I've decided that the first /5 to appear on this web site should be this great looking 1973 R60/5. A toaster tank /5 (1972-73) in red is my personal favorite. This machine is a Long Wheelbase model, which was introduced on into the 1973 model year. There are a few details that indicate this, but the easiest one to remember is the color of the carb air tubes - short wheelbase bikes all had Silver plastic air tubes, but with the change to a Longer Wheelbase BMW went to Black plastic air tubes. From the factory the fuel lines were also the same - silver braided fuel line for the short wheelbase, and black braided for the long. In this case they made the change more for safety reasons - there had been reports of fires on BMW cars caused by the silver braided fuel line leaking on hot engines. The black fuel line was said to eliminate this risk. Ironically, the Parts dept. of many BMW bike shops would still sell you the silver fuel line for years after the change if you wanted it - until inventories were finally used up.

This summer I managed to get away to just one bike show, and don't you know this R51/3 showed up for sale to tempt me. It has been parked since around 1980. Other than the missing solo seat, fender rack & tail light, it's surprisingly complete - right down to the original exhaust. I have several restorations to finish up before I can work on this one, so I'll just start looking for the missing parts.

Two down - one to go! Another super-unobtainium part that I have been looking for for over two years. I just snagged this Münch front brake unit to use on my R50S. Big front brakes are hard to find for the 1955-69 twins unless you go with an English or Italian unit, so of course finding a German one turned into an obsession for me! This is gonna look great on the bike.

People have often asked me if the R50S models ever came with the chrome script on the rear fender. Even though it's listed in the period parts books, I've never seen one on an unrestored bike to confirm it. Finally I can. I just picked up a piece of BMW sales literature (printed Oct 1962), and it clearly shows that the "S" models now feature a 'name plate' and 'vibration damper'. So it would seem that - at least for the high serial number R50S examples - both of these features ARE correct. Being a 1962 sales brochure would also answer the other question I hear a lot - was the R50S a one year only bike? Clearly they were still selling them in 1962! The previous owner of my own R50S wrote Butler & Smith in the early 1970's to ask about its history, and it was not sold new until 1966 - even though it was built in 1961!

One of my web page readers just completed the frame-up R51/3 restoration. Beautiful...

I found this image out on ratbike.com, and thought you'd enjoy seeing it. This appears to be either a late R51 or 1950 R51/2-based chopper. The extended front end is from an MZ. Note the "coffin" style gas tank with the seam around the side - Zundapp!

A few pages back I showed some aftermarket exhaust clamps to make your R50 & R60 look like an R69S. Here are the same ones (on the left) and another set next to them. I've never seen this style before, so I thought you'd enjoy seeing them too.

Sitting on top of the exhaust clamps in the last picture is a 1951 series BMW air filter. These are very hard to find, and this one is in good shape. The wire mesh filter element can be see inside.

Another photo from the same set is this shot of a Steib master cylinder for the sidecar brake. The master cylinder & rod assembly replaces the stock rear brake rod on the bike. When you press on the rear brake pedal the rod pulls the master cylinder, and brake fluid is sent to the sidecar wheel at the same time as the bike rear brake is actuated. The rear half of the rod (with adjuster) can be seen just below the master cylinder.

From over in England comes this beautiful looking 1952 R68. Very nicely done, and it looks to be correct right down to the original style front fork rubber gaiter clamps (very hard to find). A Watsonian sidecar (left handed, naturally) can be seen next to the R68, mounted on another BMW twin.