Every other year, the motorcycle industry gathers in Cologne, Germany in October, for the INTERMOT trade expo. The show provides a good alternative for the Germanic brands to launch new machines, with BMW and KTM often showcasing new models at the show. This year will be no different.
To that end, BMW Motorrad is already getting its hype machine warmed up, telling us that several models will debut updates in Cologne. More importantly, zie Germans tell us that two new motorcycles will also debut at the INTERMOT show.
What those models will be is certainly the conjecture du jour, since there are several possibilities that BMW Motorrad could be working on.
Adding to the mystery is the fact that BMW often leaves something interesting for the yearly EICMA show in Milan, Italy, which happens a month later, in the first week of November. This might make decoding BMW’s game plan all but impossible, but we can still give it a try.
First up, we know that BMW has two new variations of the BMW R nineT coming into production, the existence of the “Pure” and “Racer” bikes already outed by CARB filing documents.
It would seem unlikely that BMW would showcase both models on the same day at a show like INTERMOT, likely wanting to share the wealth between INTERMOT and EICMA. That theory isn’t set in stone, however.
Adding to the mix, is the expectation that BMW will make several models more out of its G310R platform, with a sport bike version of the small-displacement machine already being teased by technical partner TVS, in India. Rumor has it that BMW will make an ADV bike out of the BMW G310R as well.
At least one of these machines is likely to debut for the 2017 model year, again with INTERMOT or EICMA being the likely venue to release such bikes.
On the bigger bike category, there is talk of BMW bringing an “XDiavel killer” to market, competing with the Italian brand for mind share in the performance cruiser category.
It’s unlikely that we’ll see any new “R-bikes” from BMW for 2017, though one could make a strong argument for BMW’s need to keep the R1200GS competitive against entries from Ducati, Honda, and KTM.
More likely would be a new BMW S1000RR, which was last updated in 2015. The two-year mark is perhaps the soonest one could expect a new superbike after BMW’s model refresh to the S1000RR, though I would still wager on a slightly longer product cycle. Earmark this for 2017’s trade shows.
That being said, the BMW S1000R and BMW S1000XR could both be due for a model refresh, the S1000XR especially so, since owners complain of vibrations and other issues that prevent the adventure-sport from living up to its hype as a Multistrada alternative.
Lastly, 2017 might finally be the year that we see the BMW K1600 bagger bike come to market, with the concept first teased to us in 2015.
The bagger trend may be on its way out right now, as far as the fashion-bikers are concerned, but touring-focused cruisers are big money-makers still, especially in the USA.
For BMW to have an offering here, perhaps along with a sport-focused cruiser, the German brand could have a strong appeal to non-BMW riders for the next model year. Time will tell, of course, but we only have a couple more weeks to wait and see.
Source: BMW
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