The Origin of the BMW Logo

Source: Pursuitist.com

Inside white and blue. Bordered in black. On it the letters BMW. For more than 90 years this is the icon symbol for sheer driving pleasure. But how was this logo developed? The team at BMW set out on a search for clues in the video above.

The true meaning of the ‘sky blue and white quartered’ BMW logo is the most controversial issue of the company. According to Dr. Florian Triebel, Executive Board Member of BMW AG, “There are two traditions concerning the significance of the BMW logo and trademark, offering two different interpretations of its sky blue and white fields. One interpretation points to a rotating propeller. The other relates the BMW logo to Bavaria as the place where the products are manufactured”.

The current BMW logo is said to be inspired from the circular design of a rotating aircraft propeller. The white and blue checker boxes are supposed to be a stylized representation of a white/silver propeller blade spinning against a clear blue sky.

For BMW, it was ‘a happy coincidence’ that the BMW logo symbolized the Bavarian flag colors and represented the company’s origin. When the BMW logo was first created, it was prohibited by the Trademark Act to feature ‘national coats of arms or other symbols of national sovereignty’ in a trademark. This led the BMW marketers to come up with a solution of ‘incorrectly configuring the color elements in the BMW logo from a heraldic perspective’, while also keeping its relationship with Bavaria evident.

This had been confirmed by BMW, courtesy of the NY Times: “In last Sunday’s Automobiles section, I wrote about visiting a quartet of German car museums. At the BMW Museum in Munich, my affable tour guide, Anne Schmidt-Possiwal, explained that the blue-and-white company logo did not represent a spinning propeller, but was meant to show the colors of the Free State of Bavaria.”

For the full article: click here

Here’s Who To Steer Clear Of

Picture this: You’re out on the road, driving in mixed traffic with your choice of drivers to follow. One is a gray-haired senior puttering along in the right lane and the other is a fresh-faced teenager moving briskly in the left lane.

Statistically speaking, which driver is safer to follow? The older driver with the slower reflexes, poorer vision, and cautious driving style, or the younger driver with faster reactions, better eyesight, and driving with the flow of traffic?

The answer: Stay in the right lane, behind the oldster, and let the teenager go on his way. According to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the safest drivers are in the age group between 64 and 69 years old. And studies of the data reveal that teenage drivers — especially male teenage drivers — are the most dangerous drivers on the road.

“In every motorized country around the world, teenage drivers are disproportionately involved in crashes,” said Dr. Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research at the Institute. “The seriousness of this problem has been recognized for decades. Only in the last few years have public policies such as graduated driving licenses been enacted to address the situation. And those laws seem to be working, but fatalities are still high.”

Statistics Say Seniors are Safer

In 2008, 5,864 15- to 20-year-old drivers were involved in fatal crashes. That’s the bad news. The good news is that number is down by 27 percent since 1998. Driver fatalities for this age group also decreased by 20 percent in the same time period.

However, motor vehicle crashes still remain the major cause of death for teenagers. In 2008, 2,739 15- to 20-year-old drivers were killed and an additional 228,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes. Sixty percent of deaths among passenger vehicle occupants ages 16-19 were drivers.

Senior drivers, like teenage drivers, have higher crash rates per mile driven, especially when it comes to fatal crashes. But seniors don’t drive as many miles, so a better measurement of their susceptibility to accidents can be had by comparing crash rates on a per capita basis. Looking at the numbers in this way shows senior drivers have much lower crash rates. Despite their increased risk of crashing per mile driven, relatively few elderly drivers are involved in accidents because of their lower rates of exposure. In addition, the rate of fatalities per capita among seniors has decreased 40 percent since 1975 and is now at its lowest level during this period.

Let’s look at the numbers. In 2008, 15- to 20-year-old drivers made up 8.5 percent of the U.S. population, yet accounted for 12 percent of occupant deaths among all ages in passenger vehicle (cars, pickups, SUVs, and vans). Per mile driven, teen drivers ages 16 to 19 are four times more likely than older drivers to crash. Drivers from 65 to 69 years old made up 3.7 percent of the population, but accounted for just 3.2 percent of all fatal crashes.
Risky Business

Major risk factors contributing to teenage crashes are those you would expect, including:

• Lack of experience. Teens are more likely than older drivers to underestimate dangerous situations or not be able to recognize hazardous situations.

• Poor judgment. Teens are more likely than older drivers to speed and allow shorter headways (the distance from the front of one vehicle to the front of the next).

• Low seat belt usage. Compared with other age groups, teens have the lowest rate of seat belt use. In 2007, 61 percent of all 15- to 20-year-old passenger vehicle occupants killed in fatal crashes were not wearing seat belts.
Preventing Teenage Driving Injuries

“Almost all states have adopted some form of graduated driver licensing,” said Dr. McCartt. “These laws are proving effective in reducing teenage crashes.”

Graduated driver licensing (GDL) systems are designed to delay full licensure while allowing teens to get their initial driving experience under low-risk conditions. Research suggests that the most comprehensive of these programs are associated with reductions of 38 percent and 40 percent in fatal and injury crashes, respectively, among 16-year-old drivers.

“When parents know their state’s GDL laws, they can help enforce the laws and, in effect, help keep their teen drivers safe,” said Dr. McCartt.

One of the reasons for their safer driving statistics is that seniors tend to be more aware of their limitations and drive accordingly. “There may be several factors as to why seniors appear to be safer drivers, one of which may be that most teens are novice drivers and seniors have been at it a lot longer,” said Patricia Swift-Oladeinde, spokeswoman at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “But regardless of each person’s ability, NHTSA encourages all drivers to solely focus on driving when behind the wheel. After all, one distraction can be one too many,” she said.

For the complete article from AOL Autos click here!

Source: Author Chuck Squatriglia from Wired.com

bmw ultimate driving machine

BMW has long hailed itself as building “the ultimate driving machine,” and never was that more true than when the company thoroughly dominated the Mille Miglia 70 years ago.

Even now, BMW considers winning the inaugural Gran Premio Brescia dell Mille Miglia its greatest auto racing success. The sleek and sexy BMW 328 racers, with their small but powerful engines and superlative handling, were so wickedly good that BMW scored the overall win, the team win and third, fifth and sixth place.

“The victory in the 1940 Mille Miglia remains a milestone in the history of the BMW brand,” Klaus Draeger, a company board member who oversees R&D, said in a statement heralding the anniversary of the win on April 28.

That success followed nearly five years of hard work.

The story starts in 1935 when BMW quietly distributed a brochure to selected customers vaguely describing a new model called the 328. Although the lightweight car featured a 2.0-liter straight-six engine that produced 80 horsepower, nothing was said of the car’s performance and nothing was said to the press. The company, which had started building cars just seven years before, only wanted to tantalize a few “friends of the company.”

Nothing more was said until the BMW 328 was unveiled at the famed Nurburgring racetrack on June 13, 1936, ahead of the International Eifel Race. Ernst Henne, a record-setting motorcycle racer, drove the car to victory with an average speed of 63 mph, an impressive figure at the time.

It was the dawn of a new day for BMW.

The roadster scored its second victory in August, when H.J. Aldington, a British BMW importer, won the Schleiβheimer Dreicksrennen race. Aldington convinced the brass in Munich to compete in races beyond Germany, so BMW sent the three 328 prototypes to Ireland for the Tourist Trophy.

The cars finished 1-2-3. Several more victories followed in the months to come.

Customers had to wait until April 1937 — one year to the day after Henne first took the 328 to victory — until they could get their own cars. By that time, the 328 had amassed a trophy case full of hardware, easily beating cars with far more powerful engines.

BMW’s little roadster had arrived.

By the end of 1937, BMW was dominating the 2.0-liter class in Germany and had established a reputation in Europe. But it wanted a major win on foreign soil. The company set its sights on Italy’s Mille Miglia, a 1,500-kilometer race from Brescia to Rome and back. It was, at the time, one of the most famous races in motor sports.

Four 328 roadsters entered. Thousands of people lined the course, and the BMWs set a blistering pace. The roadsters, with their little 80-horsepower engines, dominated their class but were outgunned by the supercharged Alfa Romeos, Delahayes and Talbots.

The fastest cars finished the course in 12 hours and change. But BMW surprised everyone when A.F.P. Fane not only took first in the 2.0-liter class but finished an impressive eighth overall in his 328. The others were close behind him, finishing 10th, 11th and 12th overall while giving BMW a clean sweep of its class. BMW finally had the international breakthrough it had sought.

But the best was yet to come.

The rules governing racing in Germany at the time required cars to have open tops. That limited the 328’s capabilities abroad because, although gorgeous, it was not very aerodynamic. The engineers were trying to make the six-cylinder engine more powerful but knew the best way to increase speed was to improve aerodynamics. Wunibald Kamm, an automotive engineer and aerodynamicist, conducted BMW’s first wind-tunnel tests. BMW soon decided to build a 328 coupe.

It was a disaster.

The first coupe suffered from poor workmanship and lousy handling. Although capable of stunning velocities, the car was so unstable at speed that it was, literally, all over the track. What’s more, the Nationalist Socialist Motoring Corps, which could be called Germany’s national racing team, was racing BMW 328 roadsters. BMW was contractually required to provide the team with the latest technology, and the team demanded a coupe of its own.

Trouble is, BMW didn’t have the spare capacity to build one.

So the NSKK, or Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps, sought help from Italian coachbuilders Carrozzeria Touring. The company produced the 328 Touring Coupe in just four weeks.

It was stunning.

The car weighted just 1,719 pounds, which was remarkably light for that time. It was capable of more than 125 mph — and could hold a relatively straight line while doing so. The Touring Coupe made its debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 17, 1939.

It covered 1,981 miles at an average speed of 82.5 mph to take first in its class and fifth overall.

BMW went back to work on its own coupe. The result was the Kamm Coupe. And as good as the NSKK’s Touring Coupe was, the Kamm Coupe was better — lighter, faster and sleeker. It had superior straight-line stability and it was far more aerodynamic — its coefficient of drag, measured with models, was 0.25, compared to the Touring Coupe’s 0.35. The increased aerodynamic efficiency — comparable to that of the 2010 Toyota Prius — allowed the car to achieve a top speed of 142.9 mph.

The engineers were hard at work on the roadsters, too. The car got a lighter space frame and a sleeker aluminum skin. The edge of its sweeping front wings, or fenders, got a pronounced crease to improve aerodynamic efficiency. That detail gave the car it’s nickname, the “Trouser Crease” roadster.

But with the start of World War II, no knew when, or if, the new cars would see action.

Benito Mussolini suspended the Mille Miglia after a crash killed a number of spectators in 1938. But the race was back in business in 1940, with a revised route. The new course was a triangular route linking Brescia, Cremona and Mantua. Drivers would make nine laps of the 103-mile circuit. With a new course, the race was given a new name — the First Gran Premio Brescia delle Mille Miglia.

BMW made a big show, entering five cars — three roadsters, the Touring Coupe and the Kamm Coupe. The grid was dominated by the rosso corsa cars from Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo. All told there were 70 Italian teams, joined by two lone Delahayes from France.

The BMWs were strong from the start.

The race started at 4 a.m. with cars leaving the line in one-minute intervals. The first BMW started off at 4:40 a.m. By the end of the first lap, Fritz Huschke von Hanstein, in one of the two coupes, was 90 seconds ahead of his closest pursuer. Count Giovanni Lurani Cernuschi was in third place in the Kamm Coupe with an Alfa Romeo close behind in fourth. The three 328 roadsters were in seventh, eighth and ninth.

By the end of the second lap, the two coupes led the way, with the Alfa Romeos chasing the roadsters.

And then there was a problem.

The pace proved to be too much for the Kamm Coupe, which developed a problem with the carburetor and then the oiling system, on the seventh lap. Cernuschi was out of the race.

Von Hanstein continued peeling off impressive laps in the Touring Coupe, but he was so determined to win that he ignored the prearranged handover to co-driver Walter Bäumer. But with the coupe steadily increasing its lead, von Hanstein relented. He handed the car over to Bäumer a few miles before the finish.

Bäumer drove the Touring Coupe across the finish line to claim the overall victory with an elapsed time of 8 hours, 54 minutes and 46 seconds. The drivers had covered the 927-mile course at an average speed of 104.20 mph. BMW’s little coupe so thoroughly dominated the field that the second-place finisher, an Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS, was more than 15 minutes behind.

The remaining BMWs finished in third, fifth and sixth place.

To read the full article click here.

The Apple iPhone has a built-in accelerometer that rather accurately detects even the slightest motions. Developers have been quick to create applications that capitalize on the iPhone’s hardware, including software that helps enthusiasts obtain g-force and 0-60 times from their phone. We’ve tested a few ourselves and they work pretty well, although most of these apps come at a cost, ranging from $4.99 to $10 or more. If you like the idea of timing your vehicle with the aid of an iPhone but don’t want to pay for an app, BMW has a free solution for you.

It’s called the M Power Meter and does most things those paid apps can do, but it’s free and also very easy to use. Simply download the software from the app store [iTunes link], place your phone upright in a cup holder or flat in the direction you intend to drive, hit start, accept the terms and go. The M Power Meter defaults to timing a jaunt from 0-50 km/h, but you can change that by clicking on settings and choosing from several acceleration options up to 200 km/h or distances ranging from 100 meters to 2,000 meters. We downloaded the M Power Meter app and found it worked fairly well for being free and nearly as good as those apps we spent a few bucks on in the past.

If you have an iPhone and a car, test it out for yourself (without breaking the law or doing anything that could endanger yourself or others, natch).  It’s free, so it couldn’t hurt to give it a whirl.

Source: Auto Blog

BMW AG has many tricks up its corporate sleeve in the area of product development. One vehicle may showcase an all-new engine or transmission or an innovative approach to steering or chassis control, or all of the above.

But the new 5-Series Gran Turismo has none of those. Instead of offering a technical advancement, this aerodynamically designed coupe-like sedan is all about packaging and, to an extent, recycling proven attributes on vehicles already in production.

Although “5-Series,” is part of its name, the Gran Turismo actually shares more architectural underpinnings with the flagship 750i sedan – and handles with the same confidence, too.

The two vehicles have the same wheelbase (the Gran Turismo is 3 ins. [7.6 cm] shorter overall) and share the identical twin-turbo 400-hp V-8, steering system and 8-speed transmission. Interior design continuity also carries over from the 7-Series.

But behind the back seat, the Gran Turismo is something the 7-Series will never be: a hatchback. Bavarian engineers are probably spitting out their coffee at the mere suggested linkage between the brand’s most luxurious sedan and a term unofficially banished from America’s automotive lexicon years ago.

The magic of the Gran Turismo is it doesn’t have to be a hatchback. It has both a trunk and a fully functioning liftgate. The trunk opens and closes like any other, but the opening is smaller and vertical, resembling the business end of a large-mouth bass. Raise the liftgate, and the back window goes with it, along with the entire back of the car above the bumper, including the trunk lid and all the mechanical parts, allowing it to open and close. BMW calls it a “bi-modal trunk” or “dual-access tailgate.”

Italian auto makers first coined the term Gran Turismo (Grand Touring) in the 1950s for stylish 2-seat sports cars with luxurious amenities. The hatchback body style was essential to provide luggage room for two, for weekend get-aways.

BMW expands on the concept by keeping the coupe-like profile but adding two more doors (all four aluminum lightweight doors have frameless windows) and a back seat.

Standard in the second row is bench seating for three, with a 40-20-40 split for selective fold-down. Optional is luxury rear seating for two, which offers adjustable power bucket seats (with power head restraints) separated by a center console.

Product planners anticipate most models will be equipped with the standard 3-passenger rear bench partly because most customers for the Gran Turismo are expected to be women with children.

Despite the raked roofline at the rear of the Gran Turismo, the back seat is exceptionally spacious, with more headroom and nearly 3 ins. (7.6 cm) of additional legroom when compared with the 750i. The entire back seat also slides fore and aft nearly 4 ins. (10 cm).

The Gran Turismo also is the first BMW in the U.S. to offer regenerative braking. Instead of running continuously, this unique alternator charges the battery only when the vehicle is decelerating or braking. Otherwise, it freewheels, drawing virtually no power from the engine and boosting fuel efficiency 2%. A more powerful battery accommodates the less frequent charging.

The Gran Turismo is a lot of things – a luxury car, family hauler, sporty performer and functional ute. And it’s an affordable way to get 7-Series technology.

To read the full article click here.