It was originally designated as M 37 and was designed as a four-seat sports/recreation aircraft to compete in the 4th Challenge International de Tourisme that was held in the year 1934.
The M 37 prototype flew for the first time in spring 1934 and was powered by a single Hirth HM 8-U that yielded a power of 247 hp and drove a three-bladed propeller.
It was outperformed by many other contestants in the competition, however, its overall performance marked it as a popular choice for record flights. One very popular feature was its low fuel consumption rate, good handling and nice take-off and landing characteristics.
The first production version, the Bf.108 A (of which just 7 exemplars were manufactured) flew for the first time in 1934, after the challenge, and the Bf.108 B variant (which was the most produced one with more than 600 of them being manufactured by Messerschmitt alone) flew for the first time the next year, in 1935. The B variant was slightly larger and was powered by a single Argus As-10 C-3 engine which delivered 247 hp of power and drove a two-bladed propeller. It was given the nickname Taifun (German word for "Typhoon") by Elly Beinhorn (a popular German pilot of the time) as that's how he called his own aircraft, so the nickname was generally adopted.
It was also Willy Messerschmitt's personal airplane, among many other German high officers of the time.
There was a third variant, the Bf.108 C, of which just a single aircraft was completed (although some sources claim that it never went beyond the drawing board). It was powered by a Siemens-Halske Sh-14 radial engine which had a power of 125 hp. It was used only once to fly newsreels of the Winter Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Bavaria.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_108
2. https://www.valka.cz/Messerschmitt-Bf-108-t85448 (translated)
3. Wydawnictwo Militaria 149 - Messerschmitt Bf-108 Taifun
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