History of cars

to find the origins of BMW as a company, we have to go to 1913. That was when Karl Friedrich Rapp, a distinguished engineer who had been director of an early German aircraft company, set up business to manufacture aero engines. He established his company, the Rapp Motoren Werke, in the Milbertshofen suburb of Munich, capital city of Bavaria. His choice was made primarily because one of his major customers - the Gustav Otto aircraft company - was situated nearby.
Rapp's ero engines were a success, but he continued to look for more work to keep his company busy. In 1916, he secured a contract to build a large number of V12 aero engines on behalf of Austro-Daimler, which was finding that it could not build enough to meet escalating demand. Rapp sought a backer to finance his company's expansion and in March 1916 the Rapp Motoren Werke was renamed the Bayerische Motoren Werke. BMW - The Bavarian Engine Company - had been formed.Unfortunately, Rapp had made the mistake of expanding too quickly. Within a year, there were problems. Rapp left the company and in his place came industrial tycoon Franz Josef Popp. It was Popp who laid the foundations of the BMW we know today. Main article: History of BMW
After World War I, BMW were forced to cease aircraft (engine) production by the terms of the Versailles Armistice Treaty.[2] The company consequently shifted to motorcycle production in 1923 once the restrictions of the treaty started to be lifted[3], followed by automobiles in 1928.[citation needed]
The circular blue and white BMW logo or roundel is often alleged to portray the movement of an airplane propeller, to signify the white blades cutting through the blue sky--an interpretation that BMW adopted for convenience in 1929, which was actually twelve years after the roundel was created.[4][5] In fact, the emblem evolved from the circular Rapp Motorenwerke company logo, from which the BMW company grew. The Rapp logo was combined with the blue and white colors of the flag of Bavaria to produce the BMW roundel so familiar today. The early success of the outstanding BMW IIIa inline-six aviation engine, from 1917-18 in World War I, with the Luftstreitkräfte in a limited number of Fokker D.VII fighters, as well as a number of prototype "inline-six" fighters from various manufacturers, might have actually influenced the BMW logo's design.
BMW's first significant aircraft was the BMW IIIa inline-six liquid-cooled engine of 1918, much preferred for its high-altitude performance.[citation needed] With German rearmament in the 1930s, the company again began producing aircraft engines for the Luftwaffe. Among its successful WWII engine designs were the BMW 132 and BMW 801 air-cooled radial engines, and the pioneering BMW 003 axial-flow turbojet, which powered the tiny, 1944-45-era jet-powered "emergency fighter", the Heinkel He 162 Salamander, and was tested in the A-1b version of the world's first jet fighter, the Messerschmitt Me 262.[citation needed]
By 1959 the automotive division of BMW was in financial difficulties and a shareholders meeting was held to decide whether to go into liquidation or find a way of carrying on. It was decided to carry on and to try to cash in on the current economy car boom enjoyed so successfully by some of Germany's ex-aircraft manufacturers such as Messerschmitt and Heinkel. Therefore the rights to manufacture the tiny Italian Iso Isetta were bought using a modified form of BMW's own motorcycle engine. This was moderately successful and helped the company get back on its feet. The dominating shareholder of the BMW Aktiengesellschaft since 1959 is the Quandt family. Stefan Quandt, Johanna Quandt and Susanne Klatten (born Quandt) together own about 46% of the stocks. The rest is in public float.
BMW AG bought the British Rover Group[6] (which at the time consisted of the Rover, Land Rover and MG brands as well as the rights to defunct brands including Austin and Morris) in 1994 and owned it for six years. By 2000, Rover was making huge losses and BMW decided to sell the combine. The MG and Rover brands were sold to the Phoenix Consortium to form MG Rover, while Land Rover was taken over by Ford. BMW, meanwhile, ret

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ained the rights to build the new MINI, which was launched in 2001.
Chief designer Chris Bangle announced his departure from BMW after serving on the design team for nearly seventeen years. He will be replaced by Adrian van Hooydonk, Bangle's former right hand man. Bangle was famously (or infamously) known for his radical designs such as the 2002 7-Series and the 2002 Z4.