A stark colour change: the BMW M emblem turns black

Blue, Dark Blue and Red – these are the colors of BMW M. The M logo bears these colors, as is the case with the current BMW Motorsport logo, which is only available this year and is also available at an additional cost because BMW M is celebrating its fiftieth birthday celebration. And also some welds, for example on the handy M steering wheel, are performed in blue, dark blue and red. This is now a thing of the past with the new M models: plain black replaces the colored variety.

Already on iX M60

It was preceded by the BMW iX M60 – the black emblem with a bronze frame already decorated on the back. Timo Resch, Head of Sales and Marketing for BMW M, has confirmed that all new M models will feature the uncolored logo. Next is XM. Existing series like M4 are allowed to keep the colorful logo popular with fans. Generations of new models and new platforms always get the black emblem, which means that in a few years there will only be this emblem. Resch thinks the bold logo is great, but doesn’t give a timeline for its use. He asserts that the three previous M colors will continue to be an important brand identifier – only in a different place.

BMW and Texaco as original

The original color design could already be seen in 1973 at the racing premiere of the BMW 3.0 CSL, which has grown into an icon under the Patrol Car name. The colors were chosen by BMW’s interior designer at the time, Wolfgang Seehaus. According to his own statements, BMW exterior designer Manfred Rehn also took part in the selection, but there is no evidence for this. Jochen Nierbach, race director and part managing director of BMW Motorsport GmbH at the time, explained that Seehaus chose the colors as well because they were easy to distinguish on the black and white photos. Originally, the M colors were blue, violet and red. Blue stands for the BMW brand and red should come from the logo of the former mineral oil company Texaco, which has been owned by Chevron since 2001. In the 1970s, BMW negotiated a motorsports sponsorship partnership with Texaco. When negotiations failed, the Bavarians had already incorporated Texaco red into the M logo. Violet is simply a mixture of BMW blue and Texaco red – at one point violet became the dark blue color that is still in force today. The M logo, designed by Italian design studio Italdesign under the direction of Giorgio Giugiaro for BMW, was added only years later – with the first car developed by M. This was the now legendary M1 from 1978.

The new BMW logo (yet) has not appeared on cars

As early as 2020, BMW caused a stir with the logo color change: the Bavarians introduced their new company logo. The logo, drawn largely without a colored background, is depicted on the front cover of the i4 Electric Study. It clearly does not belong to this place: BMW hastened to announce that this logo will be used only for communication purposes, and the cars will retain the classic logo. Rumor has it that the decision to leave the cars with their old logo was made on the top of the BMW.

conclusion

Company logos are a distinct part of every brand – but from time to time designers adapt these logos to the ever-changing taste of the time. Almost all car manufacturers change their logos every few years – mostly subtly. On the other hand, BMW M is now changing its logo very clearly: the blue, dark blue and red colors disappear, the three diagonal bars and the letter M are covered in plain black, and the only color change is bronze -colored logo frame. After all: BMW’s performance division wants to continue using the three M colors in the design of its cars.