Starting Points

Everyone has to start somewhere and you might be surprised how many car companies got their first break with someone else’s design

- Paul Wager

Wander through the atrium at the British Motor Museum and you might assume that the diminutive car wearing German plates at the bottom of the escalators is there merely as a nod to the Bavarian firm’s manufacturing presence in the UK. On closer inspection, you’ll find there’s something familiar about its shape and proportions and you’d be right: BMW’s first car was, in fact, an Austin 7, built under license.

The car had originally been made by the Automobilwerk Eisenach factory which used the brand name Dixi for its products, but when the concern was acquired by Bayerische Motoren Werke in its quest to get into car making, it was the only model to be retained in production by the new owners. Produced from 1927 as the BMW Dixi, it represented the first car to be produced under the BMW brand. Needless to say, BMW couldn’t resist tinkering with it and before long the Dixi became the revised BMW 3/15. By 1932 BMW cars had become so different that the Austin license was no longer needed... and by 1994 the Austin badge was briefly part of the BMW empire.