As was expected from spy photos and internet rumors, a bagger version of the BMW R18 has finally official broken its cover.
We always knew that BMW Motorrad’s gigantic air-cooled boxer-twin engine would be a platform for multiple models, so it shouldn’t surprise us to see the BMW R18 B debuting for the 2022 model year.
The bagger model launches with marque’s dresser variant, the BMW R18 Transcontinental, also coming to market, with both bikes available in August 2021.
The second-prong to BMW Motorrad’s heritage touring package, the BMW R18 Transcontinental is the full dresser option for the R18 platform.
As one would expect from such a machine, it comes loaded with a batwing fairing, panniers, and touring top box.
The next generation of the popular GS series from BMW Motorrad has been spotted testing in Germany, with what is being touted as the 2023 BMW R1300GS.
Featured in spy photos run that are being run in Italian, German, and even American publications, the new GS is a fairly sizable departure from the BMW R1250GS that we know and love.
Though few details we given at this year’s EICMA show, we were thankful that we get to look forward to another year of BMW Motorrad hyping its upcoming air-cooled lineup of cruiser-styled motorcycles, which are known as the BMW R18 family.
That is right, the fun isn’t over, and surely the German motorcycle brand will delight us at least one more time with another concept machine that shows off its 1,800cc air-cooled boxer engine, and all of its massive glory.
Until then though, BMW Motorrad has decided to tease out the engine’s very impressive technical specifications, in an effort to appease the countless number of fans who are eagerly awaiting this motorcycle.
It is an obvious fact that the motorcycle manufacturers are looking to the future, and that future is looking increasingly like one without fossil fuels.
Electric drivetrains seem to be the prevailing technology of choice for the next generation of riders, and as such BMW Motorrad has its designers busy thinking about what the first electric motorcycles from the German brand could look like.
Enter the BMW Motorrad Vision DC Roadster concept, an electric motorcycle whose sole purpose is to imagine what BMW’s iconic boxer-twin engine shape could look like in an electric shape. Umpf!
BMW Motorrad is very quietly teasing a new motorcycle platform, one that is centered around an 1,800cc boxer design.
BMW teased this new engine in a unique way, having Yuichi Yoshizawa and Yoshikazu Ueda of Custom Works Zon build a show bike around the boxer-twin, which we are showing here in the story.
With its vintage style, it is easy to disregard the prototype engine from BMW as being something from the German company’s past, and perhaps that is the point. The engine uses a push-rod design, and its cooling fins tip-off its air/oil-cooling mechanism.
Specifics beyond this are non-existent, however, with BMW Motorrad simply saying that “further details about the engine and its possible future use will be communicated at a later point in time.”
We know that for the 2019 model year that BMW Motorrad plans to release nine new models. What those models may be is up for conjecture, though we have a pretty good idea about more than a few of them.
Now, add to the list a new GS model, as some technical details of the 2019 BMW R1250GS have emerged, and as the name suggests a revised design of BMW’s famous boxer engine features as the centerpiece.
The folks at BikeSocial say that the boxer twin will see an increase in displacement to 1,254cc (up from 1,170cc), which means an 11hp power increase, for 134hp in total.
While the current crop of BMW R1200GS model motorcycles are being recalled for issues with their front suspension, the future of the venerable GS line continues to evolve, as Motorrad Magazine is reporting that the boxer-twin engine that powers the R-series will be getting variable valve timing (VVT).
Motorrad is also reporting that the engine displacement will also see a bump, up from 1,170cc to 1,250cc for the next-generation of R-series machines, which should mean that the water-cooled motor should get a healthy (and much needed) bump in power, to help compete in this hotly contested segment.
Our Bothan Spies came through once again this EICMA season, bringing us news that the BMW Lac Rose Concept would enter production as the 2017 BMW R nineT Urban G/S motorcycle.
As the name implies, the Urban G/S is based off the BMW R nineT platform, which means that it uses the iconic 1,170cc, 110hp, air-cooled, boxer-twin engine as its base, and then builds out from there.
As such, the chassis is the same modular frame that powers the rest of the R nineT line, complete with telescoping fork suspension at the front, along with a 19″ wheel wire-spoked wheel in the front, and a 17″ wire-spoked wheel in the rear.
All of this means that the BMW R nineT is mostly an aesthetic exercise – but it is quite the exercise, if you want our opinion.
Leave it to the French. The Midual Type 1 is perhaps one of the most intriguing motorcycle designs that we have seen this year, though much of the roadster seems to lust for attention, rather than serve a realistic purpose.
Debuting at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, an opulent venue in its own right, the 2016 Midual Type 1 prototype appeals to the uber-rich crowd, not only in its touches and aesthetics, but also with its €140,000 price tag ($185,000).
While that price tag gets you a certain exclusivity, the most striking feature of Midual’s machine is of course its 1,036cc longitudinally mounted boxer-twin engine, which sits proudly in the machine’s bespoke frame.
For a foreign language in school, I took French — nine years of French, to be precise. Knowing the “Language of Diplomacy” doesn’t help one too much in the motorcycle industry, which is dominated by Spanish and Italian speakers, and it certainly doesn’t help one when dealing with the newest release from BMW Motorrad.
Like the Alsace-Lorraine in 1940, we were surprised today by a secret that the Germans had been keeping from us, the BMW Concept Roadster. A boxer-twin powered streetfighter (125hp / 92 lbs•ft), BMW says that the Concept Roadster is an expression that “motorcycling is much more than just perfect function.”
Equipped with a single-sided swingarm, driveshaft, LED headlight, and tubular steel frame, the BMW Concept Roadster sounds on paper a lot like the BMW’s we are used to, but one look at the styling of the concept betrays that thought, and we like that.