The
BMW 328 is a
sports carA sports car is a small, usually two seat, two door automobile designed for high speed driving and maneuverability....
made by
BMWBayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
between 1936 and 1940, with the body design credited to Peter Szymanowski, who became BMW chief of design after World War II (although technically the car was designed by Fritz Fiedler).
It featured many advanced features for its time, such as a tubular space frame and a hemispherical combustion chamber engine.
Specifications
| Specifications |
| Engine |
straight-6The straight-six engine or inline-six engine is a six-cylinder internal combustion engine with all six cylinders mounted in a straight line along the crankcase...
OHV (light alloy cylinder head) |
| Displacement |
1971 cc (66 mm (2.6 in) Bore × 96 mm (3.8 in) Stroke) |
| Compression ratio |
7,5 : 1 |
| Fuel feed |
3 Solex 30 JF downdraft carburetor |
| Power |
80 PS@5000rpm* |
| Valve train |
Pushrod OHV, side cam shaft driven by duplex chain |
| Fuel capacity |
50 l (13 US gal; 11 imp gal) (if needed 100 l (26 US gal; 22 imp gal) possible) |
| Cooling |
Pump (7,5 l water) |
| Transmission |
4-speed |
| Chassis |
Aluminium body and steel ladder frame |
| Suspension front |
swing axle with transverse leaf springs |
| Suspension rear |
live axle with leaf springs |
| Shock absorbers |
Hydraulic shock absorbers |
| Brakes |
280 mm (11 in)-diameter hydraulic drum brakes |
| Wheelbase |
2400 mm (94.5 in) |
| Track |
1153 mm (45.4 in)/1220 mm (48 in) |
| External dimensions |
3900 mm (153.5 in) × 1550 mm (61 in) × 1400 mm (55.1 in) |
| Tires |
5.25 or 5.50–16 |
| Unloaded weight |
830 kg (1,830 lb) |
| Top speed: |
150 km/h (93.2 mph) |
- other sources say 4500 rpm.
Engine
The engine has hemispherical or cross flow combustion chambers. The intake valves are opened by the usual overhead valve push rod arrangement of a side cam, push rods, and rocker arms. The exhaust valves, on the other side of the
cylinder headIn an internal combustion engine, the cylinder head sits above the cylinders on top of the cylinder block. It closes in the top of the cylinder, forming the combustion chamber. This joint is sealed by a head gasket...
, are opened by the same cam shaft, vertical push rods, rocker arms, horizontal push rods, and a second set of rocker arms.
Awards
In 1999 the BMW 328 was named one of 25 finalists for
Car of the CenturyThe Car of the Century was an international award given to the world's most influential car of the 20th century. The election process was overseen by the Global Automotive Elections Foundation...
by a worldwide panel of automotive journalists.
Motorsports
It won the RAC Rally in 1939 and came in fifth overall (first in its class) in the 1939 Le Mans 24 hours.
Mille Miglia
In 1938, BMW 328 became a class winner in
Mille MigliaThe Mille Miglia was an open-road endurance race which took place in Italy twenty-four times from 1927 to 1957 ....
.
In 1940, the Mille Miglia Touring Coupe won the Mille Miglia with average speed of 166.7 km/h (103.6 mph).
In 2004, the BMW 328 Mille Miglia Touring Coupe became the first car to win both the Mille Miglia (1940) and the modern-day classical version of the race.
Production
After
the Second World WarWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
,
the manufacturing plantThe Automobilwerk Eisenach was an automobile manufacturer in Eisenach, Germany.-Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach:Heinrich Ehrhardt founded the Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach in Eisenach on 3 December 1896 as a stock company...
in
EisenachEisenach is a city in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated between the northern foothills of the Thuringian Forest and the Hainich National Park. Its population in 2006 was 43,626.-History:...
where the 328 had been built found itself in the
Russian occupation zone, and automobile manufacturing in Eisenach would follow a state directed path until
German ReunificationGerman reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
in 1989.
Influence on Bristol
One of the Mille Miglia 328s (disguised as a
Frazer NashFrazer Nash was a British sports car manufacturer and engineering company founded by Archibald Frazer-Nash in 1922. It produced sports cars incorporating a unique multi-chain transmission before World War II and also imported BMW cars to the UK. After the war it continued producing sports cars with...
) and BMW's technical plans for the car were taken from the bombed BMW factory by English representatives from the
Bristol Aeroplane CompanyThe Bristol Aeroplane Company, originally the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, was both one of the first and one of the most important British aviation companies, designing and manufacturing both airframes and aero engines...
and Frazer Nash companies. Fiedler, the BMW engineer, was persuaded to come too.
Bristol CarsBristol Cars is a manufacturer of hand-built luxury cars headquartered in Patchway, near Bristol, United Kingdom. Bristol have always been a low-volume manufacturer; the most recent published official production figures were for 1982, which stated that 104 cars were produced in that year...
was set up to build complete cars, called Bristols, and would also supply engines to Frazer Nash for all their post-war cars. The first Bristol car, the
400The Bristol 400 luxury car is the first automotive product of the British Bristol Aeroplane Company. After World War II, BAC decided to diversify and formed a car division, which would later be the Bristol Cars company in its own right...
, was heavily based on the BMW plans.
This Bristol engine was also a common option in
AC carsAC Cars Group Ltd. formerly known as Auto Carriers Ltd. is a British specialist automobile manufacturer and one of the oldest independent car marques founded in Britain...
, before the
CobraThe AC Cobra, also known colloquially as the Shelby Cobra in North America, is an Anglo-American sports car that was produced during the 1960s.-History and development:...
.
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