UNLIKE its enviable position today, BMW was in difficulties at the end of the Second World War.
With its Munich factory bombed out and the famous Eisenach plant lost to East Germany, things were looking tough.
But the company soldiered on and quickly started to produce some very powerful and quite expensive offerings.
But they got it rather wrong in the all-important middle bit because there was nothing further down the range except the innovative little Isetta bubble car.
And it was this polarisation of bank manager or bubble buyer that forced the company to near bankruptcy in 1959.
Things eventually got better but one of the most interesting attempts to fuel the needs of the middle ground buyer was the BMW 600 which was essentially a stretched Isetta bubble car.
You have to remember that the Isetta was the model that was really making money for the company so it made sense that a larger version should build on its strengths.
The 600, produced from 1957-59 was a four-seater retaining the clever front opening door of the Isetta, with one side door for rear seat passengers.
It catered for Isetta customers who wanted to move up to something bigger, and represented a kind of half-way house between saloon and bubble.
But it was one of those cars that sat in the uncomfortable ground between two types.
The trendy crossover sector of today and niche marketing had not been heard of and as a result the 600 was not the raceaway success it was planned to be.
Only 34,813 were produced and its failure to net more sales was partially down to the fact that it was nearly as expensive as the famous VW Beetle.
But what it did was to accelerate the design process which led to its more successful successor the conventionally styled and neat little BMW 700.
The 600 was powered by the 582cc flat twin engine from the R67 motorcycle delivering 19.5 horsepower.
The engine was mounted behind the rear wheels and a four-speed manual gearbox was standard. There was even a semi-automatic transmission for those who desired it.
I always felt a bit sorry for the 600 which was almost apologetic for its links with the Isetta. It was never actually marketed on a large scale in the UK but was available to special order in left-hand-drive only form.
But time has been the friend of the 600 as there are still quite a few around. If it achieved anything, it pointed the way forward for BMW to develop successful smaller cars like the BMW 1 Series of today.