Hugo Becker

The day started with a laugh as I watched She Who Must Be Obeyed place a load of dirty clothes in the washer and power the washer up. It ‘sings’ on power up; really, it…

One of the few things Germany did not have a shortage of at the end of World War II was rubble. There were over 400 million cubic meters of rubble on the streets of Germany…

On the southeast edge of Eisenach, Germany, there is a steep hill. On top of that hill sits a fortification, a castle. It is not one of those popular fairy tale castles like Neuschwanstein in…

In May of 1922 the restrictions on aircraft engine production, imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, was lifted. Possibly this serves as one of the reasons BMW’s secretive benefactor, Camillo Castiglioni, went to the trouble…

In 1916 you will not find a company known as BMW, hard as you might look. The first mention of BMW is in 1917, as the company that succeeded Rapp Motorenwerke, so how is it…

It was announced the other day that almost 500,000 VW and Audi TDI cars have been equipped with, ahem, inappropriate software. The software in question was included in the ECU code and allowed the cars…

With the new F48 X1 BMW of North America will launch an all-wheel drive vehicle based on a front wheel drive (FWD) platform. While that smacks of heresy to the fanboix, it is the way…

BMW, during its most recent Innovation Day, displayed a Hydrogen Fuel Cell version of its i8 sports car. The German word for hydrogen is wasserstoff, roughly translated ‘water stuff’. And the English word for water…

Nico DeMattia got the ball rolling with his list of ‘Five Best BMW Engines of All-Time’ and I thought I’d give an alternate view. The history of superior BMW engine designs originates at the very…

Baron BMW of Kansas City hosted the traveling roadshow known as ‘BMW Drive for Team USA’ recently and they brought along a number of vehicles to sample. Being a sucker for any and all drive…