Mini Cooper in history

Mini, a British icon, was produced by British Motor Corporation (BMC) in 1959. During the Suez crisis and to confront the competition from other car manufacturers in 1956, Lord Leonard from BMC decided to seek help of a car designer and engineer, Sir Alec Issigonis.

In 1957, Alec Issigonis set up small, secretive, long term research department and it was there that the original Mini – ADO 15 – was born.

Original design work began in 1957 full approval for production on two sites – Longbridge (existing Austin plant) and Cowley (The Morris plant) – came in mid 1958, and the new Austin and Mini-badged 848 CC versions were launched simultaneously in August 1959.

The name Mini was sued for the first time in 1961. The debut of the sporty Cooper version in July 1961, developed by racer John Cooper, and its subsequent motorsports victories were major factors toward increasing interest in the mini.

In 1961, it was renamed Austin Mini, and eight years later in 1969 – ten years after the first Mini rolled off the production line - the Mini became a marquee on its own right.

When the classic Mini production stopped in 2000, BMW announced a Mini replacement.

Since its launch in 2001, BMW’s modern Mini has become the pinnacle of small yet funky family cars in the premium small car segment.
Mini Cooper in history

History of BMW in USA

Max Hoffman who play a key role in the growth of the German car industry in North America for the next quarter century, loved the prewar BMWs.

He recognized the strength of the American economy as a lifeline for struggling German car manufacturers.

He imported V8 502s to his Manhattan dealership, but they were slow to sell. Only a sports car the fast and eye catching 507, which was shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1955, drew praise.

It was slightly revised in 1958 with the appearance of the Series II, which offered increased horsepower, standard front disc brakes, and added space behind the seats.

By the 1980s, BMW was the consumer brand most identified with rich free spending yuppies. The compact Three Series, launched in 1982, was a yuppies dream car.

It was the brand of dreams, After the mid-1980s, every car marquee in the world aspired to BMW like status and BMW became everyone’s benchmark.

In the 1990s BMW sought to move from its role as a German-made symbol of yuppie affluence to a global luxury brand offering the ‘ultimate driving machine’. The company’s sweeping changes including opening it s first factory in the United States.

In 1992, BMW announced it would locate its first ever manufacturing facility outside Germany in Spartanburg County.

In the year of 2006, sales of the BMW brand worldwide, at nearly 1,2 million vehicles. BMW’’s home is in Munich, Germany, It only stared producing vehicles in the USA in 1992.

In 2010, BMW announced that it would spend $750 million to expand the production facilities in order to produce 240,oo vehicles.
History of BMW in USA

Early History of BMW

Early History of BMW
BMW formally recognizes its birthday as March 7, 1916 the day Gustav Otto’s fledgling aircraft company morphed into a new company just as he handed off ownership to others.

That perhaps sounds like an inauspicious beginning but Otto is nevertheless considered a reluctant father of the company know today as BMW.

That is because the Bavarian Aircraft Works would not have spawned the eventual BMW aircraft company, which in turn led to the auto company, without Otto’s mechanical genius, love of flying family pride, and dedication to building some of the most sought after aircraft engines of the time.

Otto’s father, Nikolaus August Otto who died in 1891, invented the “Otto” combustion engine which first viable internal combustion engine featuring the correct timing of ignition and combustion.

Starting up about the same time as the Otto aircraft firm, the Karl Rapp Motorwerke in 1913 began producing aircraft engines that could win altitude and speed competitions and therefore military contracts.

As the dogs of war began howling in 1914, Rapp had precious production capacity and quickly won contracts from Prussia and Austro-Hungary to produce 25 large V12 aircraft engines.

Rapp’s company began buying four cylinder water cooled aircraft engines from the Gustav Otto company whose operations it absorbed.

By 1916, Rapp Motor Works was employing 370 people and more than 100 machine tools.

An Austrian engineer, Franz Josef Popp largely directed Rapp’s business affairs including securing the all important military contracts.

Popp arrived at Rapp at the direction of the Imperial Austro-Hungary War Ministry to oversee production of 10 million Reichsmarks worth of airplane engines.

On the strength of this new business, Popp transformed the Rapp company into Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH.

In 1917, BMW brought a new product to market that would boost its aircraft reputation, the Type IIIa, water cooled, six cylinder designed by chief engineer Max Friz – a grand engineering mind who would dominate BMW’s product development culture on into the 1960s.

In 1921, Friz developed a motorcycle engine that turn out to be one of the great engines of the decade. It was sold as the Bayern Kleinmotor (Bavarian Small Engine).

An improved Kleinmotor would next power the first motorcycle sold under BMW’s own brand.
Early History of BMW