BMW enthusiasts who have seen BMW’s first concept car—the BMW Turbo—either in person on in pictures, can never forget it. Some consider it one of the most beautiful cars the company ever envisioned.
The man who designed it was Paul Bracq, who was BMW’s design director from 1970 to 1974, succeeding Wilhelm Hofmeister in the position. (You may have heard of Hofmeister’s most durable BMW design legacy, the Hofmeister Kink.) Bracq also worked for Citroen, Mercedes-Benz, and Peugeot, and even worked on designing the French TGV high-speed passenger train.
We’re mainly interested in the BMWs for which Bracq was directly responsible—the Turbo concept and the first E23 7 Series—and as design director on other BMWs that began or completed the design process under his watch and have since become iconic: the E21 BMW 3 Series, the E12 BMW 5 Series, the 2002 Turbo, the E24 6 Series.
BMW has some interesting videos on its YouTube channel. We like the ones that show us the classic BMWs we grew up with, especially when they also tell the stories of the people who brought them to us.—Scott Blazey
Enjoy the video.
[Photograph and video courtesy of BMW AG.]
