Bayerische Motoren Werke AG

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, widely known by its initials BMW, is a German multinational automaker headquartered in Munich. It was founded in 1916, originally as an aircraft engine manufacturer, a business the Treaty of Versailles forced the company to abandon after the First World War, prompting a shift first into motorcycle production in 1923 and then into automobiles beginning in 1928. BMW's blue and white roundel logo is widely, though not authoritatively, described as evoking a spinning aircraft propeller, a nod to that founding aviation business. The company today manufactures luxury automobiles and motorcycles under the BMW brand, and it also owns the Mini marque and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the British luxury car maker whose naming rights it acquired in the late 1990s.