Oh, thank you - I'd seen this listed as driving machine translation several decades ago and hadn't pursued it more, just assumed that was legit.
Reviewing on Wikipedia I see that:
"Bayerische Motoren Werke [...] This name is grammatically incorrect (in German, compound words must not contain spaces) ..." which is reassuring, given my own general bewilderment with German grammar.
It's actually "Bavarian Motor Works" which, coincidentally also comes out as BMW in English.