The BMW R18 cruiser is a piece of art! It had been in the making for a while now and finally, we have seen the motorcycle in pictures and how it looks in the production form. The motorcycle has been unveiled and with prices announced for Europe and USA, BMW Motorrad dealers in India have started taking bookings for this motorcycle too. Team carandbike spoke to a couple of BMW Motorrad dealers in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi and they have confirmed that they are taking bookings for a token amount of ₹ 1 lakh.
(BMW R 18 cruiser)
Of course, BMW Motorrad India hasn’t made it official yet, but we are hoping the company will announce the same in the coming months, once things start going back to normalcy post the Coronavirus crisis which has gripped the world. With international deliveries set to begin in late 2020, we expect the BMW R18 to come to India towards the end of the year or early in 2021. There could also be a possibility that the motorcycle comes to India in very limited numbers. There will be two variants of the motorcycle, the standard version and the First Edition.
(The exposed shaft drive is another homage to the classic R5 design)
The design is classic old-school and has been inspired by the old BMW R5, which was in production in late 1930s. The motorcycle is beautiful and a heavyweight cruiser at that! It gets a typically classic design with a tear-drop shape fuel tank, conventional 49 mm forks up front and cleverly hidden cantilever monoshock at the rear to give the motorcycle a hard-tail look. Then you have splashes of chrome all over, beautifully done exhaust pipes with fish-tail tips and the old-school valve covers along with the round LED headlamp and the wire spoke wheels.
(The design is inspired by the classic BMW R5, complete with the hard-tail look)
Apart from the design, the majority of the talk around the motorcycle has been about the 1,802 cc boxer-twin engine, where the heads jut out of the sides of the motorcycle. The engine is air-cooled as well as oil-cooled and it makes 91 bhp of peak power at 4,750 rpm and a massive 157 Nm of maximum torque at just 3,000 rpm. The engine is paired to a 6-speed gearbox and employs a final shaft drive instead of a chain drive or a belt drive. One can also opt for a low-speed reverse gear as well.
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