What is the reason behind using "F" for series nomenclature?

[DHoang]

Anyone know why BMW decided to scrap the "E" in favor of "F" in the model nomenclature?

On the same lines, anyone know how the "E" came to exist? I suppose it all started with the E21, right? Damn, as an owner of one, I should know this. :mad:

[1985mb]

This was mentioned in Roundel magazine. I forget what it was, but "E" stands for a German word meaning generation or platform. F stands for nothing more than the letter after E, and E-prefixed platform codes were considered to have "run out" after E9x, hence the next iteration was F01/02.

[mrbelk]

I suspect that when BMW was setting up their first ERP system to manage their production network, someone put a limitation on the length of the internal codes used to identify models. This code is probably 3 characters long and is a letter + 2 numbers. When they got up to E99, they had no choice but to go into Fxx since the pain of modifying the system to support E1xx was greater than the "pain" of abandoning the "E" prefix (which supposedly stands for "Entwicklung" or something similar) for a new prefix that doesn't have any historical significance.

Someone way back was probably just shortsighted as to how many different model "studies" would be done and limited the width of that field.

-MrB