BMW says its roundel shows the colours of Bavaria, not a spinning propeller. The propeller idea was born in a 1929 advertisement, twelve years after the badge was registered.
- Country
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Germany - Active
- Since 1916
- Website
- Official website ↗
Aircraft engines first, badge second
BMW spent its first few months without a logo at all. The name Bayerische Motoren Werke entered the commercial register in July 1917, when the Munich aircraft engine maker Rapp Motorenwerke was renamed. The badge came later that autumn.
The company’s own official founding date is earlier still: 7 March 1916, the day Flugmaschinenfabrik Gustav Otto became Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, or BFW. The two threads are tangled. BMW became a public limited company in 1918, and in 1920 the financier Camillo Castiglioni bought the BMW name, logo, engine facilities and workforce and moved the business into the BFW plant in Munich’s Oberwiesenfeld district. It is still the main plant and headquarters today.
The first BMW product people could actually ride arrived in 1923. The R 32 motorcycle was unveiled at the Berlin Motor Show, and the blue and white roundel sat on its fuel tank. According to BMW, that was the first time the logo appeared on the streets.
5 October 1917: a roundel enters the register
The first BMW badge was registered in the German Imperial Register of Trademarks on 5 October 1917. It borrowed its round shape from the old Rapp emblem. The outer ring was bounded by two gold lines and carried the letters BMW. Inside sat four quadrants in white and blue.
Here is a detail most people miss. The quadrants are in the wrong order. Bavarian heraldry puts the colours one way; the BMW roundel puts them the other. BMW explains that the trademark law of the time forbade the use of state coats of arms or other symbols of sovereignty on commercial logos, so the colours were simply swapped round.
Bavaria, not a propeller
Ask almost anyone what the BMW logo shows and you’ll hear “a spinning propeller against a blue sky”. BMW itself says no. According to the company, white and blue are the colours of the State of Bavaria, home of BMW. That is the official meaning, and it is the whole of it.
The propeller story has a precise birthday. In 1929 a BMW advertisement showed the roundel inside a spinning propeller to promote an aircraft engine the company was building under licence from Pratt & Whitney. The logo was already twelve years old by then. In 1942 the company publication Flugmotoren-Nachrichten presented the emblem as a propeller again, and the idea stuck.
BMW is fairly relaxed about it. Fred Jakobs, archive director at BMW Group Classic, has said that “for a long time, BMW made little effort to correct the myth that the BMW badge is a propeller”, and he notes that after roughly ninety years the reading has earned a certain justification of its own. So the propeller is a myth, but an officially tolerated one.
A century of small adjustments
The roundel has never been replaced, only tuned. Creative Review counts the 2020 version as only the sixth in the logo’s history, and shows earlier versions from 1933, 1953 and 1963. The lettering and the proportions shifted over those decades, but the black ring, the letters and the four quadrants stayed put. According to Dezeen, no version carried any shading until 1997, when the badge gained a three-dimensional look with highlights and gradients. That 1997 badge is the one you still see on the bonnet of a BMW.
Transparent since 2020
On 3 March 2020 BMW launched a new brand design for its online and offline communication, the first in more than twenty years. The BMW, BMW i and BMW M communication logos were reworked. The new mark is flat and two-dimensional, and it comes with a transparent version: the black ring is gone, so whatever sits behind the logo shows through. It made its debut on the Concept i4.
Jens Thiemer, then BMW’s senior vice president for customer and brand, put it this way: “BMW is becoming a relationship brand. The new communication logo stands for openness and clarity.” One important caveat: the flat logo is a media branding. It is not used on the cars themselves or on dealership signage, where the familiar badge remains in place. The switchover in communications ran until 31 May 2021.
The machines under the roundel
Aircraft engines, then a motorcycle, then cars. BMW’s model history follows the same order as its badge, and a few of these machines changed the company’s fate.
Landmark BMWs, decade by decade
- 1923: R 32. BMW’s first motorcycle, shown at the Berlin Motor Show, and the first vehicle to wear the roundel.
- 1929: 3/15 PS. BMW’s first car, a small model built under licence from Austin after BMW took over Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach in 1928.
- 1936: 328. Won its very first race, the Eifel Race at the Nürburgring. A 328 Touring coupe went on to win the 1940 Mille Miglia outright at an average of 166.7 km/h.
- 1961: 1500. Unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show two years after shareholders rejected a Daimler-Benz offer. BMW calls it the company’s breakthrough.
- 1978: M1. The mid-engined sports car from BMW Motorsport GmbH, the company founded in 1972 that became BMW M.
- 2013: i3. The first series-produced fully electric model from the BMW Group.
The roundel is also a family crest. BMW bought the Rover Group in 1994 and sold it again in 2000, keeping only MINI, which it relaunched in 2001. In 1998 it secured the brand and naming rights to Rolls-Royce motor cars, and the new Phantom followed from Goodwood in 2003. Its oldest rival sits a few hours south-west: in December 1959 BMW’s shareholders turned down a takeover offer from Daimler-Benz, today’s Mercedes-Benz, and Herbert Quandt increased his stake instead. For more on how badges like these are built, see how car logos are designed.
Frequently asked questions
What does the BMW logo mean?
According to BMW, the white and blue quadrants are the colours of the State of Bavaria, home of the company. The black ring with the letters BMW was carried over from the earlier Rapp Motorenwerke emblem.
Is the BMW logo a propeller?
No. BMW says the propeller reading comes from a 1929 advertisement that placed the roundel inside a spinning propeller, twelve years after the logo was registered. The company admits it did little to correct the myth for a long time.
Why are the blue and white in the “wrong” order?
Because the trademark law of 1917 forbade state coats of arms and other symbols of sovereignty on commercial logos. BMW reversed the order of the Bavarian colours to stay on the right side of it.
When was the BMW logo first used?
The badge was registered in the German Imperial Register of Trademarks on 5 October 1917. It first appeared on a vehicle in 1923, on the fuel tank of the R 32 motorcycle.
When did BMW change its logo to the flat design?
On 3 March 2020. The flat, transparent version is a communication logo used online, in print and at events. BMW’s cars and dealerships keep the three-dimensional badge introduced in 1997.
The roundel dossier
- Founded
- 1916
- Country
- Germany
- Headquarters
- Munich, Germany
- Parent company
- BMW Group
- Current emblem
- A black ring with the letters BMW around white and blue quadrants, first registered in 1917; the three-dimensional badge dates from 1997 and a flat, transparent communication logo was added in 2020
- Known for
- Sporty premium cars and motorcycles from Munich
- Website
- Official website ↗
