Bmw R100 Valve Covers

History Of Bmw Motorcycles | Deals Travel Las Vegas

Motorcycle history

BMW’s opposed engine and transmission unit in an R 32.

Pre-1921

BMW began as an aircraft engine manufacturer before World War I. With the Armistice, the Treaty of Versailles banned the German air force so the company turned to making air brakes, industrial engines, agricultural machinery, toolboxes and office furniture and then to motorcycles and cars.

The origin of the BMW roundel

The circular blue and white BMW logo or roundel is often alleged to portray the movement of an aircraft propeller, an interpretation that BMW adopted for convenience in 1929, which was actually twelve years after the roundel was created. In fact, the emblem evolved from the circular Rapp Motorenwerke company logo, from which the BMW company grew. The Rapp logo was combined with the blue and white colors of the flag of Bavaria to produce the BMW roundel so familiar today.

19211945

1939 BMW R 35

BMW Sahara, Poland 1944

In 1921, BMW began its long association with a 1886 German invention known to Germans as the boxermoter (see Karl Benz and flat engines). However, the first BMW motorcycle engine seems to have been copied by Max Friz, BMW’s famous chief designer, in four weeks from a British Douglas design.[citation needed] This 19211922 M2B15 boxer was manufactured by BMW for use as a portable industrial engine, but was largely used by motorcycle manufacturers, notably Victoria of Nuremberg, and in the Helios motorcycle made by Bayerische Flugzeugwerke. Friz was also working on car engines.[citation needed] The boxer design in a motorcycle is firmly linked to BMW, but has been used (not always in volume) by a number of other companies worldwide, including Honda in their Gold Wing from 1975 to the present.

BMW merged with Bayerische Flugzeugwerke in 1922, inheriting from them the Helios motorcycle and a small two-stroke motorized bicycle called the Flink. In 1923, BMW’s first “across the frame” version of the boxer engine was designed by Friz. The R32 had a 486 cc engine with 8.5 hp (6.3 kW) and a top speed of 95100 km/h (60 mph). The engine and gearbox formed a bolt-up single unit. At a time when many motorcycle manufacturers used total-loss oiling systems, the new BMW engine featured a recirculating wet sump oiling system with a drip feed to roller bearings. This system was used by BMW until 1969, when they adopted the “high-pressure oil” system based on shell bearings and tight clearances, still in use today.

BMW Motorcycle Buyer's Guide

BMW Motorcycles

American Motorcyclist

Flying Magazine

André Lefebvre, and the cars he created at Voisin and Citroën