GERMANY’S HELMUT DÄHNE IS A man of many parts. Always a fast, elegant, yet extremely dependable rider, readily identifiable by his trademark red leathers, later with their white flashes, his performances in major European road races throughout most of the 1970s – and especially the Isle of Man – underlined the performance of the new generation of Boxer BMWs he became so closely identified with, helping add a sporting allure to the Bavarian’s ‘pipe and slippers’ image.
Moreover, he did so with bikes he built and prepared with his own hands, in his own time, in his own workshop – even during the 15 years he worked for BMW as a development engineer, before joining the Metzeler tyre company in 1974 as its race manager. But in the late 1970s, with the advent of the TT Formula 1 class, Dähne switched to the four-cylinder Honda family to carve out a whole new career as a part-time racer