is a deliberate nod to the Neue Klasse of the 1960s. BMW also says the technology will spread to 40 new and updated models by 2027.

For British buyers the headline was range. BMW claimed up to 500 miles on the official test, which it said made the iX3 the longest-range electric car on sale in the UK at launch. When UK prices were announced in September 2025 it started at £53,250, with the first deliveries here due in March 2026.

In September 2026 the same thinking reached the car that matters most to BMW in Britain. The eighth generation of the 3 Series was announced with Neue Klasse design and, for the first time, a fully electric version. BMW has reused the name i3 for it. UK prices announced that month started at £47,925 for the electric i3 and £44,975 for the petrol 320.

Whether the new look wins people over is something we will all get to judge on British roads over the next few years.

From an Austin 7 built under licence to the owner of MINI and Rolls-Royce is quite a journey. Whatever you think of the cars, or of the people who drive them, BMW has earned its place in the British car scene.

Sources

Open the sources: all 16 links ▾

• History of BMW, Wikipedia
• BMW Dixi, Wikipedia
• A.F.N., Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History
• Bristol 400, Wikipedia
• Isetta, Wikipedia
• BMW change in Britain, Motor Sport, March 1979
• The BMW Group in the UK, BMW Group press release
• British Touring Car Championship, Wikipedia
• BMW in motorsport, Wikipedia
• BMW M, Wikipedia
• BMW E9, Wikipedia
• BMW Z3, Wikipedia
• BMW 02 Series, Wikipedia
• BMW, Wikipedia
• The start of a new era: the new BMW iX3, BMW Group UK press release, 5 September 2025
• The new BMW 3 Series, BMW Group UK press release, 30 September 2026