Not the first time it has happened. . . .

[mk1]

BMW have been selling British heritage cars for years. This is a BMW showroom in 1929, where they are displaying their new BMW Dixie, a made under licence Austin 7.

345638571_191630977132575_7072742022754439763_n.jpg

[AndyB72]

Are you poking the wasps nest Mark??

[mk1]

Not really, just pointing out that BMW have always appreciated British designed cars.

It was BMW who truly recognised the value of the Mini brand & it was BMW who were prepared to put their money where their mouth is. The MINI is more profitable today than it ever was when it was made by BMC, BL, Leyland, Austin Rover, Rover Group, MG Rover etc, etc, etc.

More power to their elbow.

Only published the image here, because I thought it was a cracker.

[AndyB72]

Its a very impressive image.

[mab01uk]

It sort of came full circle in the end....in the 1950's BMW re-engineered the Italian designed Iso Isetta bubble car and the first BMW Isetta appeared in 1955. The story goes that in 1957 Alec Issigonis was tasked by Sir Leonard Lord of BMC to come up with a new small car to “drive these bubble cars off the road.” The Mini went on sale in August 1959 and production of the BMW Isetta ended 3 years later in May 1962....in 1994 BMW bought Rover along with the Mini, saw the value of the Mini as a 'brand' recognised worldwide, invested money in the classic Mini (MPi) to extend production until 2000, financed the design of a long awaited replacement R50 MINI by Rover and the rest is history....

[InnoCooperExport]

Wasn't the original 328 a Frazer Nash as well? Or the other way around maybe?

[Spider]

Haha,,,, the irony of Mark's opening post isn't lost in me at all.

Just as a 'by the way', the Americans also made them under license as did Datsun in Japan.

I think that alone speaks volumes in terms of production profitability and consumer choice.

[Costafortune]

BMW axed the Isetta in 1962 because they were building as many of the new 1500 saloons as they could. Ever since then, they have become more and more profitable.

Leonard Lord fired Gerald Palmer - designer of profitable and reliable cars - to employ Issigonis who did the exact opposite. Palmer's version of BMC would have ensured its survival and avoided merging with Triumph. The market that BMC abandoned was the same one BMW took over in the late sixties and early seventies onwards.

A tragedy that BMW made such an utter balls of Rover Group, not helped by the New Labour clowns like Brown and Byers. Imagine if you will a thriving MG Rover Triumph group now making 2 million+ cars a year from Longbridge and Cowley.

*sigh*

[Pandora]

Wasn't the original 328 a Frazer Nash as well? Or the other way around maybe?

From memory, Fraser Nash were the BMW distributors for the UK (later switching to Porsche)

and of course lots of the British sports cars of the 50s used the Bristol 2 Litre engine which was really the BMW engine we in effect nicked off them as war reparations, popular in the AC ace, replacing their own engine the design of which dated back to the 20's (maybe earlier), prolonging the ace's life and in due course it was the seed of the Cobra.

As Mark says, these things all go round and round.....

Oh, and yes, it's a cracking image.

Al

[hanlminiman]

In 2016 we ventured in to Germany after visiting our son in Holland and visited the big VW museum complex and also the Wartburg museum in Eisenach where Opel had been making the Adam. A very interesting museum featuring Wartburg rally cars and a transporter. I took the attached images for the Austin connection.

[Peter Laidler]

There must be a topical joke somewhere in this thread. Such as 'Why have Germany got BMW and England have Austin? England had first pick.....