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/127821
-_I' impeccable sources in Europe insists that BMW also is working on a liquidcooled superbike version of its Boxer flat-twin, which will herald the German company's return to racing in a solo class for the first time since the late '50s. But in spite of inevitable factory denials, it seems the rumor may indeed be true, with BMW's bike division management under its youthful new boss Michael Ganal -determined' to extend the German marque's model range upward with an all-out sport version of the fuelinjected RllOO eight-valve motor, which also would be raced as a means of promoting the marque's image and expanding its market. If true - and at this stage its 'existence is unconfirmed - BMW engineers will be picking up again on the fuel-injected Boxer superbike project they were working on back in 1991, before it was canceled by top management. That bike used a Nico Bakker alloy chassis fitted with a Telelever front end to house the prototype RllOO motor in liquid-eooled form - rather than the oil / air cooling of the production bike - and was fitted with four-yalve desmo cylinder heads. Nothing wrong with that: Remember that BMW's German rival Mercedes-Benz won two Formula One car world titles with a desmo engine back in 1954/55, before the first desmo Ducati ever existed! But if the BMW board under its new boss has indeed picked up on the superbike idea again, it would make sense to retain this design feature, to help in getting competitive horsepower. And a desmo motor would be a powerful marketing tool in promoting BMW's sporting credentials and the technical sophistication of a street version of the bike. Only a rumor at this stage - but the same source allowed me to reveal the existence of the New Boxer twin in prototype Bakkerframed guise and the Bimota-ehassised KI200RS four just launched at Cologne several years before the bikes made their debut in the marketplace. Three out of three? . Excelsior-Henderson... Walkinshaw? Another of the growing links on the R&D front between car and motorcycle companies has come to attention - but this time a rather unlikely liaison which is nevertheless very much alive. In addition to their high-profile F-l Arrows race effort next season with reigning World Champion Damon Hill, and their wellpublicized liaison with K~y Roberts in developing KR's new three-cylinder 500cc GP bike, British car magnate Tom Walkinshaw's TWR R&D operation is understood to be collaborating with Minnesota-based brothers David and Daniel Hanlon in reviving the Excelsior-Henderson name via the launch of their all-new Super X custom bike which was unveiled and ridden in public for the first time at the '96 Sturgis Rally. Production of the new 1386cc custom bike with fuel-injected DOHC 50-degree V-twin eight-valve motor is scheduled to begin for the 1998 model year in a specially built factory unit in Belle Plaine, Minnesota. Some 150 employees are projected for the start-up of operations, building 4,000 bikes a year, rising to a work force of 500 after five years, with the launch of the preproduction versions of the new range scheduled for Daytona in March. Five prototypes are believed to have been built so far, orie of which is currently in Britain being put through its paces at TWR's Oxfordshire base in order to refine performance and prepare it for production. (llj HOTELS AVAILABLE Beach or Inland Airfare Discounts