BMW 3 Series
BMW's low-range luxury car series
The BMW 3 series is a line of compact executive cars manufactured by the German automaker BMW since May 1975. It is the successor to the 02 series and has been produced in eight generations.
The first generation of the 3 Series was only available as a 2-door saloon; the model range expanded to include a range of body styles - a 4-door saloon, 2-door convertible, 2-door coupé, 5-door estate, 5-door liftback ("Gran Turismo"; discontinued in 2019) and 3-door hatchback (named "Compact"). Since 2004, the Compact has been spun off and became the 1 Series. In 2013, both the coupé and convertible models have been marketed as the 4 Series. All three of these styles are no longer included in the 3 Series.
The 3 Series is BMW's best-selling model line, accounting for around 30% of the BMW brand's annual total car sales, and has won numerous awards throughout its history. The M version of the 3 series, M3, debuted with the second generation 3 Series (E30 M3) in 1986.
First generation (E21; 1975)
The E21 was launched in 1975 and replaced the 02 Series, borrowing the naming convention first introduced with the first generation E12 5 Series. The body style was designed by Paul Bracq and was initially available as a 2-door saloon (also described as coupé), with a convertible version made available through collaboration with Karosserie Baur.
“BMW 3 Series” enters the record as bMW's low-range luxury car series. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Series, BMW's and low-range can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q466066. The Library of Congress control number is sh2001004274. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1975, 2019, 2004 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “BMW 3 Series” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.