THE CURATED EDITION.
Reportage / Munich
BMW M has built its one-millionth vehicle, an M3 in Fire Orange III, at Plant Munich. The same factory will build the first fully electric M3, and from 2027 it will build nothing else but electric cars.
BMW M | ONE MILLION | MUNICH 2026
A milestone matters only when the object carrying it deserves the attention. This one does. The one-millionth vehicle from BMW M is an M3, finished in BMW Individual Fire Orange III, and it left the line at Plant Munich as a farewell and an announcement at once. The car celebrates five decades of combustion. The factory that built it is about to leave combustion behind.
Peter Weber, head of Plant Munich, handed the car to Franciscus van Meel, chief executive of BMW M GmbH, at an official ceremony in early October. The number covers more than fifty years of the division, and it arrives forty years after the first M3 went on sale. The current M3 generation has been built in Munich since 2020.
The combustion M3 that marks the million and the electric M3 that follows it will be born under the same roof.
Plant Munich will build the first fully electric BMW M3, the first high-performance model to use BMW M Neue Klasse technology. It will be the second Neue Klasse model assembled there, after the electric BMW i3. From 2027 the group’s main plant will build only fully electric vehicles.
The change has been made without stopping the line. BMW is investing about €650 million to convert the site, and a new body shop, a new assembly hall and new logistics areas now occupy roughly a third of it. A plant that has built cars for more than a century has been rebuilt around itself while it kept working.
BMW M has always argued that a road car can know the circuit without losing its everyday use. The electric M3 will test whether that argument survives a change of powertrain. By keeping both stories in one building, BMW has chosen not to treat the transition as a break.
Some milestones close a chapter. This one, painted orange, prefers to announce the next.
Details and further reading: BMW Group PressClub · One million BMW M cars
Instagram: @bmwm
GABRIEL SILVEIRADO, FOR WAYFARER.
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