M Stripe Colors

[Crickett]

I have—like many of you, I assume—often wondered about the history of BMW M, including their iconic three-stripe M logo. My past Googling had never turned up any significant results outside of this post on BMW Blog from 2009:

History: BMW ///M logo colors explained

Their explanation is logical enough, and even includes the exact colors for the stripes in Pantone, Glasurit paint, RGB, and hex values.

What bugged me a little, though, was that the middle stripe on most newer Ms that I had seen (in photos only, sadly) looked far more dark blue than purple.

Old:




New:




I figured it was simply due to lighting or other photographic anomalies. But I had read a few passing references around the Internet (including here) to “new” vs “old” M colors. So I decided to ask the source: BMW USA Customer Relations.

BMW USA,

I am looking for information regarding BMW M’s stripe colors. An often-cited blog post from 2009 (http://www.bmwblog.com/2009/04/13/hi...ained/)​ provides a history and the exact hues of the red, purple, and blue stripes. However, to my eyes it appears that the middle stripe on more recent M vehicles is much closer to a dark blue than the cited purple. Did BMW M change their “official” colors sometime in the past few years?

Respectfully,

Travis Clark
ZHP Driver, BMW Enthusiast

I got an immediate auto-reply that my message was received, and then a reply four days later from a customer relations rep informing me that she was researching my question.

Today, I got BMW’s official answer:

Dear Mr. Clark:

Thank you for your patience while I researched your inquiry.

The BMW M logo is comprised of a silver letter M preceded by three characteristic diagonal stripes. The light blue stripe symbolizes BMW AG, the red stripe symbolizes BMW Motorsport, and the dark blue stripe in the middle – originally violet – represents the connection between BMW and Motorsport. Tracing back to the 1972 roots of BMW M, the logo’s letter ”M“ stands for “motorsports.” The distinctive M logo first appeared on the legendary BMW M1 in 1978 and was created by Giorgio Giugiaro, the designer of that sensational sports car. BMW M always stands for the thrill of high-performance automotive technology and outstanding quality.

The BMW Customer Relations and Services Department is available Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., ET. You can reach us at 1-800-831-1117.

Sincerely,

Melissa Knueven
Customer Relations and Services
Representative

4.8 SECONDS TO THE TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN.
The first-ever BMW 2 Series knows no boundaries.

www.bmwusa.com

Not quite as detailed an answer as I had hoped, but it does confirm that the middle M stripe is currently dark blue, no longer violet. Also absent in their reply (though, to be fair, I didn’t explicitly ask about it) is whether the Motorsport-representing red came from M’s early affiliation with Texaco or Castrol (we had a little discussion about that here).

UPDATE

I also decided to reach out to the author of that BMW Blog post to get his background on it; my query and his response below:

​Mr. Boeriu,

Your 2009 article “History: BMW ///M logo colors explained” (http://www.bmwblog.com/2009/04/13/hi...ors-explained/) was quite intriguing but, as many of the article’s commenters noted, it raised some questions about the information’s source. Many people are under the impression that the Motorsport red was from BMW’s racing partnership with Castrol, rather than Texaco.



Could you share the source of the information in that article?

Very respectfully,

Travis Clark
ZHP Driver, BMW Enthusiast

Thanks Travis. This is a controversial topic and we still didn't get an official answer. But what you're saying makes sense also.

[Avetiso]

Interesting. I like the Violet more, though.

[fredo]

Good info. Travis.

[Pip]

Interesting. I like the Violet more, though.

That's why my rewrap has violet

Either way I think it's cool they actually emailed a response within a few days.

[johnrando]

Good to know, thanks

sent from a galaxy

[brettbimmer]

Thanks for that Travis. Appreciate your continued research.

Sent from my pineapple under the sea.

[Lanister]

Learning something new every day

Thanks Travis!

[TigerTater]

Awesome info man. Thank you


Sent from my iPhone 13

[JupiterBMW]

Good deal on the thread... I too looked into this a while back as I was curious. My ZHP had purple in a lot of the logos, but our X3 had all dark blue in the M stripes. I prefer the newer look with the dark blue. To me, the purple is just too 80s...

But anyway, very cool thread, nice of you to pass on the info.

[Crickett]

Updated OP with more info.