PRESSED STEEL BOXER
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 flat-twin motor, originally designed by its chief engineer Max Friz as a portable industrial engine. It was also used in motorcycles such as the Victoria and the Helios, which gave BMW the inspiration to build its own bikes. So in 1923 the R32, the first motorcycle to be badged as a BMW, was launched. It featured a 486cc wet-sump side-valve engine with horizontally opposed cylinders and shaft final drive, a flat twin layout which would forever be associated with the marque.
The R32 was the prototype for all future Boxer-engined BMW motorcycles, and employed a tubular steel rigid frame, like its successor models the R42 and R52. These also featured 500cc side-valve motors like their ancestor, but BMW
