10 Times Rival Brands Borrowed BMW V8s And Hoped Nobody Would Notice

BMW builds engines so good that rival manufacturers have been quietly borrowing them for decades. While the brand’s silky inline-six gets most of the glory, it’s the V8 lineup that tells an equally compelling story — one that stretches back to the early 1950s, when BMW released its OHV V8 inspired in part by designs like the Oldsmobile Rocket 88. Today, BMW V8s power everything from the M5 to the XM — but the reach of these engines extends well beyond Munich’s own showrooms.