BMW South Africa
BMW entered its existence as a business entity following a restructuring of the Rapp Motorenwerke aircraft engine manufacturing business in 1917. The company consequently shifted to motorcycle production in 1923, followed by the opening of the first automobile manufacturing plant in 1928. BMW cars and SUV’s have been partially manufactured and assembled in South Africa at the Praetor Monteerders plant which was opened in Rosslyn, Gauteng in 1968. BMW initially bought shares in the manufacturing assembly plant, before fully acquiring it in 1975 and this is how BMW South Africa was born into the African market. BMW motor spares and parts divisions have also attained contributing factors to the companys success in Africa.
The BMW Motorsport plant has since created three prominantly popular cars which have derived from the Rosslyn plant created specifically for the South African car market. The first being the BMW M 745i E23 born out of the plant in 1983, which used the M88 engine from the BMW M1, the BMW 333i in1986, which added a six-cylinder 3.2-litre M30 engine to theE30 and the E30 BMW 325is in 1989. The cars were all an instant success for the South African market. The 325is was powered by a 2.7 litre engine which derived from the Alpina stables and was one of the most sought after cars of it’s time.
BMW retained full ownership of its operations in South Africa through the tough times following the 1995 take-over of government by the ANC. With the lowering of import tariffs, BMW South Africa ended local production of the larger 5 and 7 Series models in order to concentrate on producing the BMW 3 Series on a larger scale to stake it’s hold on the world export market. South African built BMW’s are now exported to markets including Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the UK,Malaysia , Singapore, and Hong Kong, as well as many sub-Saharan African countries. All VIN numbers on all BMW cars starting with "NC0"a product of the Rosslyn plant in South Africa.
BMW offers now over 49 models with EU5/6 emissions norm and 20 models with CO2 output less than 140 g/km, which puts it on the lowest tax group worldwide. BMW constantly strives to design it’s engines to be more efficient, as well as developing environmentally friendly fuels for future vehicles in all classes and capacities. The possibilities of producing “green cars” are a company must and includes the experimentation with electric powered and hybrid powered car, including persistent progress on combustion engines and electric motors and hydrogen engines which are believed to be a large bit of whats to come in the near future.
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