was the least cool brand of all for me at the time . “ I came up with a motorbike for young people with 27hp ( the affordable performance class for young riders at the time ), my “ R50S ”, with a pressed steel frame , secondary drive belt and helmet compartment . At the time , I was quite taken with the work that Jan Feldstrom from Target Design had done with the Katana . “ As I said , BMW was pretty uncool for me back then , also because of the strange ergonomics and the submissive rider posture ( narrow handlebars with a special bend for a bodyhugging elbow position ). For me , a motorbike is only complete when the rider is sitting on it , so it was important to me to ensure a cool riding position . That ’ s why it had to be possible to sit ‘ on ’ my bike and the suspension had to be functional to feel the new ergonomics . Wolfgang Seehaus , who worked in the design department under Klaus Volker Gevert , sponsored me in the project . And Markus Poschner ( project leader of the S1000RR ) provided me with the parts .
STARTING WORK AT BMW “ I started working for BMW in 1987 . First as a freelancer for a year , then they hired me . In the design-department of K . V . Gevert there were three employees at that time : Karl-Heinz Abe , Wolfgang Seehaus and Glynn Kerr , who left in 1989 and whose position I took over to participate in the facelift of the K100RS . As I was quite good at drawing , maybe even a bit better than the others , I was allowed to do the graphics of the K1 , including the big airing logo . There ’ s a funny story about this model : I came into the model making department at that time and there was a big piece of red cake made of clay ( modelling clay ) on the desk with two broomsticks sticking out of it . That was the model of the front mudguard of the K1 with two placeholders for the fork tubes ! “ We chose wild colours : yellow engine , bright red fairing , there was no strategy behind it , we had quite a lot of freedom and just did wild things and cool sketches . “ Then we moved on to the R100R and , finally ,
48 KIWI RIDER