Munich's Pride and Joy: BMW

The BMW headquarters (left) and the museum (right)

You can't go to Munich and not go to the BMW Museum! We got there via a hop on, hop off bus and everyone gets off at this stop. Anyone who is a fan of the German "ultimate driving machine" comes here to make a pilgrimage. And if you really want, you can buy a BMW as a souvenir of your trip too.

This is the showroom across the street with a sleek bridge

The showroom is a massive building that includes the Mini, and you can buy not only the cars, but also lifestyle products, from jackets to baseball hats to suitcases and toy cars. Some people were trying on the cars for size, getting in and out of them, while others were there to pick up their cars and drive them off in a special exit driveway for them that looks space age (from what we could see from the outside).

Meanwhile across the street via a sleek elevated walkway, is the BMW headquarters, a distinctive building that looks like four vertical cylinders in a car engine, while the museum looks like the cylinder head, both designed by Austrian architect Karl Schwanzer.

They were built between 1968 and 1972, finished in time for the 1972 Summer Olympics and the BMW headquarters is very close to the Olympic Village, giving the company greater exposure.

Inside the showroom, many were eager to look at BMWs

One good tip is that because we took the hop on, hop off bus, the BMW Museum also gave us a few euros off on admission! Bonus!

The museum is laid out in a linear way and goes through the entire history of BMW. Its origins go back to World War I when an unknown aircraft engine manufacturer called Rapp Motorenwerke GmbH presented a newly and innovative aircraft engine to the Prussian military authorities, the company was renamed Bayerische Moteren Werke (BMW) in 1917.

This is also when BMW's logo was developed -- the company name in a black circle, with blue and white panels from the Bavarian national flag.

One of the early motorcycles BMW produced

From there the company designed engines for motorcycles and then cars in 1929. Up until World War II, BMW's main products were aircraft engines, motorcycles and cars. Then during the war the company focused on aircraft engines, and motorcycles were a sideline business, while car production was stopped altogether.

But during this time, the BMW factory in Eisenach, in central Germany, was in the Soviet-occupied zone, and so the Soviets produced pre-war BMW motorcycles and cars there until 1955. However, its Munich plant was completely destroyed and it took time for the company to not only rebuild but also find another means of business because BMW was banned from producing motor vehicles the Allies.

One of BMWs first Formula 1 cars in a beautiful shade of blue

As a result, BMW made pots and pans, other kitchen equipment and bicycles, and finally got permission from the United States to restart motor production, in particular motorcycles in 1947. BMW started manufacturing cars in the early 1950s which was good timing because by this point the market for motorcycles was saturated and people were starting to demand cars.

The company started making mini cars called Isetta, but it couldn't compete against the Volkwagen Beetle. But by the early 1960s BMW was back on its feet with investors showing faith in the company and not wanting to merge with Daimler-Benz, and new cars that had powerful engines.

The BMW 1600, my father's first BMW!

We got to see those motorcycles and early Formula 1 cars contrasting against today's models. You had to be a petite driver -- practically the size of a horse jockey -- to fit into the old school racing car. Even back in the late 1920s they already knew about aerodynamics, with one racer who broke time records with BMW-designed motorcycles with an aerodynamic body like a fish.

There are a lot of consumer cars on display -- the 1600 from 1966 was there -- my father's first BMW which was fun for him to reminisce about as well as other models. The Z3 was also there, which 007 drove in Goldeneye -- the first time James Bond drove a non-British car.

For design fans, there are 1:1 clay models and videos of how the engineers, designers and modellers need to work together to figure out how every detail of the car is going to look like. Another section of the museum also explains the need to transfer from fossil fuels to electricity, and shows off its BEVs or battery electric vehicles.

Contrast it with this futuristic car powered by fuel cells

If that visit to the museum doesn't inspire you to go buy a BMW I don't know what will. It definitely emits those aspiration vibes for those who want to buy their first car, or their next...! Fantastic marketing tool that BMW has done tastefully and not overtly.

And if you want a bite to eat, their cafeteria does pretty good food too!