T
he GS, in all probability, was BMW’s saviour.
In the late 1970s, like every European bike
manufacturer, BMW was feeling the
Japanese pinch. The gifts from the Orient were
too shiny, too tempting, too good – the Deutsch
homegrown stuff looked old, and was old.
Despite some notable successes, like the R90S
(a TT and American Superbike championshipwinning
sport bike), BMW motorcycles faced
extinction unless they did something sharpish.
Their answer to the predicament was really
quite clever…
CREATING A MARKET SEGMENT
While the Brit bike industry had already tried
– and failed – to match the Japanese new-tech
multis (paying the ultimate price), BMW instead
elected to think outside the box(er) and created
a whole new market segment, one where they
would stand alone... and so could dominate.
They created the gelande/strasse (off-road/
road), the G/S, a large-capacity road bike come
dirt bike come tourer. They did also (of course)
create a whole new line of roadster-tourer
multi’s (the K75/100 ‘bricks’) – yes, they did
also try to match the Japanese tech – but
those came a little later and are best left
apart from this storyline.
BMW’s problem was that in the decade from
’68 to ’79 the Japanese had pushed motorcycle
performance to all new heights. At 50-60hp
BMW’s fleet of ‘type 247’ boxers – which had
last been refreshed in ‘68 – were getting on
for 40bhp behind the game. The new (crisis)
management team at BMW, taking over on
January 1, 1979, did then give a green light
for production of what had been an ongoing
project in R&D – the G/S. As it goes, 50hp is
more than enough for off-road, as BMW
already knew.
As said, the G/S was not new thinking. Almost
immediately after the first type 247 – /5 – was
created in 1968 the R&D department had
looked to create an off-road variant, and so
a modified 75/5 took a gold medal at the
International Six Days Trial in 1970. Lofty
KIWI RIDER 55