New BMW Cars

Karl Rapp founded Rapp-Motorenwerke in 1913, to manufacture aircraft engines near Munich. The engines were sold down the street to Gustav Otto’s Bayerische Flugzeugwerke and were put into small aircrafts. In 1916, Rapp re-named the company to Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH due to merger of the two companies. In 1923 BMW built its first motorcycle called the R32, however, the first commercial car came after the war, in 1952.During the 60s, the company launched a series of cars called the 1500, 1600 and 1800 that would eventually evolve into the modern 3 Series. During the 1970s, the 5 Series was launched with coachwork by Italian stylist Marcello Gandini. Today there are eight BMW models featuring stylist Chris Bangle’s coachwork. These include the 3, 5, 6, 7, X3, X5, M3 and M5 models.