Did you know that the BMW brand has its origins not in the automobile industry but in aviation?

The beginnings of BMW go back to the Bayerische Flugzeug-Werke AG (BFW), which did not produce cars but aircraft engines. It was not until the end of the First World War and the simultaneous prohibition of aircraft engine production (Versaille Treaty) that other fields of business had to be sought in order to keep the company afloat economically. In 1929, after the takeover of the "Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach" in Thuringia, the first "cars" rolled out onto the streets of Germany. By the end of the Second World War, the number of employees had grown from 8,360 at the beginning to almost 180,000 between 1933 and 1938. In 1952, the first luxury class car with a six-cylinder engine, the "BMW 501", was launched. From 1954 it was also available with a V8 engine and was nicknamed the "Barrockengel" (Baroque Angel) because of its curved body. High losses led to a dramatic general meeting on 9 December 1959, when the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board, both appointed by Deutsche Bank, made an offer to sell BMW to Daimler-Benz AG. There was a front of rejection from the workforce, company dealers. BMW dealers and small shareholders, for which 10% of the votes were enough to remain independent. The beginning of the revival was the two-door sales classic "BMW 02". Due to its great success, the company was able to, or rather had to, recruit more employees, especially workers from Greece, who already made up 52% of the foreign employees in 1967, although no distinction was made in payment according to nationality, which was a special feature at that time.

Today, the BMW Group has 118,990 employees worldwide with a turnover of 111.2 billion EUR and is constantly growing, the BMW 3 Series is the best-selling BMW car in the world, in Austria the BMW X3 is the best-selling car in the range, the BMW Group also includes Mini and Rolls Royce!