PRESSED STEEL BOXER

The early days of BMW more than a century ago saw the company 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 Munichbased 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 former owner of MV Agusta!), who was acclaimed as the wealthiest man and most influential financier in Central Europe during World War I, and who was President of BMW AG until 1929. 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. 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, BMW launched the R32, the first motorcycle to be badged as a BMW, at the Paris Show. It featured a 486cc wet-sump side-valve engine with horizontally opposed aluminum cylinders and shaft final drive, a flat twin layout which would forever be associated with the marque. At a time when many motorcycle manufacturers used total-loss oiling systems, the new BMW engine featured recirculating wet-sump lubrication, incorporating a drip feed system to the roller-bearing crankshaft — a then-innovative design used by BMW until