BMW 328

The BMW 328 is a sports car  made by BMW  between 1936 and 1940, designed by Fritz Fiedler. It featured many advanced features for its time, such as a tubular space frame and a hemispherical combustion chamber engine. It was much praised at the time for its performance and handling, proving to be suitable not only for the BMW factory drivers, but also perfect for everyday motoring.

The BMW 328 won many races, including the prestigious Mille Miglia  - a class win in 1938 and the outright winner (with a streamlined body) in 1940. It also won the RAC Rally in 1939 and came in fifth overall (first in its class) in the 1939 Le Mans 24  hours.

After the Second World War, the manufacturing plant in Eisenach  where the 328 had been built found itself in the Russian occupation zone, and automobile manufacturing in Eisenach would follow a state directed path until German Reunification  in 1989. One of the Mille Miglia 328 car (disguised as a Frazer Nash) and BMW's technical plans for the car were taken from the bombed BMW factory by English representatives from the Bristol Aeroplane Company  and Frazer Nash companies. Fiedler, the BMW engineer, was persuaded to come too. Bristol Cars was set up to build complete cars, called Bristols, and would also supply engines to Frazer Nash for all their post-war cars. The first Bristol car, the 400 was heavily based on the BMW plans. This Bristol engine was also a common option in AC cars, before the Cobra.

• The engine has hemispherical or cross flow combustion chambers.
• The intake valves are opened by the usual overhead valve push rod arrangement of a side cam, push rods, and rocker arms.
• The exhaust valves, on the other side of the cylinder head, are opened by the same cam shaft, vertical push rods, rocker arms, horizontal push rods, and a second set of rocker arms.

In 1999 the BMW 328 was named one of 25 finalists for Car of the Century by a worldwide panel of automotive journalists.