BMW? No, EMW – a postwar, East German-built pre-war BMW 327. Got that?

1954 EMW 327/3, built by East Germany’s Eisenacher Motorenwerk. Photos by author.

It may look like a pre-war BMW 327, but it isn’t. It even sounds like a BMW 327, but it isn’t. And although it even shares many of the same body panels and other mechanical bits of a BMW 327, it is not a BMW 327.

It’s an EMW, built by Eisenacher Motorenwerk. More specifically, it’s a 1954 EMW 327/3.

Yes, you read that correctly, it was built in 1954, some nine years after World War II ended, and during the period when Germany was split in two. This EMW was built on the East side of the county, which was then known as East Germany.

And it’s the only known example residing in the United States.

A while back I had the honor of photographing this stunning piece of automotive history. I traveled to Stuart, Florida, where this German gem is kept by its owners Rachelle and Henry Grady, to photograph it for an upcoming feature by Mark McCourt that will appear in the March 2015 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car magazine, along with the fascinating history on both this car and the company who built it.

It took Mark an extensive amount of research to unearth the facts behind the EMW company and its cars, but for now we’ll tease you with these photos. The car you see here was built in Dresden, Germany –  production number 144 of only 152 coupes made – then restored in the Netherlands at the Bart Holland restoration company. After its restoration was completed in 2006, it then found its way to the U.S. where it ended up being sold at auction on two different occasions.

You can read all about this fascinating, beautifully shaped and finely crafted automobile in the pages of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car #115, and you can start making plans to see it in the metal at the 2015 Amelia Island Concours, to be held on Sunday, March 15th, where it will part of the very special BMW 328 exhibit.