For reasons that still remain unclear, BMW chose to drop its hugely successful ‘The Ultimate Driving Machine’ tagline and replace it with the ‘JOY’ campaign when it launched the Z4 roadster back in 2008.

In fairness, BMW never formally stated that it was completely abandoning the tagline, which can be found in BMW ads dating back more than three decades.

However, all we’ve seen from the automaker in the past three years or so have been ads centering on the joy of driving one of its cars.

Now BMW of North America has revived those famous four words for its newest series of ads, the first of which aired over the weekend.  

The automaker has teamed up with ad agency Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners for the new campaign after dropping GSD&M, the maker of the JOY series, reports The New York Times. Oh, and in case you’re wondering who originally came up with The Ultimate Driving Machine, that honor goes to Martin Puris, who came up with it back in 1975 when he was the chief executive of Ammirati & Puris.

The latest ads, which coincide with news that BMW has claimed the U.S. luxury car sales crown and is on the verge of launching 14 new or updated models this year, purport that BMW is not a maker of sports cars, SUVs, hybrids, or luxury sedans but rather a manufacturer of the ultimate in driving pleasure.

Whether you agree with the statement or not is up to you, but there’s no denying that the tagline has been a roaring success over the years and it looks like it will continue to do so into the future as well.