Image: BMW Group Press.
Rather than write a fancy intro that's supposedly meant to engage you all, I'm just going to head straight into the story. Because it's true, there were some BMWs that were named as 'EMWs' - here's why.
Back in 1896, the 'Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach Company' was founded and opened up a factory in the town of Eisenach in the Eastern region of Germany. They initially started off with the production of simple things such as bicycles and guns, but swiftly moved on to cars in 1898.
The product in question was a licensed version of the Decauville car made in France. It was called the Wartburg. (Sound familiar?)
- BMW takes over the Eisenach company
Image: BMW Group Press.
In 1926, BMW bought the Eisenach company and proceeded to manufacturer cars and motorcycles in the facility. These included anything from the 315, the rather famous 328 and the 327. I'm going to ask you to keep that one in mind, because it's important for what happened later.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
In 1942, car production stopped and BMW moved the production of motorcycles to the Eisenach facility in order to make more room for the production of aircraft engines. A noteworthy one being the R75, of which were consistently used by the SS throughout the war.
Soon enough though, the factory had to fully contribute to the war effort by manufacturing aeroplane engines for the Luftwaffe. These included powertrains for the famous Messerschmitt fighters, Heinkel bombers and several others.
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It is thought that around 60% of the factory was destroyed by the end of the war in 1945.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
As a result of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements in 1945, the town of Eisenach now belonged to the Soviet Union since it now resided in the newly-formed Soviet-bloc of Germany, before being named the 'Deutsche Demokratische Republik'. Or in English, it was referred to as 'East Germany'.
In the same year, the Soviets renamed the facility 'Sowjetische AG Maschinenbau Awtowelo, Werk BMW Eisenach'. Or Soviet Awtowelo Co. Eisenach BMW Works.
This meant BMW were in a bit of a mess. Because as long as the Soviets owned the Eisenach company, BMW's main headquarters in Munich (situated in the West) couldn't bring legal proceedings to the table in order to protect their trade name. But to make things that little bit stranger, the Munich facility wasn't making cars between 1945-50 - meaning all BMW models carried on production in the Eisenach factory under the eye of the Soviets.
This would come to an end in 1952 as a lawsuit forced the firm to be formally handed over to the East German state, thus causing a change to its name. It was now called 'Eisenacher Motorenwerk', or EMW for short.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
The most notable modification was the new logo. It was vaguely similar to the existing BMW one, but as you can see, it used red instead of blue and had quite a few subtle little tweaks to differentiate it.
What wasn't differentiated though, were the cars that EMW carried on producting. Because they were exactly the same as the BMWs from beforehand. In other words, the Soviets had carried on producing the same cars, but under a different brand name.
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They even carried production of the BMW R35 motorcycle - re-named the EMW R 35. (Space intended).
Image: Wikipedia.
The notable cars that carried on production as EMWs were the 340 saloon and the 327. But the East German armed forces were particularly interested in reviving the production of the 325 off-road vehicle which was made during the war..
This was a rather unsuccessful attempt at a go-anywhere Jeep-like vehicle, but nevertheless EMW set to work and produced the 325/3. Just 166 of these were produced in 1952, as it was discovered that this re-militarisation move was an offence against the Potsdam Agreement. Production therefore had to stop.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
It's not clear how many of the EMW-badged vehicles were produced. But what we do know is that a total of 505 327s were built between 1945-55, and over 21,000 340s were made between 1949-55.
They even entered Formula one in 1953. The EMW R2 was developed and entered into the German Grand Prix, but it had to retire 12 laps into the race due to exhaust problems.
EMW eventually came to an end in 1955, as carried-on production of BMW cars and motorcycles was ceased.
Image: Wikipedia.
After EMW was defunct, no more East German versions of BMWs were made. The company was renamed Automobilwerk Eisenach and production turned back to where the factory first began: Wartburg!
The Wartburg 311 marked the start of a new era for the East German facility and these new homegrown cars would last way up until the end of the Cold War.
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