The BMW Century Chronicles Germany’s Best Two & 4-Wheeled Machines

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“It is a good e book,” I stated as I leafed by way of The BMW Century. “Very befitting one of many world’s nice automakers.” Just like the vehicles, the e book is properly constructed from premium supplies, telling the story of and celebrating the Bavarian firm’s first century. And if any e book may carry out in addition to an M Sequence automobile, The BMW Century could be it.  

The BMW Century, 2nd Version

The BMW Century, now in its second version, was written by Tony Lewin, an editor for and contributor to Automotive Information Europe. Along with The BMW Century, Lewin has written a bunch of different titles for Motorbooks, together with The best way to Design Vehicles Like a Professional, The Full E-book of BMW, and Pace Learn: Automobile Design.

In simply 240 pages, Lewin covers the corporate’s historical past in depth. And to make issues extra fascinating, the entire e book is stuffed filled with nice pictures! So 240 pages to cowl 100 years just isn’t a number of room to incorporate all these vehicles.

Bikes & Airplanes

Oops, did I say vehicles? That’s solely partially correct as The BMW Century handles each the automobiles and bikes constructed by BMW, and it does so so as. Lewin begins firstly and, 12 months by 12 months, takes us to the current day for BMW. It makes The BMW Century a little bit of a twofer of a e book. In case you’re a automobile man or gal, you get some cool additional bike content material you weren’t bargaining on, and vice versa.

Oh, and planes. Lewin begins by protecting how BMW initially made plane engines, a superb place to begin if you wish to make energy vegetation for both vehicles or bikes that weigh much less and output extra.

• Picture gallery from The BMW Century by Tony Lewin, printed by Motorbooks. Photographs: BMW AG Press Membership/BMW Press Archive.

World Battle II Years

The subsequent factor you notice as you might be studying is how Lewin has taken us from the 1916 founding of the corporate as much as the Thirties when issues actually acquired going. It’s fascinating to notice right here that though BMW made some excellent vehicles within the Pre-Battle Period (the 328 Roadster, for instance), their bikes put them on the map (consider Pre-Battle BMW like Honda earlier than the Civic). 

The BMW Century does point out the warfare years in Chapter 5, Battle and Postwar, however it’s primarily a fast gloss over and onto the Fifties. I don’t blame Lewin, however the entire vibe of that chapter is, “The warfare was exhausting. All our vegetation acquired bombed. It was a wrestle.” In fact, BMW was complicit as much as its neck within the happenings of Nazi Germany, as even a cursory reading of history will present. 

BMW In The Seventies

The years main as much as roughly the Seventies are coved in a really business-oriented method by Lewin. That’s becoming, however it’s very illuminating as properly. BMW needed to go from a barely respiratory enterprise entity to a completely functioning and worthwhile international automaker, and that was something however straightforward.

Basically, it boils all the way down to some essential elements that also serve BMW (and Mercedes-Benz) properly right now; they’ve at all times been an engineering-based outfit run by pragmatic and expert people. That’s how we get from a BMW Isetta bubble automobile within the Fifties to an “Oh mein Gott, halte durch!” BMW M3 20 years later.

An Glorious Reward

The BMW Century works in a complete slew of the way. If you’d like a espresso desk e book, it’s that. If you’d like a real BMW fanatic’s e book, it really works as that, too. If you’d like a BMW bike e book, it’s acquired you coated. If anyone who’s a gearhead on the whole or a BMW fan particularly, The BMW Century would make an excellent present. They’ll unwrap it and say, “It is a good e book.” I do know I positive did. 

As of this writing, new and used copies of The BMW Century are available on Amazon. To study extra about Lewin and a few fascinating information about BMW, listen to his appearance on the Vehicles Yeah podcast with Mark Greene.

Longtime Automoblog author Tony Borroz has labored on widespread driving video games as a content material knowledgeable, along with working for aerospace firms, software program giants, and as a film stuntman. He lives within the northeast nook of the northwestern-most a part of the Pacific Northwest.