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
VOLUME 56 ISSUE 24 JUNE 18, 2019 P113 tently do a copy of our bike—that wouldn't make any sense. So, we brought the Americans over to Munich—the Japanese were too far advanced for it to make sense to do so with them—and they saw our bike, or basically a 3D model of it. We wanted to show them what we were do- ing, so we could say, "Don't do that! Anything else is fine, but please do something different from this." And so they did! But otherwise, they had complete freedom to do whatever they wanted. So at the Villa d'Este show at the end of May, what you showed is something along the lines of what you expect to put into production? Yes, and it was interesting to hear the responses to it. Be- cause this bike is at a different level of, let's say, production- focused refinement from what you'd seen from Japan or Texas. You can tell that it's at a differ- ent stage of evolution, as well as also a decidedly different design direction from what those guys did with the same engine. In designing a future BMW cruiser, what were your parameters? Number one, must it be a Boxer? I would put it this way. If we go into this segment where we haven't really been before, it definitely has to truly be a BMW, and it must be absolutely rec- ognizable as a BMW, and not perceived as a copy of anything else, from whoever else. So ab- solutely no V-twin, for example. This means that what we did, of course, was to take a very close look at our BMW heritage, which is very rich—there's lots of stuff in there. If you have a close look, you can discover lots of very typical BMW iconic elements that you can use or refer to, and this is exactly what we're going to do with our cruiser family of bikes. But I repeat, presumably, you had to design the aes- thetics of the engine first, because that takes longer to develop to production-ready condition. What were your objectives in doing that? Presence? Because it's cer- tainly very visually arresting! Of course, the sheer pres- ence of a big twin is a very inter- esting issue. Because if you look at the really iconic motorbike concepts, basically the iconic- ity is essentially derived from the engine—it's the mechanical sculpture which defines the bike. Look at all those machines like the American V-twins, the Ducati desmo L-engines, the Japanese inline fours, the Box- ers, the Guzzi transverse V- twins, the Triumph triples—these are what determine the truly iconic bikes out there. And of course, the engine is always center stage in a custom cruiser, too. So, we did look very deep into our history of Boxer engines, and I'm certain this will be a very interesting engine, and a nice platform for customization, too. Aesthetically it's very ar- resting, visually—it immedi- ately gets your attention. Oh, yes—definitely! The engine sticks out a long way, so you know it's very large displace- ment. It's a big engine, but I'm not afraid of this, because it won't be a small bike, either. I think the balance will work very nicely. What I always feel is important is that you need to see the se- mantics in a bike, and the Boxer engine produces this very nicely, because you have an airbox, you have something going from the airbox inside the engine, you see something is working in there, you have these kinds of rods, and then you see the exhaust coming out. And even without any understanding of the internal combustion engine, you can see the flow of whatever's happening inside there. It's excit- ing! And it's also visually unique, which is always important when you're trying to build a bike that doesn't look like anyone else's! Mechanical Sculpture