External Designations
External designations located on the trunk or tailgate are the model names. Customers and the public identify BMW products by these names.
The external designations are created by the sales and marketing department to position each model in a certain target segment of the vehicle sales market.
The trunk badges consist of a combination of numbers and letters. The badge shown above is typical of 3, 5, and 7 series vehicles. The first digit represents the series identification. The last two digits mark the engine displacement. Occasionally there are examples where the actual engine displacement does not match the designation. This is a marketing decision to continue familiar name recognition from one version to the next and to create a spacing between models. Examples are:
- 1996-1999 318ti with a 1.9 liter engine
- 1996-2001 740i with a 4.4 liter engine
- All 323i are equipped with a 2.5 liter engine.
There is another series of badges that begin with a letter followed by a single digit. These are found on the Z3 roadster and coupes, X5 SAV, Z8 roadster and Motorsport versions of series cars.
Additional letters sometime follow the badge numbers and are used to further identify each model. Examples include:
- C -Coupe
- i -Fuel Injected
- x -all-wheel drive
- L -long wheel base
- s -sport
- ti -touring internationale