BMW goes back to Karl Rapp and Gustav Otto. In 1916, at the request of the government, the Flugmaschinenfabrik Gustav Otto was incorporated into Bayerische Flugzeug-Werke AG (BFW). Elsewhere, in 1917, Rapp Motorenwerke became Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH, which was duly transformed into a GA in 1918. BMW AG then transferred its engine construction – including the company and brand names – to BFW in 1922. The founding date of BFW, 7 March 1916, has therefore gone down in history as the founding date of Bayerische Motoren Werke AG. It was founded in 1916 as Bayerische Flugzeug-Werke, a manufacturer of aircraft engines, but adopted the name Bayerische Motoren Werke in July 1917 and began producing motorcycles in the 1920s. BMW entered the automotive sector in 1928. The company`s R32 motorcycle set a world speed record that was only broken in 1937. During World War II, BMW built the world`s first jet engines used by the Luftwaffe, the German Luftwaffe. After the war, the company tried to enter the small car market, but found that it could not compete effectively with Volkswagen`s compact and inexpensive cars.
By 1959, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and its executives planned to sell the company to Daimler-Benz. BMW announced its first motorcycle, the R 32, in 1923 with great enthusiasm. Until then, the company only supplied engines and not complete vehicles. The basic concept of bmw Motorrad`s original model – a boxer engine with longitudinally arranged cylinders and a shaft drive – is still used in the company`s motorcycles today. The acronym BMW stands for Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH. The name dates back to the origin of the company in Bavaria. It also presents BMW`s original product range: engines for various applications. The blue and white bmw logo or circular roundel developed from the circular logo of the rapp Motorenwerke company, which showed a black ring with the company name around the company logo[12] on a pedestal of a horse`s head. [13] Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, commonly known as BMW (German pronunciation: [ˈbeːˈʔɛmˈveː] (listen)), is a German multinational that manufactures luxury vehicles and motorcycles. The company was founded in 1916 as a manufacturer of aircraft engines, which it produced from 1917 to 1918 and again from 1933 to 1945. In August 1918, Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH was transformed into a joint-stock company.
But the end of World War I paralyzed the construction of aircraft engines, with the Treaty of Versailles prohibiting Germany from building them. BMW therefore focused on railway brakes and integrated engines. It was such a success that the Berlin brake company Knorr-Bremse AG took a majority stake in BMW in 1920, joined the company and moved to Munich. Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH as an independent company disappeared temporarily – but not for long. The company bought the Rover Group in 1994, but the acquisition failed and caused BMW significant financial losses. In 2000, BMW sold most of the Rover brands and kept only the Mini brand. The special fascination of the bmw Group lies not only in its products and technologies, but also in the history of the company, written by brilliant inventors, pioneers and designers. Today, with 31 production and assembly sites in 15 countries and a global sales network, the BMW Group is the world`s leading manufacturer of high-end automobiles and motorcycles as well as a provider of high-end financial and mobility services.
BMWs have been assembled in South Africa since 1968,[110] when the Praetor Monteerders plant opened in Rosslyn, near Pretoria. BMW first acquired shares in the company before being fully acquired in 1975; The company thus became BMW South Africa, the first wholly-owned subsidiary of BMW to be founded outside Germany. Unlike U.S. automakers like Ford and GM, which separated from the country in the 1980s, BMW retained full ownership of its operations in South Africa. Aircraft engines, motorcycles and automobiles were BMW`s main products until World War II. During the war, against the will of its director Franz Josef Popp, BMW focused on the production of aircraft engines with forced labor, which consisted mainly of prisoners from concentration camps, with motorcycles on the margins, and car manufacturing was completely stopped. BMW factories were heavily bombed during the war and the remaining West German factories were no longer allowed to produce motor vehicles or aircraft after the war.
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