Although the name is little known today, Borgward made some excellent cars before its untimely demise in 1961. Most memorable is the Isabella range first seen in 1954. Named after the wife founder Karl Borgward, these lively and well made cars were the BMW’s of their day, featuring unitary construction and all independent suspension. The [...]

The first Bond cars were curious three wheelers built for economy minded motorists in the late 1940s and 1950s at a factory in Preston, Lancashire. With, its Triumph based Equipe models, the company attempted to move up market in the mid 1960s while keeping the economy car associations, with its little three wheeler, rear engined [...]

When BMW shocked the automotive world by deciding to break up and sell off the Rover Group in 2000, the reason it gave surprised many. BMW said the move was triggered to the decision to build a new Golf size vehicle under the BMW rather than the Rover badge. The upshot was that Rover was [...]

When BMW decided to divest itself of the heavily loss making Rover Group in early 2000, the new Mini project was the only thing Germans held onto. As the new decade dawned, work was well underway at Rover’s Birmingham Longbridge plant building the new Mini factory and BMW was briefing the global media that it [...]

After the big advances made by the 1991, 3 series and the highly regarded 5 series before it, much was riding on the all new 5 series which was launched in 1995 BMW’s inherent devotion to leading edge technology was amply demonstrated in the model. The new 5 series shared only gear boxes and its [...]

In the early 1990s BMW’s engineering chief, Wolfgang Reitzle was hatching for a premium ‘off roader’ in the manner of the chassis Range Rover. By coincidence Land Rover made contact with BMW at the same time. The British company wanted to buy BMW’s 2.5 liter six cylinder diesel engine for use in the 1993 second [...]

In the mid 1985 BMW decided to found a new internal division Technik GmbH. It was to be an advanced design and engineering counterpart to be company’s already proven and highly successful Motorsport division. By late Technik’s engineers had launched the Z1 roadster, the first in the wave of modern roadsters. Z stood for zukunft, [...]

Plans for BMW to enter the Group 4/5 World Championships were laid in 1975. The company, then a tiny player on the world car making scene, thought this route would be both a more high profile way of publicizing the BMW badge than Formula One, and would give BMW a chance to compete directly with, [...]

BMW first turbocharged design was the mid engined Turbo show car of 1972. Originally just two of these vehicles were built, but the car gave a foretaste of some of the engineering to be found on the company’s first full production model, the 2002 Tirbo of 1973. Its 170 bhp engine was considerably detuned compared [...]

Bentley had long traded on its history of large and powerful sporting machines, even though it sporting glory was rooted in the 1920s. Shortly after Vickers took over in 1980, Bentley launched the Mulsanne Turbo, which was seen far more desirable than its Rolls badged doppelganger. Bentley built on this reputation through into the 1990s [...]