ROARING FORTIES. Motorworld?s Mint 1928 BMW R47
Written by Andrew Jones
Ever noticed how the impossible seems simple once you’ve already done it" BMW’s creation of their very first branded bike, the R32, seems like a ludicrous feat even 100-odd years later. Hell, they are still using the same basic layout today. But for designer Max Friz and the rest of the company’s engineers, their next job was to go one better. For as great as they were, the R32 and its R37 racing cousin were complex and expensive old beasts. Their brief for the R42 and R47 was nigh-on impossible – do more with less. They had to be faster, lighter and cheaper. But hey, they’d done it once before, right"
With no major wars to fight, the main task for Germany’s BMW in the 1920s was that of creating a successful motorcycle for mass production. After a thoroughly German analysis of the R37 model, which was a fiddly and costly bike to make, the German engineers arrived at a great solution. The key to success of the newly named ?R47? motorcycle was the reduction of manufacturing costs while also improving the new bike’s performance. You can almost see them now, all standing around and sternly nodding to each other while secretly scheißen in their hosen.
Luckily, they weren’t throwing out any babies with any bathwaters. There were some decent engine improvements flagged for the R47, but the rest of the classic bike wasn’t going to be changed all that much. So having procured a spare 500cc ...
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