FIVE DECADES, 18 MILLION CARS, ONE UNDEFEATED BENCHMARK - BMW CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF THE 3 SERIES
The BMW 3 Series turns 50, and the milestone feels less like a birthday and more like a census of a global workforce. Since 1975, the world has churned out over 18 million examples of BMW’s most influential model, forged across 18 plants on four continents. It’s the anchor of the entire BMW production constellation, the car that quietly taught the company how to scale operations, standardise quality, electrify processes and eventually evolve into the BMW iFACTORY era. If the rest of the brand is the stage show, the 3 Series is the scaffolding that makes it all possible.
Munich was ground zero when it all kicked off, and the factory became a rolling experiment in industrial reinvention. By the early eighties, the plant was already flirting with the future: overhead conveyor systems humming like mechanical skylines, programmable welders forming the bones of the second-generation 3 Series, and a fully automated body shop hitting 90 % automation long before robots were household names. As the decades went by, the site layered on new tech with the calm confidence of a chef adding spices to a slow-burning stew. Powder coating, computer-controlled engines, digitalisation, AI-driven quality checks - each generation of 3 Series nudged BMW production deeper into the future.
That momentum pushed outward. Munich couldn’t hold the wave forever, and by 1980, Dingolfing joined the roster, followed by Regensburg in ’86. Then the real expansion began. Rosslyn in South Africa and Spartanburg in the US became global footholds in the eighties and nineties, enabling BMW to build cars close to the people actually buying them. The 3 Series effectively served as BMW’s passport, opening markets, shaping logistics routes, and helping the company build the distributed, ultra-flexible manufacturing ecosystem it thrives on today. It didn’t stop there. Every major new plant since Regensburg - Spartanburg, Leipzig, San Luis Potosí, and China’s BBA joint venture - launched their first production lines with a 3 Series. The model became a universal template, a training partner for new factories that needed a masterclass in flexibility. Sedans, Tourings, convertibles, M cars, petrol, hybrid, fully electric: the 3 Series has worn more hats than most model ranges see in a lifetime, often all on the same assembly line.
Today, the seventh generation rolls out of Munich, Shenyang, San Luis Potosí, and a fleet of regional plants in India, Thailand and Brazil. But the next chapter is already humming on the test benches. From late 2026, Munich will launch a fully electric 3 Series as part of the Neue Klasse push, followed shortly by production in China and Mexico. Even Dingolfing is preparing to welcome the 3 back home. Fifty years in, the 3 Series remains BMW’s north star - the car that defined the brand’s driving philosophy while engineering the factories that build its future. Not bad for a mid-size sedan that started life as the “experimental” follow-up to the 2002.
Take a look at the YouTube video that shows off driving the iconic 3 series with 50 years of history, which makes it the brand's true bread & butter model: 50 Years of Driving the BMW 3 Series POV. | BMW
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