Kiwi Rider July Vol.1 2023 | Page 47

never gave me any problems . When it comes to classic bikes , BMWs and Hondas are really the best . The other day I took a Honda fourcylinder CB500 Four apart and rebuilt it , that was a treat . Motorbike trips came slowly for me , the first rides were to Italy on a minimal budget ; I didn ’ t do the really big tours to Africa until the Nineties .
FINDING HIS WAY “ After my A-levels , I really didn ’ t have a plan , but I wanted to do something with drawing and model making . Since my brother was already living in Rosenheim near Munich , it made sense to try architecture there . I didn ’ t really have any talent at all , except for drawing and wrenching or manual work . I had dropped mathematics in the eleventh grade , but I could keep my head above water with descriptive geometry and statistics . Then , when we were standing in the field during architecture studies , sketching a farm , the professor came up to me and asked me what I was doing there , because he thought
I was in the wrong place with my drawing talent ! By chance I had a contact with the University of Applied Sciences for Design in Munich and found great interest in the design drafts and the models exhibited there . So , I switched to study Design . At the beginning the studies were rather dull , but an internship at Iveco truck company changed my approach : I was drawing trucks and painted buses , that was cool . “ Of course , motorbikes were always my passion . I could have continued my career with trucks , tractors or construction machinery , but to work as a car designer never really interested me .
BMW FIRST CONTACT “ To obtain support for my diploma thesis , I wrote to all the motorcycle companies in Germany ( the Japanese importers and BMW ) because I wanted to make a motorbike on a scale of 1:1 , which seemed easier to me than a scale model because there were already many parts available . Only BMW answered me , which
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