In the 1930s sporting British drivers were keen on the gruelling Continental Alpine Trials, which included some 1,500 miles of high-speed touring, speed runs on the new autoroutes and long full-throttle climbs at speed up Alpine passes. These events were a challenging test for cars at the time and were seen as a useful way to develop performance and durability.
Frazer Nash factory drivers and private owners from Britain did well in these events, so the arrival of a new generation of BMW sports car that often passed the chain-drive British entries came as a shock – so much so that the British firm rapidly acquired a licence to import and sell the German cars.
During World War I the Bayerische Motoren Werke had started making aero engines (the blue-and-white BMW logo is said to represent a spinning propeller disc) but postwar had gone into car and motorcycle production. The 328 was perhaps the first modern sports car with a rigid box-section chassis, new standards of roadholding and a powerful and original six-cylinder engine.
After World War II, all this fine technology passed to the Bristol aircraft company in the UK, as an element of war reparation. With this ‘flying start’, Bristol made some impressive and expensive aerodynamic saloons on the BMW design base, but while BMW itself recovered from wartime devastation to become the extraordinary firm we know today, the high-tech and profitable Bristol company, though cosseted by government defence contracts, became submerged in the amalgamations of the UK aircraft sector and its car production withered away – just one more mystery in the history of technological successions.
The original six-cylinder engine.
The first modern sports car? The BMW 328 instantly made British equivalents seem dated. Postwar, it formed the basis for Bristol cars.