BMW 340 - Production and Commercialisation

Production and Commercialisation

In the 1930s the 326 had been seen as a compact executive model, but by 1948 steel was in short supply. European cars had shrunk along with the disposal incomes of consumers. At a time when Mercedes Benz automobile production was almost entirely restricted to four-cylinder Mercedes Benz 170 models, the larger six-cylinder BMW 340 found itself with a design and specifications that qualified it for a more elevated market place status.

Volume auto producers depended on a network of specialist suppliers for components and subassemblies: 340 production highlighted new challenges arising from the increasingly apparent political division of Germany. In June 1948 the Hesse based Bank deutscher Länder launched the Deutsche Mark and the authorities in the Soviet occupation zone facing a sudden and unwelcome currency crisis, were forced to introduce the Ostmark. Prior to 1990, mutual convertibility was not a feature of the relationship between eastern and western Marks, and this, together with the development of physical and political barriers between east and west, left the Eisenach plant cut off from key suppliers now located in western Germany. The firm was obliged to switch suppliers or to manufacture components in house, often dependent on detailed instructions provided by former suppliers of 326 components. Where instructions or component supplies were delayed, production came to a halt. Difficulties over component supply led understandably to problems involving quality defects.

Despite these quality issues, 340s were sold in major central European export markets and west of the iron curtain, especially in the western zones of Germany. Customers tended to look to BMW in Munich to rectify manufacturing defects when these showed up in the Eisenach models. The matter became increasingly a thorn in the side of the Munich firm who in the 1940s had no automobile manufacturing facility of their own up and running, and who were in no position to influence Eisenach product quality. Many 340s were also sent to the Soviet Union, where the survivors among them are well regarded by enthusiasts.

The 340 continued to find itself at the centre of a complex interplay between political, legal and commercial disputes. In November 1950 a judgement of the state court at Düsseldorf threatened to imperil the Eisenach enterprise's access to much prized western convertible currency if the plant continued to sell the 340 as a BMW. It appears that after July 1952 no 340s were sold as BMWs, at least in western markets. The BMW 340 turned up badged as the EMW 340, the familiar blue-white roundel badge replaced with a similarly shaped red-white one. (The B in BMW stood for Bayerische/Bavarian: the E in EMW stood for Eisenacher.) In eastern Germany and Poland, and several of the smaller other Soviet controlled brother-states, the cars continued for some time to be sold as BMWs, possibly in order to use up existing stocks of BMW badges and wheel trims.

The plant which in 1945 had come under the control of the Russians fell progressively under the control of the new east German state during the ensuing ten years. In 1953 the business was renamed VEB Automobilwerk Eisenach. The government was mindful of the need to avoid being seen to fall behind western Germany which was now evolving into an aggressively consumerist phase. For Berlin, quantity of automobile production became the priority, and small two-stroke-engined cars could be produced in greater numbers than large four-stroke six-cylinder sedans. The last 340 was probably built in 1953, though its coupé sibling continued to be offered for a further two years.