BMW Poster - Milestone
Great condition
No tears or gouges
Framed
Glass has a crack in the lower left corner see pictures.
Lithographic print. Illustration of the first motorcycle produced by BMW, the BMW R 32, accompanied by a brief history of the model and its designer, Max Friz. The lower right-hand corner is stamped with the BMW logo. Alongside the logo reads “BMW Posterserie 1.M1.77”.
600 x 935 mm
Poster text transcribed below:
Milestone
Year Model: 1923
Designer: Max Friz
The Times: 1919 – Production of aircraft engines, forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles, has stopped. BMZ is making air brakes and agricultural machines, casting parts for other firms. 1920 – The >>Helios<< motorcycle has a horizontally opposed engine mounted longitudinally, driving the rear wheel by a V-belt. 1921 – Manufacture of air brakes has become dominant. 1922 – BMW produces the first horizontally opposed engine with cylinders positioned transversely. 1923 – BMW builds the R 32, which exhibits the typical BMW characteristics right up through today: the transverse Boxer engine and driveshaft to the rear wheel. The R 32 is the first motorcycle with a double-steel-tube frame and a socket axle. It is the sensation of the Paris Salon de l’Automobile and is to become an example for motorcycle engineering all over the world.
The Designer: Max Friz, a Swabian engineer, had founded the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke – Bavarian Airplane Works – together with Karl Rapp in 1916. He designed aircraft engines with great success. A DFW double-decker craft, powered by his 6-cylinder watercooled inline engine of 300hp climbs to hitherto unheard-of altitude of 9760 meters.
But it is not in the air, as Max Friz hoped, but on the road where BMW’s future really is to be. In motorcycles. Under pressure from management, Max Friz develops sketches and plans from a machine with horizontally opposed 2-cylinder engine with Cardan-shaft drive and double-steel-tube frame: the R 32. It is to be a basic design that remains valid right up to the present – after 50 years, BMW still builds motorcycles according to this concept.
Displacement: 486 cc
Power: 8.5 hp
Top Speed: 90 km/h
Length: 2100mm
Width: 800mm
Weight: 122kg
In the 1920s motorcycle production increases sharply. BMW enlarges its programme to include nine models. A telescopic spring fork is developed, marking a new milestone in the history of motorcycle engineering. Numerous sporting successes are rung up too. Hundreds of races are won by BMW motorcycles: to be exact, through 1928 there are 573 first places. In 1929, Ernst Henne sets a first world record for motorcycles on a public road near Munich, the Ingolstader Landstaβe – 216.75 km/h. After this first record, 195 more will follow.