The birth of the marque
(1968-1977) The line of six cylinder luxury cars produced at the time to compete against Mercedes Benz. The sedan (E3) and coupe (E9) provied to earn quite a reputable name in auto racing. Models were given names denoting their engine sizes, and suffixes to indicate the long-wheelbase (L) and fuel injection (i) available on later cars. The coupés were all named CS, followed by i (for fuel injection models) or L (for light-weight models, which also had fuel injection and higher power).
The BMW Isetta was in 1955 the world's first mass-production three liter car. It was the top-selling single-cylinder car in the world, with 161,728 units sold.