The History of BMW Motorcycles


BMW, the German company started its ventures just before the onset of World War 1 as a prime manufacturer of the aircraft engines. Soon after the ban sanctioned by Treaty of Versailles, the company turned its interests towards manufacturing office furniture, toolboxes, air brakes and agricultural machinery.


BMW’s chief designer took lead and interest and developed futuristic motorcycles by copying modern Boxer Engine fore-and-aft M2B15, which was inspired by Douglas and later he went for Flat Twin cylinder engine. The M2B15 engine became popular and BMW used it extensively in its Helios range of motorcycles.


Flink -a 2-stroke motorcycle was also produced by the company during this time. Then came R32 fleet of motorcycles having 486 cc engine with 8.5 hp. The motorcycle had the speed of 95–100 km/h. It became a successful and quite an established brand by itself. And the R32 engine became the masterpiece of all the upcoming and new BMW motorcycles which meant to be produced in future.


The hallmark of all BMW motorcycle engines was shaft drives, and this was the trend that continued to be in vogue till 1994, when the company came up with F650.


The motorcycle company later in 2006 introduced a much more powerful F800 series of engines and motorcycles, where uniquely built chain drive system and belt drive system were successfully incorporated.

In order to get the benefits of overhead cams, without changing the motorcycle’s length and breadth, a system was successfully incorporated in the motorcycles. R 1100 RS oil head is the living example of such motorcycles.


Major use of BMW motorcycles could be seen for military purposes during the time of World War II. BMW versions Zündapp KS750 performed awesomely well in the unfavorable environmental conditions of North African deserts.


However, the genre of BMW cycles which had vertical, chain drive and V-twin engines did not performed at the optimum levels in the harsh desert conditions.

BMW manufactured a range of motorcycles during good times and the bad times. Some examples of the motorcycles manufactured under BMW brand includes, Tank roundel with Serif typeface,

BMW R60/2 with 6.5 US gallon (26 liter, BMW K 100 RS, BMW K 1100 RS, BMW R 1150 RT and many more.


BMW introduced many models during the 1993 to 1995. These includes the R Series (air heads) - R 65 GS, R 80 GS etc; R Series (oil heads) - R 850 R/GS/C, R 1100 R/RS/RT/GS/S, R 1150 etc.; F Series - F 650 Funduro, F 650 ST Strada; K Series - K1, K 100, K 100 RS, K 100 RT etc. With many other models taking the pace, BMW has registered its name amongst the world class motorcycles.