

Not long after, they began manufacturing motorcycles on a commercial scale. By 1923 the company then shifted over to motorcycle production. After the first World War in 1918, the company was forced to stop making aircraft engines. Its first name was Rapp Motorenwerke and was in the business of manufacturing aircrafts. The company was founded by Franz Josef Popp, Karl Rapp, and Camillo Castiglioni. BMW is also the holding/parent company of MINI and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. The BMW logo derives from the ancestral Rapp Motorenwerke company’s circular logo and includes the colours of the Bavarian flag.īMW forms part of the "German Big 3" luxury car manufacturers that includes Mercedes-Benz and Audi.

It is one of the most trusted and admired automakers the world over, especially in South Africa. In addition to the luxury vehicles, sports and electric cars, it also manufactures motorcycles and engines. So the next time you see the written word refer to a "black Beamer" or "old Beamers," you'll be reading the work of the misinformed.Bayerische Motoren Werke, widely known as BMW, is a German automobile manufacturing company. Therefore, a "Bimmer car" is accurate, while a "Bimmer motorcycle" would be inaccurate. A BMW Beamer or a BMW Beemer with four wheels simply does not exist. What is a Beamer car? This term (and that of Beamer truck) is an erratum, technically, based on the phonetics of Beemer. So Bimmer or Beamer? Simply put, the meaning of Bimmer is a BMW car, while someone talking about Beemers is drawing your attention to the brand's motorcycles. Incidentally, an identically titled magazine for BMW enthusiasts began hitting newsstands in the same era, and the term was ultimately embraced by the community, including in Germany. The club's newsletter has been titled Bimmer since the Seventies. American buyers initially referred to the German cars as Beamers, just like the motorbikes, with one notable exception - the Boston Chapter BMW club. "Bimmer" is the other term often used to refer to a Munich-made automobile and rose to prominence in the 1970s, when BMWs were skyrocketing in popularity. Interestingly, there is no German nickname for the tri-letter name, as it rolls off the tongue more easily in the language, roughly pronounced as "beer, em, veer." So is it Beemer or Beamer? Why is BMW called Beamer by some? Well, the former is the original way of referring to BMW motorcycles, while the latter is simply an alternative spelling. Over the years, riders and fans came up with the nickname "Beemer" to refer to BMW motorcycles, and this term quickly gained worldwide popularity, particularly in English-speaking countries. At the time, a company called BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) competed on two-wheelers, with the nickname "Beezer" commonly associated with its motorcycles. Like so many other automotive stories, the legend of the BMW slang term was born in motorsport.Īccording to the automaker itself, Beamer comes from 20th-century Great Britain.

However, this is not where the BMW nickname originated. When speaking in English, the syllables of the letters B, M, and W could phonetically be truncated as Beamer. The origin of the term Beamer seems simple enough.
