The BMW logo with the offset semicircles in blue, violet and red was first used in 1973 on the racing cars of BMW Motorsport GmbH, which had been established a year before. With the debut of the BMW M1 in 1978, the three coloured stripes followed, slanted to the right and leaning on the letter M. Even outside the motorsport scene, the stripes became a trademark with particularly high recognition value and identification power. The legendary BMW M1 was the only BMW M high-performance production vehicle to bear the historic motorsport emblem in addition to the logo with the three stripes.
In both logos, blue stands for BMW, while red symbolizes racing and violet the combination of the two. In the meantime, violet has given way to a dark blue and BMW Motorsport changed its name to BMW M in 1993, but nothing has altered the symbolism of the brand and logo. In its 50th year of existence, the company is more successful than ever as the world market leader in the performance and high-performance automotive segment.