At the BMW Museum, we shared photos from the motorcycle room, so now on to the luxury and cabriolet /convertable rooms.
The car on the left is the BMW 326, produced from 1936-1941. "The first luxury-class BMW." It had a OHV straight six, with innovative (for the time) hydraulic brakes and torsion bar rear suspension. World War II only partially destroyed the factory, and production restarted briefly in 1946 during occupation (under the new badge BMW 326s).
On the right is the BMW 501, produced from 1952-1962. This was the first new model by BMW after WWII. The body weighed a lot more than anticipated, so the car's performance was not a good as the competing Mercedes at the time. This spurred the development of BMW's first V8 engine.
The first luxury-class BMW. This "saloon" also came in a cabrio version.
As we mentioned in the previous post, the BMW museum is organized by topic rather than a pure timeline. In this case, you can see the evolution of their luxury cars side by side -- into the 7-series of today.
Many of the luxury models also had a cabrio counterpart. Below we see Frau A snapping a photo of the BMW 315/1 "sports roadster". Only 242 were built, from 1934-1936. Compared to its parent, the saloon 315, it weighted 180 pounds less but delivered 18% more horsepower (up to 40hp).
The model behind Frau A in the previous photo is the BMW 328 sports car (I think). It's innovations were a tubular space frame, and hemispherical combustion chambers in the engine. Only 464 were produced, from 1936-1940. Top speed was 93, and it finished 5th overall (and first in its class) in the 1939 Le Mans.
She particularly liked the detail and the old leather straps used to keep the hood closed.
Our favorite was the BMW 507. Only 252 were build between 1956 and 1959, but a pre-production model made its debut at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, 1955. They had hoped to sell a bunch in the U.S., but it ended up being twice as expensive as planned. The Mercedes 300SL trounced it in sales.
It is primarily made of hand-formed aluminum (cool!), so no two models are exactly the same. Despite the 2900lb curb weight, the V8 pushed it up to 122mph.
We really like the design (and so did Elvis - he bought one). It was the inspiration for the limited production (and incredibly popular) BMW Z8 from 1999-2003. We see these on the autobahn from time to time and really like them.
The 80s were not forgotten, with the downward-retracting door of the Z1! maybe not as cool as Doc Brown's DeLorean, but still fun.
This was a fantastic room at the BMW Museum. Coming soon... the M Series!