BMW of North America Takes Green Flag to Start 50th Anniversary at Daytona; BMW M Endurance Challenge Begins 2025 IMSA Season.

Woodcliff Lake, N.J. – Jan. 23, 2025 – The Ultimate Driving Machine® is alive and well in 2025 as BMW of North America celebrates the company’s 50^th anniversary. Continuing its motorsport legacy, the year begins at Daytona International Speedway and the Rolex 24 At Daytona weekend.

The BMW M Endurance Challenge for the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge will start the weekend off on Friday before the 63^rd annual twice-around-the-clock endurance race enters into the record books.

Bobby Rahal, BMW M Team RLL team principal, and only one of two men who has won the Rolex 24 At Daytona as a driver (1981), team owner (2019, 2020), and father (Graham, 2011) will serve as the race’s Grand Marshall. Dirk Häcker, Head of Development BMW M GmbH, will be in the flag stand to wave the green flag to start the four-hour race. Every current M vehicle sold today was developed under his watch.

The 2025 BMW M Endurance Challenge, the first Michelin Pilot Challenge event of the year, will feature four BMW M4 GT4 racing cars on the entry list – three of them the new-for-2025 BMW M4 GT4 EVO – among three BMW Customer Racing teams. Turner Motorsport, the 2024 BMW Sport Trophy Team champions, will line up two of the new EVOs, the No. 95 car for Francis Selldorf and Dillon Machavern, and the No. 96 for Vincent Barletta, Matt Dalton, and Patrick Gallagher. Auto Technic Racing will enter the third EVO, the No. 27 for Roland Krainz, Austin Krainz, and Stephen McAleer. Sean McAlister and Jeff Westphal will drive the No. 39 CarBahn with Peregrine Racing BMW M4.

A 2025 BMW M5 will pace the event as the race’s official Safety Car.

During last weekend’s Roar Before the Rolex 24 test, the VP Sports Car Challenge held its first two rounds. Saturday’s 45-minute sprint saw Patrick Wilmot race the No. 12 Swish Motorsports BMW M4 GT4 to a third place finish in the GSX class. The new-for-2025 GTDX class saw Samantha Tan finish fifth in her No. 38 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3. Vincent Barletta, driving the No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3, finished sixth. Sunday’s sprint was held under decidedly different conditions, the Chamber of Commerce seemingly past due on its favorable Florida weather payment. Tan and Barletta equaled their Saturday efforts in the GTDX class while Wilmot finished seventh, the top-finishing BMW in the GSX class.

BMW Group in the United States

BMW of North America, LLC was established 50 years ago to support the sales, marketing and distribution of BMW automobiles and motorcycles in the U.S. In 1993 BMW Group Financial Services NA, LLC was founded, and one year later BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC began assembling vehicles in South Carolina. In 2002 and 2003, BMW Group established MINI USA, and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars NA, LLC relaunching two iconic brands and rounding out its product portfolio.

Today, the BMW Group has a nationwide corporate footprint in the U.S. which consists of nearly 30 locations in 12 different states. Beyond the National Sales Company and Financial Services headquarters in Woodcliff Lake, NJ, its manufacturing plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and numerous other operational facilities, BMW Group in the U.S. also includes Designworks, a strategic design consultancy in Santa Monica, CA, BMW Group Technology Office USA, a technology research and development center in Silicon Valley, and BMW i Ventures, a venture capital fund, also in Silicon Valley.

BMW Group Plant Spartanburg is the largest single BMW production facility in the world, and the global center of competence for BMW Sports Activity Vehicles including the X3, X4, X5, X6, X7, and XM. The plant assembles more than 1,500 vehicles each day, and up to 450,000 annually. Since 1994, Plant Spartanburg has assembled nearly 7 million BMW vehicles in the U.S.

The BMW Group sales organization in the U.S. is represented through a network of 350 BMW retailers, 147 BMW motorcycle retailers, 104 MINI passenger car dealers, and 38 Rolls-Royce Motor Car dealers. The company’s activities provide and support over 120,000 jobs across the U.S. and contribute more than 43.3 billion to the U.S. economy annually.

Journalist note: Information about BMW Group and its products in the USA is available to journalists on-line  at www.bmwusanews.com, www.miniusanews.com and www.press.bmwna.com.