1929 BMW R11 750

Seeing as how we have featured the very first BMW motorcycle, the R32, in this issue of Bike SA, I felt it might be interesting to expand on that line of thought and take a brief look at BMW’s first volume production model, the R11, that arrived a mere 5 years after the R32.

- Alan Cathcart

The early days of BMW AG exactly a century ago saw it born of a struggle for survival, after the 1918 Treaty of Versailles which ended World War 1 banned the manufacture of aircraft in Germany. BMW (as in Bayerische Motoren Werke AG) had been founded two years earlier in a reorganization of Rapp Motorenwerke, a Munich-based aircraft engine manufacturer, so to stay alive it was forced to turn to making industrial engines, agricultural machinery, toolboxes, office furniture, and then finally, in 1923 - motorcycles.

BMW’s successful struggle to survive was largely funded by Italo-Austrian banker Camillo Castiglioni [no relation to the current owner of MV Agusta!], who was acclaimed as the wealthiest man and most influential financier in Central Europe during WW1, and who until 1929 was President of BMW AG. In 1921 BMW had begun manufacture of its M2B15 flattwin motor, originally designed by its chief engineer Max Friz as a portable industrial engine. But it was also used in motorcycles such as the Victoria and the Helios, and this gave BMW the inspiration to build its own such bikes. So in 1923 the R32, the first motorcycle to be badged as a BMW, was launched. This featured a 486cc wet-sump sidevalve engine with horizontally opposed cylinders and shaft final drive, a flat twin layout which would forever be associated with the marque.