Riders Preferred Membership
Shop by Vehicle
Track Order
Contact Us
In 1923, the first motorcycle with the BMW brand on it was sold. That R32, with its boxer twin engine and shaft drive, launched BMW Motorrad and set a direction the company still follows today. BMW is celebrating a century of building motorcycles with a special exhibit at its museum in Munich, Germany.
Though the boxer engine and shaft-drive DNA remain intact today, it would have taken a very adventurous imagination for anyone looking at the R32 in 1923 to imagine that it would beget the 2023 R 18. And along the way, of course, BMW Motorrad spawned other machines that would have been almost as equally impossible to imagine a century ago, from the iconic boxer GS adventure-touring models to the S 1000 RR sport bike.
BMW had built engines that had been used in motorcycles before 1923, but it only got into the motorcycle business itself after World War I, when restrictions on German companies prevented BMW from producing aircraft engines. The exhibit that marks a century of BMW Motorrad will run for a year at the museum, alongside other permanent exhibits.
The anniversary exhibit pairs historical vehicles with modern ones, such a two BMWs that won the Isle of Man TT 75 years apart, but it also draws on other elements, from motorcycle parts to gear, to show the development over the past century. As BMW has grown, so has the diversity of its customers and the kinds of motorcycles the company builds to suit them, from scooters for urban commuters, to sport bikes for roadracers, to adventure-tourers for world travelers, and the exhibit examines these different customer types.
With Triumph reaching 120 years last year and Harley-Davidson celebrating its 120th anniversary this summer, it's a time of milestones in the motorcycle industry. If you can't make it to Munich, here's a quick video tour and a selection of photos from the BMW exhibit as the next best way to reflect on the past century.
