History of BMW motorcycles

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

BMW began as a company that made aircraft engines, starting in 1917, and in 1921 it began making engines for other firms. BMW’s own motorcycles, sold under the BMW Motorrad name, started in 1923 with the R 32, a smooth flat-twin (boxer-twin) engine motorcycle. This design, with a long-running shaft-drive, helped define BMW motorcycles for decades.

After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles limited aircraft production, so BMW shifted to small engines for industry and other products. In 1922 BMW merged with Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFw), and the Helios bike from BFw helped spark BMW’s motorcycle line. The R 32, released in 1923, had a 486 cc flat-twin engine and could reach about 95–100 km/h. Its design also featured a reliable recirculating oil system and a shaft drive, a combination BMW kept until the 1990s.

BMW’s early sporting and single‑cylinder bikes followed. The R 37 (1925–1926) was BMW’s first sport model, based on the R 32. The first single-cylinder BMW was the R 39 (1925), followed by the smaller R 2 (1931), then the 400 cc R 4 (1932) and 300 cc R 3 (1936). The R 11 (1930) was BMW’s first big touring bike in the 750 cc class with a strong pressed-steel frame. In the mid‑1930s, the R 12 and R 17 introduced hydraulically damped front forks. In 1937 Ernst Henne set a land-speed record on a BMW 500 Kompressor, a high-performance racing bike.

One famous prewar model was the R 71, a large 746 cc flat‑twin that was highly engineered but expensive to build. Only a few thousand were made, and later versions inspired bikes in the Soviet Union, including the Dnepr and IMZ-Ural.

During World War II, BMW’s motorcycles served the German military. The R 75 proved tough in harsh desert conditions thanks to its cooling and shaft drive. After the war, BMW’s Eisenach plant in East Germany became EMW, and the West German BMW had to restart almost from scratch in Munich.

In Western Germany, BMW’s postwar motorcycle program began with the R 24 in 1948, which was based on the prewar R 23 but used a new 247 cc single-cylinder engine. Demand grew quickly through 1949–1950. The company resumed flat-twin production with the R 51/2, then the R 51/3 and R 67 in the early 1950s. The sporty R 68 arrived in 1952. By the mid‑1950s, BMW produced more than 30,000 motorcycles in a good year, but sales fell sharply later in the decade as competition increased.

BMW introduced new features in the mid‑1950s, including the Earles forks and enclosed drives on models like the R 50, R 60, and the sporty R 69. The 1959 long-distance rider John Penton set a record riding a BMW from New York to Los Angeles. By the late 1950s and 1960s, BMW faced financial trouble and considered mergers, but instead restructured and continued to innovate.

The 1960s ended the era of the sidecar‑friendly bike. The last shaft-driven single, the R 27, ended in 1967. In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, BMW redesigned its line with the /5 models (1969) and then the /6 and /7 ranges (1970s), bringing modern features like a redesigned engine, electric starter, and improved suspension.

The 1980s brought a major shift to water-cooled engines with the K series. The 1983 K 100 was BMW’s first water-cooled inline‑four and the first with fuel injection. It also introduced ABS on a BMW motorcycle in 1988 and four-valve heads on the K 100 RS in 1989. The R‑series also evolved, moving from air‑cooled to oil‑cooled designs and adopting new suspension systems like Telelever in the 1990s.

In the 1990s and 2000s, BMW expanded its range with the R 1100 family (airhead to oilhead transition) and later the larger K and F/G series. The R 1200 C entered the cruiser market in 1997, and BMW introduced a broad line of sport, tour, and adventure bikes. The company also collaborated on other models, including cross‑brand work and upgrades to the G and F lines.

In 2007 BMW bought Husqvarna Motorcycles, and later sold it in 2013. BMW continued to push performance with high‑tech bikes like the S 1000 RR, introduced in 2009 for superbike competition, and the ongoing development of powerful, efficient, and well‑balanced motorcycles.

Today, BMW motorcycles blend performance, innovation, and engineering rigor. They are known for flat-twin engines, shaft drive, advanced chassis ideas, and a wide range of bikes from sport to touring to adventure, all rooted in a long history of pushing engineering forward.