The Vintage Years

Starting in August, 1927, the Eisenach factory, destined to be acquired by BMW the following year, began production of the Austin Seven on a brand new assembly line.  The car was called the 3/15 DA1 for Deutsche Ausfuhrung (German Version 1).  6162 DA1s were built by the end of December, 1928.  These units were identified by a Dixi emblem on the front, and a Centaur on the radiator cap.

BMW completed the purchase on November 14, 1928. When production started up after the New Year holiday in 1929, production automobiles wore the BMW roundel emblem for the first time.  Between January and July of that year, 3146 additional cars were built.  During that time, BMW motorcycle engineer Alfred Boning, and burly Gotthilf Dürrwächter were assigned to develop an improved model.  This car featured a wider body, larger doors, four-wheel mechanical brakes, and some minor engine improvements. The new all steel body was developed in rented space near the Ambi Budd works outside Berlin. It was now called the 3/15 DA2 and continued in production at Eisenach until July, 1931.  The DA2 can be identified by the three vertical rows of louvers on the hood.  From July, 1931 to July 1932 it was called the DA4, and a limited production two-seat roadster, named the Wartburg, was called the DA3.  The 3/15 designation for these cars meant that they had 3 taxable horsepower, but actually put out 15 brake hp.  Cars with 3 taxable hp had to have less than 785 cc displacement. 

In early January, 1932, Popp traveled to England and negotiated an early end to the Dixi license with Austin, citing the hardships of the global depression. In March BMW introduced their first all BMW design, the 3/20 AM 1 (Auto Munchen 1).  This car featured independent rear suspension, 17” disc wheels, and a new frame with a single central spine.  A completely new engine was introduced having overhead valves, a water pump, and other modern features.  It still had less than 785 cc displacement and 3 taxable hp.  The engine put out 20 hp at 3500 rpm, a 1/3 increase over the older Austin/Dixi flathead design.  The car was presented in Berlin on April 1st, 1932, at BMW’s only showroom, near the Berlin Zoo.

In 1933 came the AM2, with a four speed transmission, and in 1934 this car was called the AM4.  Total production for this series was 7215 vehicles.  A good selection of body styles were offered, most of them built under contract by Daimler Benz at their Sindelfingen plant in Stuttgart, then trucked to Eisenach.  During these years there developed a close relationship between Daimler Benz and BMW.  BMW cars were sold side by side in the same dealerships and showrooms as the Mercedes offerings.  BMW had the lower end of the market and Mercedes the upper end. There was much talk of a merger that might benefit both companies and a mutual development agreement was signed.

Although BMW’s AM series cars had a much improved engine, the suspension and handling were marginal.  The independent rear suspension worked well enough, but the central spine frame was too flexible and the front swing axle design, left over from the Dixi, proved to be unstable at the AM’s higher loads and speeds.  BMW, at this time, did not have an experienced automotive engineering team, yet everyone recognized that an entirely new design was needed.  BMW’s technical expertise was primarily in aircraft engines, and motorcycles.  Max Fritz, an experienced engineer, headed the engine design department in Munich, while Leo Glass and Martin Duckstein were in charge of manufacturing engineering in Eisenach.  Each of these groups proposed new designs for a small six cylinder engine.  Max’s design was based on his experience with aircraft and included features drawn from high performance, high altitude engines.  His design, though brilliant, proved to be too expensive.  Leo and Martin’s design was based on their manufacturing experience and was much simpler.  It was, however, too simple and did not lend itself to further upgrades.  Enter Rudolf Schleicher, the young director of engine testing in Munich.  He, and another engineer, Karl Rech, took Eisenach’s simple design and improved it with design features borrowed from America.  It is no accident that the resulting 1.2 liter six cylinder BMW engine closely resembled a scaled down Chevrolet six of the same vintage! 

In 1932 BMW also hired Schleicher’s friend, master designer Fritz Fiedler, away from Horch and gave him a clean sheet of paper to design a new frame and suspension system.   Schleicher, who had designed the very successful tubular frames for BMW motorcycles, worked with Fiedler on the project.  They came up with a very stiff and patentable design featuring tapered tubular side rails joined by box section cross members.  This stiff, low slung, frame was mated to a very supple suspension system using hydraulic shock absorbers and rack and pinion steering; a suitable platform for the new six cylinder engine.

The new car was called the BMW 303.  The body was designed by Fiedler and the guys at Daimler Benz’s Sindlefingen factory.  BMW claims that this was the first production design to wear the famous “twin kidney” grills, still used on most BMW models today.  In reality, the grill of the 303 (and subsequent 315/319 Models) appear to be only slightly rounded corner versions of the Mercedes grills then in production at Sindlefingen.  BMW's unique grill design first appeared on the 326, in 1936 and may have been inspired by the Ihle Brothers who built a fairly large number of slick little roadster bodies for the Austin Dixis using a similar grill.  (The marketing miesters at BMW deny all this, preferring to spin it as an earlier and purely BMW design feature.)

The BMW 303 was presented at the Berlin International Motor Show in June, 1933.  At the show, the newly minted Reich Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler, announced plans to abolish the tax on automobile horsepower.  This was in keeping with his plan to modernize the automobile industry and implement a scheme to help pull Germany out of the Great Depression, then in full swing.  The AM4 and the 303 were produced side by side for almost a year.  To cover a wider market, Popp knew that BMW needed a modern four cylinder car as well as the six.  When the AM4 was finally phased out in 1934, a new four cylinder car was ready.  It was merely the six cylinder engine with two fewer cylinders. It could be produced on the same machinery.  The new four cylinder car was called the BMW 309 and continued in production until the middle of 1936.  6000 were built. The 303 was in production for less than a year but 3210 were produced.  With the introduction of the 303 there was a hint of competition and relations between BMW and Daimler Benz became a little strained. BMW was clearly on to better things.

Popp had found it easy to lure Fritz Fiedler away from Horch by promising him nearly complete freedom to design new models.  Something denied him at Horch.  It was Fritz who came up with the concept of a “line”, or “kit” of cars to cover a wide market.  This was out-of-the-box thinking for the automobile industry at the time.  Fiedler's line was based on the BMW 303 frame and suspension, coupled to either a four or a six cylinder engine.  A wide variety of bodies were available:  There was a four seat touring car, a four seat and a two seat cabriolet, a two door sedan, and the curious cabrio-sedan.  Leather or cloth interiors were available, as well as a wide choice of exterior colors.  The six cylinder car was upgraded to 1.5 liters in 1934 and called the BMW 315.  In 1935 it moved to 1.9 liters and became the BMW 319.  Along with these larger engines came the lovely, limited production, roadsters, called the BMW 315/1 and BMW 319/1. 

Wilhelm Haspel was the manager of the Daimler Benz Sindelfingen Works where most of BMW’s bodies were being built.  The Sindelfingen factory produced bodies the old fashioned way: sheet metal panels formed over a sturdy wooden framework.  This was labor intensive, but there was a depression on and skilled labor was plentiful.   Popp had close personal ties to Herr Haspel.  He and his family were often guests in Haspel’s home.  Popp’s eldest daughter was dating Haspel’s Engineering Manager, Paul Heim.  Later, Popp‘s younger daughter, Erica, married British racing driver, Richard Seaman, who was also a frequent guest at the Haspel home.  Seaman was killed in the rain at Spa in 1939, driving one of the Mercedes Gran Prix “Silver Arrows”.

With the success of the new six cylinder car assured, the BMW design team went to work on the next step in the evolution of the “ultimate driving machine”:  The BMW 326. Fritz Fiedler laid out a completely new frame and suspension design for this next generation family car, a large, comfortable, four door Autobahn cruiser.  This car broke with tradition on several fronts.  It had an all steel “unit” body styled from wind tunnel data by young Peter Szimanowski, four wheel Lockheed hydraulic brakes, and torsion bar suspension in the rear.  (A torsion bar is just a coil spring straightened out and anchored at both ends.)  This type of suspension was recently patented by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche and required the payment of licensing fees to the good doctor.  An entirely new four speed transmission was also introduced which had been developed by Hurth, a gear manufacturer down the street from the BMW works in Munich.  This new transmission featured free-wheeling on the two bottom gears, and synchromesh on the two top gears.  This made gear changes silent and smooth.

In August, 1935, Popp showed the new designs to his partners at Daimler-Benz and was met with a cool reception.  The new car was in direct competition with Mercedes, and besides,  Sindlefingen didn't yet make all-steel bodies.  The two year old agreement with Daimler-Benz began to fall apart and Popp looked to Ambi-Budd in Berlin to make the new bodies.  Ambi-Budd had long been a minor supplier to BMW.  They had built the all steel sedan and delivery van bodies for the Dixi and AM cars as well as delivering the unpainted steel side pressings for the BMW 315/319 cabrio-sedan bodies built at Sindlefingen.

An American company, Budd Manufacturing, had patented the all steel body.  In 1928 Budd cooperated with Ambi Maschinenbau, in Berlin, to build an American style body plant that by 1932 was the largest operation of its kind in Germany. In September, 1935, Ambi-Budd received the purchase order from Popp and immediately started work on the stamping dies for the new BMW 326 bodies.  By the time Hitler opened the International Motor Show in Berlin, on February 15th, 1936, a production prototype of the new upscale sedan was sitting in the BMW display.  By June, production quantities were rolling off the assembly lines in Eisenach.  Work started immediately on a larger, costlier, version called the BMW 335.  A fully developed prototype emerged later in the year with an entirely new 3.5 liter, 90ps engine.  Because of material shortages, and lack of capacity at Eisenach, two years would pass before the 335 would go into limited production.

Design was also started on a lower cost version, the two-door BMW 320, on a slightly shorter chassis, to round out the product line.  BMW’s dealers pushed hard for this low cost model that could be produced on an American style high speed assembly line.  To buy time for completing the BMW 320 design, a transitional model called the 329 was introduced to fill the market gap.  The 329 was merely the old 319 with a larger and more modern cabriolet body.  1129 were built.  Although the BMW 320 was envisioned as a car for the masses, it proved to be a disappointment for the company.  Some bad choices were made.  Although the chassis was similar to the jig welded platform chassis of the 326, the suspension and engine were lifted from the 319.  The light front suspension proved to be the Achilles heel and nearly every one of the 4185 examples built had to be recalled to the factory for repairs.  To avoid a public relations disaster, many were secretly refitted with the more expensive 326 front-end and larger 2 liter engine.  Popp was also not able to come up with enough capital to build his high speed assembly line.  Very few 329s or 320s survive to this day and no one misses them.  The redesigned 320 morphed into the BMW 321 in 1939 and would have a brief rebirth after the war, behind the Iron Curtain.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Rudolf Schliecher had not been idle.  The BMW “skunkworks” had something interesting going on.  With a very limited development budget of 400,000 RM, an experimental new sports car design was taking shape under Fritz Fiedler’s watchful eye. Three of the tried and true lightweight tubular chassis of the earlier 319/1 were being fitted with the new Lockheed  hydraulic brakes.  Wilhelm Kaiser, and Peter Szimanowski, who had both been part of the BMW 326 design team, turned their talents to designing a new body to fit the chassis.  In both the chassis and body design, lightweight materials and construction were emphasized.  Aluminum was used extensively, and shapes were honed using wind tunnel data.  Headlights were faired into the fenders and the doors eliminated.  The aluminum hood was secured with stylish straps of Russian leather, and Kronprinz center-lock wheels were fitted….the legendary BMW 328 was taking shape.

There was not enough money or time to design a new high performance engine, but Schliecher had long admired the “hemi-head” designs of aircraft engines, as well as other car manufacturers such as Talbot-Lago, Vulcan, and Riley.  He came up with the idea of designing a replacement cylinder head which could be fitted to the BMW 326 block and would have valves inclined at 90 degrees to each other to produce the desirable hemispherical combustion chamber.  The design of such a head was not a trivial task but was finally accomplished by Rudolf Flemming and Rudolf Schliecher working as a team.

BMW did not have a test track, so the three white prototypes were tested on numerous mail runs over the narrow road between Munich and Eisenach as the development progressed.  There were no marketing studies done, and no introduction at a prestigious motor show was planned.  Instead, 32 year old Ernst Henne who had recently set the world motorcycle speed record, was recruited to drive the new car on June 14th, 1936, at the annual Eifelrennen at the Nurburgring.  This race was really two races in one. A grid of large supercharged Gran Prix cars (Alfas, Auto Unions, etc) started first, followed two minutes later by a field of lightweight sports cars.  Henne, wearing his signature white coveralls, blew everyone into the weeds, including the entire field of supercharged cars that started ahead of him!!  In the same race with Henne was another BMW entry, a privateer driving his own BMW 319/1, but secretly running a “borrowed” BMW 328 engine.  During those years, BMW had no race teams of their own.  They “loaned” cars and engines to noted race drivers who flogged them on the race circuit as privateers.  (Ernst Henne, as of this writing (2004) has just turned 100 years old and is living quietly with his wife in the Canary Islands.)

A week later, all three prototypes were entered in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.  This race was cancelled at the last minute by a general strike in France.  As a replacement, the French auto club (ACF) whipped together a 1000 mile race on June 28th at Montihery race track.  None of the 328s finished.  All retired with broken motor mounts, blown transmissions, and/or broken axles.  These components were all carryovers from the 319/1 roadsters and not up to the additional stresses of the 80hp 328.  After some redesign and reinforcement, all three cars were back on the race circuit where they totally dominated the 2-liter class for the remainder of the season.  Popp decided to put the 328 into limited production, and by February, 1937, the first ones rolled out the door in Eisenach.  They differed from the prototypes primarily in having doors and a folding split windshield.  A racing support department, under Ernst Loof, was also set up to support both BMW's efforts and those of “privateers”.

Once the styling of the BMW 328 body was roughed out, Fritz Fiedler left Wilhelm Kaiser to do the detail drawings while he turned his attentions to the BMW 327.  Fritz took the platform frame of the ill-fated 320, fitted it with a heavier rear axle on leaf springs and used the 326 front suspension. A slightly higher compression version of the 326 engine was used, putting out 55 hp.  Using design elements from the 328, Franz Trüby, chief designer at Autenreith, designed a stunning cabriolet body with 2+2 seating.  The prototype had 328 style headlights, center-lock wheels, and an aluminum clamshell hood.  The bodies were made by Autenrieth in Darmstedt who also produced the 326 two door and four door cabriolet bodies.  The first 15 327s were delivered in December, 1937.  By April, 1938, an unexpected problem surfaced.  The center-lock wheels, developed for racing, were causing problems for customers, especially women.  After 125 cars, production was stopped until the 327 could be fitted with the bolt-on wheels of the 326.  Center-lock wheels would return when the 327/28 was introduced later in the year, but the dealers were required to provide training in how to change flat tires!!  Franz also designed a lovely coupe version of the 327, introduced in the summer of 1938.  The body panels for the coupe were stamped on Autenreith’s new 100 ton presses.

Wilhelm Meyerhuber, and Karl Schmuck joined BMW from Opel in 1937.  They had both spent time at General Motors in the US and brought with them the principle of a separate styling department concentrating on long-range “concept” designs. Under Meyerhuber, the styling department staff was increased to 20 and work began in earnest on new models.  Other than a few streamlined 328 race cars, most of their new models would never see production because within two years the whole world would be at war.  Of the new styling department staff, only Karl Schmuck and Peter Szimanowski would return to work at BMW after the war.

Ah yes; the war.  Franz Josef Popp was no Nazi, and was viewed with suspicion by the Party.  He shrunk from public life and thought only of production figures, accounting sums, and raw material supplies.  As a representative of Germany’s industrial elite, however, he could not avoid taking on the role of a major arms producer for Hitler’s dream of world conquest.  By early 1937 BMW reluctantly took on the production of the Type 325, a four wheel drive, four wheel steering, military “Jeep”.  BMW was also a major producer of military aircraft engines for the Luftwaffe.  The wartime activities of BMW make for fascinating study, but we will skip over them for now and concentrate on the cars.  By the end of 1938, much of Germany’s raw materials were being diverted for military production.  Engine bearing metal, and Aluminum were in short supply, as well as leather upholstery material, tires, ball-bearings, and gasoline.  Automobile production diminished.

Shortly after Hitler invaded Poland on September 3rd, 1939, the order came down to cease all domestic automobile production.  This order was later amended, but production at BMW was drastically reduced.  Output dwindled to:

In May, 1941, all automobile production ended and BMW’s Vintage Era came to an end.  In January, 1942, Popp was forced to resign as Chairman of the Board.  His replacement was Fritz Hille, a hardnosed Nazi businessman and rising star in the Third Reich.  On the night of March 9th, 1943, 225 RAF Lancaster bombers appeared over the BMW works in Munich, causing moderate damage.  Shortly after D-Day, 1944, the US 8th and 15th Air Force B-17s and B-24s dropped more than 10,550 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs on BMW’s facilities.   The crippled plants continued to produce aircraft engines for a while, but by early 1945 most activity had ceased.  On April 29th, an advance party of US Army ground forces appeared at the BMW plant on the edge of Oberwiesenfeld.  Josef Krauter, one of the few remaining employees, opened the gates for them.  Seven and a half rocky years would pass before a new BMW automobile would again pass through that portal.