BMW Motorcycles – A Brief History
And 'The Treaty of Versailles that changed the face of a BMW. Until the end of World War 1, BMW is a manufacturer of aircraft engines. Its famous blue and white circular badge, which is said to represent aircraft propellers in motion, is a thing of the past. The fact that the logo comes from the colors of the flag of Bavaria, and is used for 12 years before BMW began to build vliegtuigenjins, did nothing to intervene in the popularmyth.
When the German Air Force was dissolved and banned after the war, BMW had its attention elsewhere to put bread on the table. After a brief flirtation with the manufacturer of agricultural machinery and even office furniture, began building motorcycles. At that time, the lead designer was a man named Max curls, who was responsible for the famous Boxer engines, the first on a Douglas design British based.
R32 was born in 1923, was to basis of future Boxer BMW disc. This motorcycle used the shaft drive system on all BMW motorcycles operated until 1994.
BMW motorcycles are to prove invaluable in North Africa during World War II a chain is not blocked with sand, were so successful that Harley-Davidson, the U.S. military wanted the car, which he duly did and produced Harley copy-Davidson XA. With the German war machine for the insatiable> Motorcycles, the company flourished during the war years, but the fate of Germany fell, so did BMW. The factory has been to Monaco of Bavaria destroyed by bombing and after the war the Russians dismantled the Nach and facilities in meeting new Irbit. Not only that, but the cream of their engineers to Russia and U.S. to work on jet engines research.
Since the restriction of motorcycle production has been reduced, BMW had to go back to basics. None of the old plans had survived,so that the engineers were forced to fight a war before use motorcycles as a model for their new machines. The bicycle assembly line was now R24, which also had no rear suspension is fitted. In 1949 more than R24 were built by 9000, a figure that has risen to over 17,000 in 1950. The R68, a sports car in 1952. This 594cc machine was a sort of collectors item, even if less than 1,500 were produced.
The 1950 has seen a decline in demand for cars. Thisperiod, a reduction in production of 30,000 units less than 6000 to 1957. In the late 50s the vast majority of BMW motorcycles were exported to the United States, Butler and Smith inc. an exclusive, but although American sales were strong, the company struggled to survive. With the financial help of Herbert Quandt and the car division of flowers, the BMW pulled through, and in 1959, the patch reputation American John Prenton rode a BMW R69 from NewYork to Los Angeles in 53 hours and 11 minutes, and to do it, shaving more than 22 hours outside the existing record.
The R27 was the last single-cylinder models introduced in 1967. Times have changed and the audience asked several machines, so BMW have been built, not with a sidecar in mind, but athletic performance. In 1970 the company introduced an entirely new vamped range of motorcycles, the R50 / 5 R60 / 5 and R75 / 5 In 1974 the 500cc model was removed fromCatalog and replaced with a 900cc bike. In 1975 the R90S was introduced and soon earned the label of best bike "Super Sport of its time.
1977, the arrival of the first liter engine from a BMW motorcycle. This year welcomes the first "complete windscreen 'for a BMW car. In 1978 R100T was thrown into the ring to compete with Honda Gold Wing.
1986, the world's first electric adjustment for the windshield on K100LT which was only slightlyeccentric, is now on various models of BMW and, indeed, but has been copied by Honda, Yamaha and Kawasaki.
This was in 1988 that BMW introduced ABS to the motorcycle world when it is standard on all models K R1100S acquiring in 1993. Now it is mounted on the motorcycle driven almost all societies.
Despite the imminent end of the business after World War 2, the company has grown without doubt one of the leading manufacturers in the world.