I had been wondering about the stripes, and oddly, BMW is blind. Or I am. They call that middle stripe purple. Looks like a blue berry to me, anyway...from http://www.bmwblog.com/2009/04/13/history-bmw-m-logo-colors-explained comes this info:
The first Red stripe represented Texaco, the famous American oil retail brand, who had partnered with BMW during the early days of M racing. Blue represented BMW and Bavarian region. The purple was used to represent the partnership and to allow for a nice transition between the two colors, blending as some may call it.
Once the BMW/Texaco partnership ended, BMW had to buyout Texaco for the rights to the red.
For those of you that are in the imaging or graphics field, the color names and codes used in the stripes:
Pantone:
Blue — Pantone Process Blue
Purple — Pantone 268
Red — Pantone Warm Red