Here it is, the dream car that launched the company that makes dream cars of modern times:

This is where it all began, the BMW 3/15, first in a line that was to produce the sleek executive cars we know so well today. And the really funny thing is that it wasn’t a BMW at all.

In fact, it’s an Austin 7, which a small German company named Dixi had begun to manufacture under licence in 1927. The Austin 7 was produced in large numbers in Britain and was the equivalent of America’s Model T Ford.

BMW were already making engines and motorbikes at the time and they purchased the Dixi factory in 1929, continuing production of the company’s only model but renaming it as the 3/15. Effectively, it was BMW’s first car and so it can be said that Britain gave the German company the start it needed to get into automobile production.

Much water has flowed under the bridge since then and BMW have grown to be the giant we know now. There were times when things did not go so well, however; at the end of the war, the drawings for the BMW classic sports car, the 328, were taken and became the basis for the post-war Bristol and Frazer-Nash cars. And, in the late fifties, BMW came so close to bankruptcy that they nearly sold out to Daimler Benz.

At the last minute it was decided to soldier on and their next model, the 1500, saved them. Developed into 1600 and 1800 models, it was the car that set the look of all subsequent BMWs and put the company on the road to success.

But let’s not forget their humble origins in the little Austin 7.