50 years of BMW Switzerland AG
It is a success story that began in 1953 when MOTAG took over the import of the Bavarian brand for Switzerland. Karl Hübner was the mastermind and when he died in 1975, BMW-Import was renamed BMW Schweiz AG.
It was just the moment when the BMW 3 Series E21 saw the light of day. However, the newcomer initially had a difficult time as the successor to the universally popular 2002.
Only racing with the BMW Junior Team, newly founded by Jochen Neerpasch, was finally able to provide a remedy.
Since then, BMW has slowly but steadily worked its way up and today sells most of the "strongest letters", i.e. the M cars, in the small country of Switzerland.
The "Art Cars", which also originated from a spontaneous idea between Hervé Poulain and Jochen Neerpasch in 1975, have achieved various milestones in the art scene and continue to be exhibited in all corners of the globe.
A few of the fantastic works of art from Alexander Calder and Andy Warhol to John Baldessari and Julie Mehretu also made their way from the Munich vault to Switzerland on Thursday and stood like precious "birthday cakes" around the assembled company, which was certainly something to behold.
Marc Surer traveled from Spain, Jochen Neerpasch from Friedrichshafen, Max Heidegger from Lichtenstein, Walter Frey from Safenwil and Lukas Hüni was also in Dielsdorf. Neerpasch and Heidegger reminisced with Sven Grützmacher.
"X", the symbol for all-wheel drive at BMW, only made it onto and into the car with Swiss help. The 325 iX was the first four-wheel drive car to be launched by BMW as a competitor to the Ingolstadt-based company.
The future is all about the new "New Class". However, what was clearly stated and promised on Thursday evening (by Sergio Solero, CEO BMW Schweiz AG, among others) is that the company will not move forward purely electrically, but will also maintain the combustion engines. And in the background, work is even continuing on a hydrogen car.
So we can look forward to seeing and buying various new "new class" models next year.
