It's a nickname that only engineers could have come up with. Nocken-Paul (translated as "camshaft Paul") has been the handle for BMW engine king Paul Rosche for over 40 years. Speaking to european car recently in Munich, the man whose fingerprints can be found on almost all of BMW's high-performance engines explained where it came from.
It was the late 1950s, and a young Rosche, fresh from university, was working for BMW engine development under the late Alex von Falkenhausen. "When I started, I really didn't know anything about engines, but I guess I wasn't that bad at math. One day, Falkenhausen came to me and asked if I felt able to calculate cams. I had no idea, but I said yes. Afterwards I drove into town on my motorbike and bought a book on camshaft calculation."
That must have been a very good book, because in his 42 years with the company (he retired in 1999) Paul Rosche became one of Europe's most respected figures in engine design. His work was at the core of BMW Motorsport GmbH, but the foundations were being laid long before the company was formed in 1972.
Life at BMW was pretty tough in the post-war years. When Rosche joined the company there were only six people on von Falkenhausen's engine team, responsible for cars, motorbikes and motorsport. With the 500 (known as the Baroque angel) powered by an eight-cylinder and the 600cc flat twin "boxer" in the back of the Isetta bubble-car, BMW lacked a mid-sized model series. "At that time we were developing a new engine almost every year," he said. But financial restrictions meant that none made it into production.
Rosche is an engineer of the old school-when engine engineering was the domain of the mechanical engineer...when gut feeling played a central role...when engine mapping meant a floor plan of the design office. He recalls that, in those early days, he learned an enormous amount by listening to those around him, in particular von Falkenhausen, who died in 1988, and for whom he retains a deep and lasting admiration.
"These days," he reflected, "when a young engineer comes from college you've got to discuss endlessly with him. I ask them if they are trying to re-invent the four-stroke petrol engine all over again." He breaks into a good-natured, "tobacco-assisted" laugh, which I hear a lot of during our chat-especially during tales of exploding engines (of which there are many).
The defining point for the young Rosche and BMW came with the famous M10 engine, a 1500 that could be expanded to 2.0 liters. It first appeared in 1961 in the BMW 1500 mid-sized sedan, and in its various racing formats it put BMW at the top in touring car racing and Formula One, and eventually went on to power the first M3 road car over a quarter of a century later. Current engines run 91mm bore spacing; the M10 led to the big-block six which was last used in the 535i and 735i.
The birth of the M10 also marked the start of BMW's motorsport activities and set Rosche on a high-performance path. Once again it was von Falkenhausen who laid down the challenge. "He told me he needed a 40/80 camshaft," he recalled. "And there I stood outside his door wondering what on earth a 40/80 camshaft was. It means the inlet opens 40 degrees before top dead center and closes 80 degrees after, but it took me half a day to grasp that."
The results of his rapidly acquired sporting camshaft experience soon lead to victory in the European Touring Car Championship under the bonnet of the 1800 TISA (Turismo Internationale SonderAusfrung), the first of a whole heap of winning sports sedans to be powered by the ubiquitous M10. The next target was Formula 2.