In the first year of BMW’s official entry into the Czech market, 439 Munich-brand cars were sold in our country. To date, over 77,310 cars with characteristic kidneys have been registered in the Czech Republic.
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November 1989 was undoubtedly a turning point for Czechoslovakia. It opened borders and the market, and so suddenly the Czech market (or then the Czechoslovak one) could also be entered by foreign entities. Car manufacturers were also active in this field, specifically BMW officially started importing cars to us in 1991. This year it is celebrating 30 years of operation on the Czech market.
It is BMW’s official arrival in the Czech Republic that illustrates what the car market at the time looked like. The start of the systematic import of BMW cars to the Czechoslovak market was started by several entities as early as 1990, at a time when many cars of the Munich brand had already begun importing them to us. At that time, however, it was primarily used cars, imported not only from West Germany, but also from other Western European countries.
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At that time, the then foreign trade company Tuzex, which did not even have a car showroom, was still officially providing “individual” imports. Instead of a real car showroom, there were only dispensing “sheds” in Čistovická street in Prague. However, the company Pragent, led by Ing. Ladislav Zajíc, who used his experience and contacts from his previous work in foreign trade. However, even this company did not have its own store. Thanks to Zajíc, however, the BMW 7 Series managed to get into the fleet of President Václav Havel.
The first year of the post-communist country was rapid, so systematic steps did not occur until 1991, when the situation was calming down. The carmakers, who saw the potential in the new potential market, had already noticed this, and so they began to quickly expand their sales network. BMW was quite agile in this respect, making 1991 the third most successful imported brand.
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In 1991, BMW sold 439 new cars in our territory, while only Fiat (569 units) and Opel (473) managed to sell more cars. For example, Mazda, Ford and Mercedes-Benz reported significantly fewer cars in our country at that time.
However, 1991 was actually only a year of return to Czechoslovakia for BMW. Already in the 1920s, BMW motorcycles were imported to our territory, later also cars, such as the small Dixi model or later sports cars BMW 327 and 328. Some of the manufacturer’s cars remained with us after the war, as “war trophies.”
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After 1948, however, BMW’s activities logically had to end for many decades, which was due not only to the communist coup, but also to the then post-war problems of the carmaker and subsequent reorientation to luxury and sports cars, which had little chance of success in the communist state. In the 1950s, however, the EMW 340 limousine, manufactured at the former BMW plant in Eisenach, East Germany, could appear in communist Czechoslovakia as an extensively modified pre-war BMW 326. In the relaxed 1960s, several pieces of the BMW 700 unexpectedly appeared in Czechoslovakia, with which, for example, the motorcycle racer František Šťastný rode for a short time.
From the 1970s until 1989, new BMW cars could be officially imported only through Tuzex, exclusively on special order, to currency-strong, or regime-prominent or deserving individuals. Karel Gott and a couple of car drivers who raced with them, among others, also drove individually imported BMW 2000 CS from us at that time.
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But back to the beginning of the nineties, when companies that are still connected with the domestic sale of cars of the Munich brand began to trade in BMW cars. In the period from 1990 to 1992, Miloš Vránek, Miloš Bychl or Jiří Jírovec began repairing and subsequently importing BMW cars, whose companies Renocar, Bychl and Invelt sell and service BMW models to this day. At that time, they had their own import contracts with the carmaker; officially, the BMW Group Czech Republic branch, which falls directly under the manufacturer’s wings, was not established until 2006. Imports and service have thus been directly protected by the manufacturer since then.
However, the time of the nineties was still a long way from the current operation of the brand on the Czech market. The first stores established by private entities, providing imports directly from the manufacturer, were modest, the quality and size of showrooms began to grow with the growth of sales. They began to grow in the long term in 1998, while the then growth was stopped by the economic crisis in 2009. In our country, 2,938 BMWs were registered, while a year earlier it was 3,137 cars.
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The current record comes from 2017, when 7,393 BMW cars were registered with us. Last year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, there were 4,909 aut. It is currently the second largest luxury brand in our country, after the competing Mercedes.
In total, over 77,000 new BMW cars have been registered in our country since 1991. In total, however, over 150,000 passenger cars with characteristic kidneys are registered on Czech brands, as BMW has long been the fourth most sought-after imported brand of used cars. To this must be added 30 thousand registered motorcycles of the brand.
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