It was officially put into production in August 1962. The four-door version was priced at 9485 marks, which is about 20,000 euros today. Its price is approachable and very popular. Later, in March 1964, it was upgraded to 1600, 1800, sport version 1800 Ti, 2000 and other models.

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Time Entered the 1960s. Although the competitive Borgward brand ended in 1961, BMW is still far from the other two German automobile companies: Daimler and Opel. However, with the support of stable shareholders' meeting and sufficient financial resources, BMW's internal problems have been solved more thoroughly, and then it can enter a period of rapid development.

In addition to the BMW 700 series that just launched by is very popular, another 1500 series (codenamed 115) called "Neue Klasse" was also released at in 1961 at Frankfurt Motor Show. It is positioned in BMW's history, so it is called the "new level", which is the ancestor model of BMW 5 Series later. It was officially put into production in August 1962. The four-door version was priced at 9485 marks, which is about 20,000 euros today. Its price is approachable and very popular. Later, in March 1964, it was upgraded to models such as 1600 (Type 116), 1800 (Type 118), sport version 1800 Ti, 2000 (Type 120). It was precisely because of the success of the 115 model that BMW finally achieved profitability for the first time after World War II. In 1963, BMW paid dividends to shareholders; in 1965, the slogan "Aus Freude am Fahren" for driving pleasure began to be used in marketing communication.

Picture: BMW 1500 is the first released model, with an internal code of 115, using a 1.5-liter straight quad M10 engine with a maximum horsepower of 80 horsepower and a maximum speed of 150 kph. It has been launched and has become very popular. Later, a variety of different power configuration models, including 1600, 1800, 2000 double doors and 2000 four doors, were successively launched.

Picture: The "Hofmeister Kink" that was praised as a god-made design in the domestic BMW fan circle a while ago. In fact, this was just a stroke by Wilhelm Hofmeister, the then BMW designer, when designing the 115 model. This stroke has no practical purpose and is not his original work. Why can you make such a big blow? You should know that earlier than him were Cadillac and Lancia. Given BMW's status in the car world at that time, this design was more like "following the trend", and the situation was the same as Porsche's Targa.

Figure: The Munich factory is responsible for the production of BMW 1800 (type 118) and 2000 (type 121).

In addition to launched cheap models to expand sales and launch new levels to deal with major competitors, another strategic-level car series, 1602, was released at in Geneva Motor Show in March 1966. It is also called BMW 02 or 114, and is positioned as a D-Segment-level model (that is, today's 3 Series). Later, the 2002 series code-named E6 station wagon, E10 double-door coupe, E20 turbocharged and other series were successively produced. This car was replaced by the first generation 3 Series (E21) released in August 1975. In the entire life cycle of discontinuing production in July 1977, a total of 861,000 were produced.

Figure: 1600-2 In March 1966, the "-2" means two-door. It was originally a two-liter M10 engine with a maximum horsepower of 85 horsepower/5700 rpm and a torque of 123.5 Nm. Later, in 1967, derivative versions such as 1600 ti and BMW 2002 launched in 1968 were launched. As for the name "E10 Series" that many car fans call it "E10 Series", it was later recognized because the first car named E was after 1968.

Figure: BMW 2002 launched in 1968 was officially named E10, but it is just a high-performance version of 1600-2, and there is also an interesting story about "modified engines". Let's talk about this in the future.

968 , the 2500 car series codenamed E3 was released. After re-planning by Robert A. Lutz (Robert Roots), the then sales director, became the first BMW model to use E as its code. It not only improved BMW's dream of a more complete car series grading lineup that is comparable to Mercedes, but also finally came up with an F-class car series that can compete with the S-Class (W108 series) and Opel KAD B.After looking at BMW's development in the 1960s, it is not difficult to find that before and after World War II, BMW's model distribution and classification were incomplete, and it was very knowledgeable. In the decade of the 1960s, from the B-class 700 series, D-class 1502 series, E-class 1500 series and F-class E3, including the inherently distinctive two-door coupe , such as 3200CS and 2000CS, in addition to the C-class and purebred sports car , BMW's lineup has been fully equipped. By 1969, BMW had 21,000 employees and annual sales reached 1.5 billion German marks. Compared with the sales of 7,000 employees and 239 million marks in 1960, the progress was huge.

Figure: At that time, Germany's positioning was the "upper" level, which is today's F-class luxury car. It was used to replace 501/502, known as the unsuccessful Baroque angels, which was also known as the 50s. In May 1977, it was replaced by the first generation of E23, officially named the 7 Series, and the total output of E3 reached 190,000 vehicles.

Figure: The M30 engine that was first tested was used on the E3. The maximum horsepower of the M30B25 is 150 horsepower, which was not bad in the late 1960s. In addition, there is still an M30B28 with 170 horsepower.

As the layout of the vehicle system became increasingly complete, production capacity became a problem that had to be faced. In 1967, BMW acquired Hans Glas GmbH (Hans Glas Co., Ltd.), an agricultural machinery factory founded in 1883. In 1952, the company began to enter automobile production and launched its own Goggmobil brand in 1955. Moreover, its products were competitive with BMW's Isetta and Mercedes-Met, and using its original agricultural tool export network, it quickly exported automobile products to 36 countries, with a production capacity of 40,000 to 50,000 vehicles. On November 10, 1966, BMW acquired Glas Automobile for 9.1 million marks, and its factory in Dingolfing also became BMW's factory. The subsequent 1600 and M10 engines, transmission products, etc. were all put here to produce. In the 1970s, professional manager Eberhard von Kuenheim succeeded Herbert Quinte as chairman of BMW on January 1, 1970. During his management, BMW's development rose like a helicopter. By 1993, BMW's turnover had reached 30 billion marks and 70,000 employees.

Picture: This is Eberhard von Kuenheim who brought the BMW Group to the glorious today. He studied mechanical engineering at university. He joined Kuka Co., Ltd. in 1965 (at the time of the Kunt family), which is a well-known production line manufacturer. Later, he became a robot manufacturer and was acquired by Midea in 2018. Kunheim transferred to BMW Group within the group in 1969.

Picture: BMW's "4-cylinder" headquarters building was completed in 1973 and designed by Austrian architect Karl Schwanzer.

972 was established from BMW Motorsport GmbH (BMW Racing Co., Ltd.), and this decision was largely influenced by a BMW modification company Alpina. Alpina was established on January 1, 1965 by Burkard Bovensiepen. It was mainly engaged in office equipment production. Later, it began to develop a strong interest in car modification and chose BMW models as a focused brand. By 1977, all Alpina modified models could be provided with original warranty by BMW. When BMW launched 1500, Alpina began to launch modification and upgrade kits; by the time of BMW 02, it became the most popular supplier of modified parts. Subsequently, BMW's cooperative relationship with Alpina became increasingly close. When BMW decided to set up Motorsport GmbH, Alpina also provided great assistance. Later, BMW participated in various events, and built racing , which has cooperated with Alpina until today.

M GmbH's first modified car was BMW 3.0 CSL (E9), and later developed the BMW Turbo prototype, the predecessor of M1. Under various resistances to the development process of M1, it was decided to lead the former racer and former Ford team manager Jochen Neerpasch (Jochen Neerpasch) , who served as manager, and served as manager until 1979. In 1992, BMW merged its after-sales business into BMW Motorsport GmbH, and in 1993 it officially renamed BMW M GmbH.

Picture: BMW Racing Co., Ltd. in the 1980s, before launching the first generation of M3 (E30) in 1986, the company had already launched the first M5 (E28S) in 1984. In addition, it has won many achievements in the racing field, and the reputation of the M badge has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

Picture: Alpina should be the first company to attract BMW brand models and provide them with modification and upgraded parts. Moreover, it has been renovating BMW for decades, including the establishment of BMW Motorsport GmbH, which was established in 1972, with Alpina helping, so the two companies still have a lot of cooperation to date.

Picture: This is Jochen Neerpasch, the first leader of BMW Motorsport GmbH. From 1972 to 1979, he has worked behind him, including the 3.0 CSL, M1, M535i and racing cars behind him. After resigning from BMW, he joined the PSA Talbot team as director, and later marked the return of Mercedes to the racing world. When Liman won 24 hours a day in 1989, he was the manager of Sobao- Mercedes team, and he was also promoted by famous racers such as Shumiga and Frenzen .

Picture: The first generation E30 M3 is the most successful modified racing car in the car world so far, and it is also the most successful generation M3 so far, no one! Even today's G80 or the previous F80 are said to be powerful but not as good as this M3 originator. It has won more than 1,500 races, 60 road races, championships, rally championships, and Nürburgring and Spa (Spa) have also won 8 times in 24 hours of endurance.

BMW has also tried to develop purebred sports cars more than once. For classification content on sports cars, you can find articles related to sports car classification on our [Sports Car Magazine] official account to find articles related to sports car classification. The earliest one can be traced back to the 315/1 Roadster released in 1933, with a production capacity of only 240 units and is also used in large quantities in racing. Then came the BMW 507 launched in 1955. The benchmark model of the same era was Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing, but because the technical reserves and other aspects were not as deep as Mercedes, even though the output of BMW 507 was much rarer than that of 3258 vehicles with a 300 SL Gullwing, its value in the collectibles market is still less than that of 300 SL Gullwing. But deducting those snobbish money values ​​to appreciate this 507, in addition to lamenting that it is a bit untimely, almost every place reveals a BMW-style desire of "I really want to build a sports car". The author has also seen this 507 in museums many times. No matter from any angle, this two-door sports car written by Albrecht von Goertz is beautiful.

Picture: The prototype of BMW 507 was born in 1954 and was developed by Ernst Loof, head of BMW racing department, and produced by Baru Body Engineering Company. Only two were built, called 528 Sportwagen. In that era, almost all sports cars were developed by the racing departments or sports departments of various car manufacturers. In other words, those who were not developed by the racing departments did not dare to call themselves sports cars.

Picture: This is Albrecht Graf Goertz, the appearance designer of 507. This white 507 belongs to Series 1, and only 42 were produced; the subsequent series 2 produced 210.

Picture: Today, the most powerful way for car fans to communicate is to fight each other between the two brands, but in the 1950s, BMW of course knew the gap between it and Mercedes. Even if the 507 has a V8 engine, it is far from a rival to the 300 SL, regardless of the frame structure, power output level or training (even if the 300 SL is L6 direct injection and the 507 is V8), it is far from a rival to the 300 SL. BMW chose a misaligned competition method that is slightly lower than the 300 SL, but the result is still a crushing defeat.

BMW 507 has been discontinued in 1960, and BMW has stopped touching purebred sports cars until the M1 (E26) appeared in 1978, which is the era when BMW strives to improve the layout of the car series. Although it has established its reputation in the RV race, in the traditional European sports car field, BMW is still a layman after so many years, although it has already had BMW earlier. Turbo (E25), but the performance was not ideal, and it was heavy and slow, so they found Lamborghini to help develop a mid-engine sports car. However, around 1976, it was also in the turmoil of , which was too busy to take care of BMW. The rear model and drawings handed over to Stuttgart's Baru company to produce the body was also delayed in various ways, and it was finally delayed until 1978.

This car is designed by Georgiaro, the frame is a space tube array, and the appearance parts are shared with other BMW models at that time, such as the taillights from the 6 Series; the power system is a M88 inline six-cylinder engine specially developed for it, with a displacement of 3.5 liters, using the Kugelfischer mechanical fuel injection system , with a maximum horsepower of 277 horsepower and 330 Nm of torque; the maximum horsepower of the racing version can reach 470 horsepower, and the turbocharged is 850 horsepower. By the end of 1981, a total of 460 vehicles were produced.

Picture: If you put aside the surrounding stories, the M1 is one of the best mid-engine sports cars in the 1970s in terms of styling and performance. However, from another horizontal perspective, the M1 was born in an era of heroes fighting. Faced with a model such as the Ferrari 365 GT4 BB or Lin Bao Countach, it is really not enough, let alone the "Supercar level".

Picture: Since the suspension of production of M1, BMW has chosen to continue to shelve the research and development of such purebred sports cars because this is not a successful "restoration", and instead switched to another idea, that is, to open up the competition for the "fastest four-door sedan competition list" with M5 as the origin, and even brought many German and British brands into it. For example, Opel's Lotus Omega was the first to be withdrawn, and it has become a competitive situation of "AMG-M-RS", which is very happy. But BMW was also left with a subjective assumption that "can't build sports cars."

990 , BMW took over the aviation department of the well-known German engine company Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz AG

(Deutz Group). At that time, the department had 900 employees and sales of 180 million marks. Although it seemed not big, their products were mainly military and civilian aircraft engine engines, including Airbus A320 engines were also produced here, and BMW acquired the department for 100 million marks; in 1991, the department established BMW Rolls-Royce AeroEngines with Rolls-Royce AeroEngines with Rolls-Royce GmbH joint venture, which is also an important measure for BMW to return to the aviation field. The company's main product is the small jet engine . The first core aircraft was successfully ignited in 1993, namely the BR700 series, which was later renowned worldwide.

Speaking of Rolls-Royce, how can we not say that it is currently owned by BMW AG's automobile department? First of all, we need to clarify one point: although both are equipped with the Rolls-Royce brand, the aviation department and the automobile company are two completely independent and have nothing to do with it. Don't look at the problem with "brands that can build aircraft engines and cars that must be very powerful."

Rolls-Royce Group filed for bankruptcy protection in 1971, and was later nationalized. In 1973, the aviation department and the automobile company were split into two completely independent companies.In 1980, Rolls-Royce car company (including Bentley) was acquired by British arms company Vickers. In 1998, Vickers was preparing to sell the brand to BMW because everyone was an arms dealer, and they were cooperative and easy to talk. But when they were about to have a good time, a Volkswagen, which was bidding higher than BMW, came out halfway. In the end, Volkswagen acquired related assets such as Rolls-Royce Automobile Company and Bentley , but at this time, Rolls-Royce Airline still owned the brand ownership of Rolls-Royce Automobile, and because they cooperated with BMW to produce aircraft engines, they put the Rolls-R The Oyce car brand was sold to BMW, and the two major groups therefore formed a strait and resorted to the law. Volkswagen, which was successful in the acquisition in 2003, finally agreed to split the Bentley and Rolls-Royce , which they had originally packaged together, on the condition that the Bentley brand and the original Rolls-Royce Crew factory belong to Volkswagen, and BMW obtained the right to use the Rolls-Royce brand. In addition, BMW built the sixth factory in their history for Rolls-Royce near Goodwood.

Figure: BR700 is the first large bypass ratio aircraft engine of BMW Rolls-Royce AeroEngines GmbH. This engine and derivative model are used, and its appearance also indicates that BMW returns to the ranks of aircraft engine manufacturers.

For Rolls-Royce's series of joint ventures and acquisitions were successful for BMW Group, but success is certainly inevitable and failure is also inevitable. Although Mr. Kunheim made important contributions to BMW's development during his tenure and gradually developed and strengthened BMW through several successful mergers and acquisitions, he was criticized for his poor supervision of the acquisition of Rover Group in the early 1990s. This time, he not only lost 9 billion marks, but was even made into a documentary as a negative textbook.

Entering Entering 0s, BMW once again discovered that all the cars they built were FR layouts, and most of them were high-end models. If they only took the mid-to-high-end route, the passenger route would naturally be relatively narrow and the profit area was limited. However, the front-wheel drive layout that is popular for all mid- and low-end models, they would not be able to build it themselves, so they fell in love with the Austin Rover Austin Rover (also translated as Rover ), which has rich front-wheel drive car research and development and manufacturing. In addition to obtaining front-wheel drive car technology, based on BMW's development history, BMW's move is somewhat emotional. After all, when they first started to build cars, they built Austin's cars, but at that time, Luhua Group was already full of holes. In 1994, BMW officially proposed to acquire and owned brands such as Rover, MG, Mini and Land Rover. The first thing in the process was the payment issue. The sharp fluctuations in exchange rate greatly increased the transaction amount paid by using Mark; secondly, a large number of Rover's car series have come from Honda rather than from British descent, so the part that can be used for commercial applications has extremely high patent or intellectual property risks; finally, the internal management, product workmanship and quality control of Luhua Group are worrying, with a large number of staff, low production capacity, and too rigid sales policies, resulting in no market competitiveness. The only successful cooperation is that Land Rover taught BMW to develop SUVs, thus giving birth to the X5 car series. Based on various unsatisfactory processes, on March 16, 2000, the Rover project finally closed the folder for a failed acquisition. MG and Rover sold it to Phoenix Venture Capital Holdings for 10 pounds, and Land Rover was sold to Ford. The only thing left by BMW is Mini, which later launched the MINI (R series) in 2001. As for the original intention of the acquisition case: I want to learn the purpose of building a front-wheel drive car, do you think BMW has learned it?

Figure: If we are objectively speaking, BMW owns the Rolls-Royce brand because of the lack of confidence in manufacturing super luxury F-class models all year round. After all, it does not have a deep technical precipitation like Mercedes. To occupy luxury cars, Rolls-Royce is a threshold that cannot be avoided. Since this is the case, we will return to the aviation industry and bring a top brand by the way. This investment vision is enough to prove its strategic depth.

Picture: The concept car design of the new generation of MINI was completed as early as 1997, but due to various troubles, it was finally officially launched in 2001. Without this acquisition, there would be no front-wheel-drive BMW models such as F45/46, F52, and F40.

Entered the 0s, after completing the layout of the car series, BMW began to improve its car engine family. However, we can't just look at a certain point when looking at the ins and outs of things. Let's move forward to look at the history of BMW's BMW's first mass-produced engine is technology from the UK Austin 7. It has the inline four-cylinder engine produced by Dixi, with an exhaust volume of 747cc, the side valves and crankcase are made of aluminum, the middle cylinder and cylinder head are all made of cast iron, and the cooling system adopts a thermosiphon-type cycle without mechanical power. In the early days when BMW Engine Company acquired Dixi Automobile and began to enter the automotive industry, they first inherited Dixi's production technology, and then began to develop on their own. It was not until 1932 that on the basis of the Austin 7 engine, they increased the piston stroke (from 76 to 80mm) by replacing the crankshaft bearing and obtained a slightly larger 788cc exhaust volume. They also developed a water pump and a new cylinder head, and the maximum horsepower increased from 15 to 20. The BMW 3/20 model is equipped with "the maximum horsepower is 20, but the 3 horsepower tax is required". This new engine is called M68.

Figure: This is BMW's first engine M68. Although most of the architecture and cylinder parameters still retain Austin's design, the lubrication, cooling, ignition forms, etc. have been modified according to actual use feedback.

933 , the first BMW automotive engine with full intellectual property rights was born. It is called M78, and it is a high-performance engine series with inline six-cylinder layout. It is designed by Rudolf Schleicher (Rudolf Schleicher) . He was a racer and the director of BMW motorcycle and automobile development department at that time. The M78 engine uses the same cylinder bore and stroke as the M68, and increases the hole distance to accommodate more crankshaft bearings. After all, three bearings can no longer be used to support a six-cylinder crankshaft. The engine has developed multiple exhaust versions, from the earliest 1182cc and then gradually increased to 1389cc, 1911cc and 1971cc. It was suspended during the climax of World War II. It was restored after World War II and continued to produce until the end of the BMW 327, which was discontinued in 1955. This series of straight-six engines were replaced by the M337 engine launched in 1952. In 1936, based on the M78, BMW developed two inline six-cylinder engines, the M328 engine and the M335. The M328 is a two-month upgraded engine with a maximum horsepower of 79 horsepower, and is used on the BMW 328 launched in 1936 and the BMW 327 in 1937. The higher-performance M335 was launched in 1939, with a maximum horsepower of 89 horses. It was launched on BMW's most advanced BMW 335 at the time, but the car was discontinued two years later, when the war was tightening in 1941.

Figure: The M78 engine is BMW's first fully developed engine. Although the parameters such as cylinder bore and stroke are still borrowed from the four-cylinder M68, the different apertures can already indicate that it is a brand new design engine, and it was still the main power system of the car manufacturer until the 1950s.

Figure: The M328 engine is a high-performance model developed based on the M78 foundation. It has an aluminum downstream intake and exhaust structure and a semi-spherical combustion chamber. The air distribution mechanism is also very unique. The camshaft is located in the cylinder body, but it only promotes the intake valve to work, and the exhaust valve is driven by the intake valve rather than by the camshaft. It is a very interesting design. The air exhaust volume is 1971cc, the maximum horsepower is 79 horsepower, and the maximum torque is 126 Nm. It is used on BMW 328 and 327 from 1936 to 1940.

Figure: M335 is the engine with the largest exhaust volume and highest power performance before World War II. It was developed based on the M328 and also uses a tilt placement to reduce vibration, with a maximum horsepower of 89 horsepower and a maximum torque of 180 Nm.

Entered 0s, BMW began to focus on changing the dilemma of "one M78 conquer the world". After all, the capital and engineering and technical personnel configuration began to be abundant. The first inline four-cylinder engine M10, which is for models below intermediate car , was released in 1961. It served in the BMW series for 26 years and produced more than 3.5 million units in total, becoming an important milestone in the history of BMW's engine development. The engine was Alex von by racer and automotive engineer Falkenhausen (Alex von Falkenhausen) is responsible for the design, with an exhaust volume ranging from 1.5L to 2 liters. Its body is not only used by ordinary civilian vehicles, but also includes field racing, rally racing and even Formula racing (M12 variant), including the S14 engines on the 2002 Turbo and E30 M3.

In addition, . With the development of the M10 engine, BMW has also begun to gradually label the engine according to different applications: M or N, B for civilian vehicles, etc., S for racing or high-performance engines, motorcycle engines are named A, marine or fixed positions, and W are used as the starting point.

Picture: This is a 1966 racing M10 engine developed by Ludwig Apfelbeck (Ludwig Apfelbeck), so it is named M10 Apfelbeck engine. The most special thing is to put the intake air above the cylinder head, and both sides are exhaust, the cylinder bore is 89mm, the stroke is 80mm, the exhaust volume is 1990cc, and it can emit 260 horsepower at 8500 rpm, with a maximum torque of 236 Nm/8000 rpm.

Picture: Regarding this M10 Apfelbeck engine, I will definitely have the opportunity to introduce it in the future. Let’s see the pictures first and enjoy it. After

M10, BMW successively added 2.5~3.5 cm to upgrade other inline six-cylinder engine M30, and 2.0~3.0 cm to upgrade other straight six-cylinder engine series M20. This layout is very similar to Daimler's engine layout at that time. The main players are inline six-cylinder, and they are all used on different models with high and low matching strategies. In 1987, BMW released its first V12 engine M70, and the launch of this V12 further established BMW's position among German brands. You should know that in the 1980s, it was still an era when the number of cylinders was used to judge the model level. V12 represents a supreme technical level. It is also earlier than the "teacher" Daimler's M120, becoming the first German car brand to provide V12 engines after World War II. Although it is a little later than Jaguar's V12, it is not too late, and it "forced" Daimler to almost develop a V16 to check and balance.

Figure: The civilian model of M70 engine only has one exhaust volume of M70B50, and the other three exhaust volume versions belong to the S series. The most famous of them is the S70/2 provided to McLaren F1. Objectively speaking, this car was originally the best design plan to use the Honda engine, but Honda did not take on this job, and BMW provided a completely different S70/2 with self-recommendation.

Figure: The S70/2 engine developed and trained by BMW M GmbH engine engineer Paul Rosche (Paul Roche), weighs slightly heavier than the 250 kilograms required by McLaren F1. You should know that Gordon Murray, the head of R&D of McLaren F1, is a loyal believer in the "lightweight theory". He was reluctant to accept the overweight of this 15 kilogram at that time. After all, in the racing industry and sports car field at that time, McLaren's status was far above BMW.

As for Another more important engine is V8. In fact, BMW developed a V8 engine called the M502 series in 1954 after World War II, which is also the first V8 engine under its name. It also uses the most popular OHV (push rod air distribution mechanism or chopstick rod type) of that era, with air exhaust volume ranging from 2.6 to 3.2 liters, but it has been introduced before. BMW The history of 501 and 502 is unbearable for BMW to look back on, and the lesson that almost dragged down the entire brand seemed to be a scar. Therefore, in the 1970s after its production was suspended in 1965, although it ushered in the climax of BMW's engine series and even the V12 was created, it was still cautious about V8. It was not until 1992 that BMW re-launched the V8 layout 25 years later, which is of far-reaching significance. Of course, many car fans today, under the immersion of hybrid, small-displacement turbine, pure electric and other power forms, rarely care about whether it is V8 or L4. Only in the current era of horsepower, many people even forget the Otto cycle and Watt formula.

Figure: The M60 is BMW's V8 layout again after 25 years of discontinuing its previous generation. It is very meaningful to avenge the previous shame, but it still seems to have been cast as a curse because the M60 uses a Nikasil cylinder coating that was high-tech at the time. However, if gasoline with high sulfur content is used, it will damage the coating and cause the cylinder to lose pressure. Many cars will replace it with new engines. So four years later, the M60 was replaced by the new M62 series using Alusil coating.

As a series of global topics such as Petroleum resources, environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction are rampant, BMW has also begun to study clean energy power systems. European auto manufacturers began research on pure electric drives very early, but BMW took a different approach to think about hydrogen energy. At the 2000 World Expo, they launched 100 models based on 760Li (E66) that use hydrogen combustion to generate power and renamed Hydrogen 7 for rent for celebrities or politicians. It is also the world's first hydrogen-powered cars. The combustion speed of hydrogen is 100 times faster than fuel mixture. The engine can generate 260 horsepower and 390 Nm of torque. Although it is lower than the ordinary 760Li, the range can reach 500 kilometers. The test ended in December 2009, and has accumulated a lot of experience in research on how BMW can make good use of its cleaning capabilities.

Figure: Unlike Toyota and Honda's path to choose hydrogen fuel cell technology, BMW's hydrogen is used to generate power after combustion. Although this move is easy to be achieved in batches through modification in the existing technology, there are a series of problems such as safety concerns. In 2013, BMW decided to cooperate with Toyota to adopt the hydrogen fuel cell technology path to continue the hydrogen energy path, and to obtain lithium-air battery technology, this is also a strategic technical idea for the future.

008 , BMW officially launched the "i" project for pure electric drive systems, officially launched the "BMW i" sub-brand in 2010, and launched the BMW i3 concept car in 2011; on July 29, 2013, the first model of the frame code i01 was released globally, and another significance of the car was to allow BMW to master the production and application of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) materials in mass production cars during its research and development. This technology later benefited the development of i8 sports cars code-named i12 and subsequent CLAR frame platforms.

Picture: The i3 codenamed i01 is currently the most sold pure electric drive model of BMW. Since its launch in 2013, it has exceeded 200,000 vehicles.

Figure: Carbon fiber and honeycomb energy-absorbing structures have only appeared in racing cars in the past, but through the research and development of i3, BMW has quantified this technology and greatly reduced costs.

Figure: The CLAR platform is the most widely used frame structure in BMW cars. Its carbon fiber usage is also different depending on the model level.

020 , BMW did not enter the top ten of the world's automobile manufacturers with production of 2,255,637 cars and 168,104 motorcycles. Its turnover in 2020 was 99 billion euros, with a total of 120,700 employees. According to the latest BMW Group financial report, the group's shares are still very clear, 53.2% are publicly available shares that can be listed, and the other part is the hands of a pair of children born to Herbert Quandt's third wife. His son Stefan Quandt's share is 25.8% and his daughter Susanne Klatten's share is 20.9%.

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