BMW introduced an inline six-cylinder café racer concept at the 2009 EICMA show in Milan, Italy. Inline-six engines have a staple in BMW’s automobiles for decades and the German manufacturer’s motorcycle division took on the challenge of adapting the straight-six to a bike without making it too long or too wide. The result is the BMW Motorrad Concept 6, and an evolution BMW says “will further expand the K-Series in the foreseeable future”.
2010 BMW S1000RR – First Ride
We just spent the day ripping it up around the fabulous Portimao race circuit in Portugal on BMW’s new S1000RR supersport literbike, and it’s set to blow away perceptions of what a BMW motorcycle is.
With 193 crankshaft horsepower and a claimed dry weight of 404 pounds, BMW says the S1000RR has the best power-to-weight ratio of any production bike. And, by the way the S1000 lofts its front wheel onto Portimao’s front straight at 150 mph, we’re becomingMotorcycles at the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show
Two weeks ago, I took a break from my regular duties gathering news for Motorcycle.com to fly to Germany to cover the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show for our sister site AutoGuide.com.
For two hectic days, AutoGuide editor Colum Wood and I scrambled across the massive 6.2 million square foot Messe Frankfurt trade fair compound, running from press conference to press conference to get the latest on exotic sport cars, futuristic concept models and international unveilings from the automotive world.
It was heaven for car lovers, but for me, it meant fighting my way through hordes of photogs, auto-journalists and car show models to get the first photos of four-wheeled goodies from MINI, Ferrari and Lotus. Okay, I didn’t mind the car show models that much.
But I didn’t forget my day job with MO. Through this Cagers’ Paradise, I managed to find some gems for the loyal Motorcycle.com Readers.BMW S1000RR at Nürburgring
BMW’s new S1000RR is one of the mostly highly anticipated sportbikes to come along in years. Its four-cylinder motor has a larger bore than anything else in its 1000cc class, plus all the latest racetrack goodies like a slipper clutch, variable-height intake manifolds and traction control. We’re still a few months away from testing it for ourselves, but we can across this great video that will give you a little insight into how this Beemer howls at top speed. This was shot at the infamous Nordschleife course at Germany’s Nürburgring, a 14-mile road circuit built in the 1920s that is perhaps the grandest and most challenging racetrack ever built.
BMW C1-E Electric Scooter Concept
The BMW C1-E, prepared for the European Safer Urban Motorcycling (eSUM), was designed to represent safe and environmentally friendly vehicles of the future.
Like the C1, which was produced 2000-2003, the concept has a number of safety features such as a roll-over bar, energy-absorbing nose to soften head-on collisions and seat belts.