VOL. 56 ISSUE 16 APRIL 23, 2019 P57
T
en years on since BMW's
original game-changing ultra
short-stroke S 1000 RR set new
standards for series production trans-
verse inline four-cylinder superbike
technology with its 2009 debut, the
all-new 2019 model launched at the
EICMA Milan Show last November is
equally innovative, but in a more subtle
way. Call it evolution, not revolution.
Deliveries won't, however, com-
mence until June at a price of ap-
proximately $20,000, rising to roughly
$25,000 for the top-level M Package
version, with a preset target for BMW
of 6000 bikes to be produced this year
in its Berlin factory, for which there's
already a long waiting list despite their
late arrival in the marketplace.
However, there was nothing very
subtle about the targets which the Ger-
man company's top management set
its engineers when they began work
in 2015 on developing what amounts
to an all-new bike, with less than 5%
of the 8200 components making up
the entire motorcycle, including the
engine, carried over from before.
"Our brief to them was to take the
previous model, which has been such
a dominant force in competition for the
GENERATION
1000 RR SUPERBIKE MODEL IS
ESTORIL RACETRACK TO RIDE IT
BY ALAN CATHCART
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARKUS JAHN AND JORG KUNSTLE
past 10 years, and significantly im-
prove on its performance," says BMW
Motorrad President/CEO Dr. Markus
Schramm. "To achieve this, we set
ourselves some very straightforward
targets. We wanted the bike to be one
second faster on the racetrack, more
than 22 pounds lighter, and easier to
control with improved rideability. These
targets formed the basis for every
technical decision [made] in develop-
ing the new model, and the result is a
motorcycle which exceeds the targets
we set ourselves, and will once again
be the category benchmark."
Doing this entailed developing
a lighter, more compact and more
powerful 999cc engine, whose out-
put has increased by 8bhp/6kW to
207bhp/152kW at 13,500 rpm, with
increased torque of 113Nm peaking at
11,000 rpm. This all-new engine is not
only 12mm narrower than its predeces-
sor, but it also weighs 8.8 pounds less
thanks partly to a crankshaft that's four
pounds lighter than before carrying
4mm shorter and 10% lighter conrods,
which together deliver even better
pickup throughout the rev range. But
the most significant step forward has
been the application of BMW's pat-
ented ShiftCam Technology introduced
on the 2019 R 1250 GS Adventure
tourer's Boxer motor, here transferred
for the first time to BMW's four-cylinder
range. This combines both variable
valve timing and differential valve lift,
all in the same package, and together
The BMW
S 1000 RR
gets its first
significant
freshening up
since its 2009
debut.
