BMW 340

BMW 340

BMW

MarqueBMW
Production1949–1955 / 21,250 built
Engine1971 cc OHV M78 straight-6

The BMW 340 is one of 299 BMW models in the MotorJury library, the catalogue that sets out to hold every car ever made — production, prototype and concept alike. The record places its introduction in 1949. The photography on this page is hotlinked from Wikimedia Commons under an open licence, with the photographer credited on every frame.

The era it was born into

To read the BMW 340 properly it helps to place it in its decade. The 1940s were a decade split in two by war — civilian production stopped almost everywhere, and the cars that followed 1945 carried pre-war engineering into a world desperate for transport. Any car launched into that world was shaped by it — by what materials, engineering and regulation allowed, and by what buyers of the day demanded. Its direct contemporaries in this catalogue, introduced within three years of it, include the Chevrolet Chevrolet Bel Air, the Citroën Citroën 2CV, the Porsche Porsche 356 — the cars a buyer of the period would actually have cross-shopped.

The numbers, read closely

On paper, the BMW 340 reads like this: the record lists its engine as 1971 cc OHV M78 straight-6; kerb weight is recorded at 1200 kg / (Measurements approximate); drive goes through 4-speed manual; the layout is FR layout. Every figure above is a manufacturer specification carried by the Wikipedia infobox or the open Wikidata record for this model — nothing on this page is estimated, and where a source is silent the row simply does not appear.

Its place in the BMW story

Within BMW's own catalogue the BMW 340 sits alongside the BMW 116, the BMW 269, the BMW 3 Series, the BMW 3 Series. The record names the BMW 326 as its predecessor, anchoring one end of its lineage. Assembly is recorded at Soviet occupation zone in Germany and East Germany: Eisenach.

How this catalogue works

This library is generated, verified and rebuilt from the open record on every deploy. The catalogue skeleton comes from Wikidata, specifications from Wikipedia's infoboxes under CC BY-SA, photography from Wikimedia Commons under each file's own licence, and the ownership data from United States federal safety records. Nothing is written by hand and nothing is invented: every fact on this page traces to a public source, and every page is rebuilt nightly as those sources improve. Errors in the source record will appear here too — and disappear the night the source is corrected.

Why concepts and prototypes are in the library

Most car databases stop at series production. This one deliberately does not, because concept cars, racing specials and cancelled prototypes are where the industry thinks out loud — the ideas tested in public years before they reach a showroom. Holding them beside the production cars they inspired makes the lineage legible: nearly every landmark road car in this library has a concept ancestor somewhere in the catalogue, and the connections run through the era links on every page.

From catalogue to ownership

What this page cannot yet tell you is what the BMW 340 costs to live with — that is a different dataset. MotorJury's ownership verdicts are computed from federal complaint and recall records plus EPA economy data, published per model year as the nightly ingest reaches each car. If this model was sold in the United States, its years will surface in the ownership database; browse it live or price any car yourself with the true-cost calculator.

Specifications

Transmission4-speed manual
LayoutFR layout
Body style4-door saloon / 5-door estate
Kerb weight1200 kg / (Measurements approximate)
Wheelbase2870 mm
Length4,600 mm
AssemblySoviet occupation zone in Germany and East Germany: Eisenach
PredecessorBMW 326
Catalogue IDQ389480

Specifications come from the Wikipedia infobox for this model (CC BY-SA) and the open Wikidata record, and are shown only where a source actually carries them — nothing here is estimated. Figures are manufacturer specifications, not measured results.

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What it costs to run

Ownership verdicts are computed from NHTSA complaint and recall records plus EPA economy data, re-priced for your country. Verdicts are published per model year as the data is ingested — browse them live, or open the true-cost calculator to price any year yourself.

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