Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1131259
BMW MOTORRAD CONCEPT R18 P112 Feature Edgar Heinrich, 59, has spent most of his career working for the Bavarian-based company, with a first stint from 1986 to 2009. There, he was responsible for the styling of the then-radical four-cylinder K 1200 S and K 1200 R, the HP Megamoto off- road model, and the Paris-Dakar off-road racers. He also worked on creating the R 1150 GS and R 1200 GS two-wheeled cash registers which continue to represent BMW's gateway to growth and profitability and went on to head up the S 1000 RR Superbike design team. After the debut of that model in 2009, Heinrich moved to India to be Vice President of Product Development at the country's second largest manufacturer, Bajaj Auto, where he worked alongside R&D engineers from its sister company KTM, today BMW's rival for supremacy among European manufacturers. But in July 2012 Heinrich re- joined BMW Motorrad as Head of Design in the wake of the abrupt departure of his prede- cessor, David Robb. One of his first duties was to assume lead- ership of the team developing the R nineT retro model, and its succession of spinoff variants—a kind of introduction to the chal- lenges of developing a range of twin-cylinder cruisers powered by the Big Boxer engine. The chance to speak to him one-on- one gave some hints about the direction these will take. Edi, the Big Twin Boxer engine, which will form the basis of the future range of BMW cruisers, has now been officially released in public. But you presumably must have designed the way it looks some time ago, be- cause the engine is the focal point of any cruiser model, and it's especially prominent in a BMW Boxer. True? Definitely. I mean, you have seen the Big Boxer, and this is obviously for us also very interesting because you know the industry is pretty small and people know each other, and of course there's a big interest from the custom guys in this engine. And we were happy to provide a couple of motors, one to Japan and the other one to Texas, to get this thing growing a little bit, and to make people aware of what we're working on. How did you make sure that the customizer's bikes weren't going to be a copy of what you were doing your- selves? We didn't want to control what these guys were doing, definitely not. But we also wanted to make sure that they didn't inadver- Edgar Heinrich is a life-long BMW man, having headed the design on the K-series, R 1150 GS and S 1000 RR. Edgar Heinrich Speaks: It's Mechanical