1969 R69

[CVA-42]

They have an asterisk at the top of the footnote but none alongside the production numbers. I totally missed it. Yes, BMW's record-keeping is surprisingly and disappointingly lax in some areas, especially for enthusiasts who are so interested in such data. Andreas Harz was able to give me the manufacture and delivery dates as well as some other info on my '66 R27 but the only thing he could tell me about my '69 R60 was that it was manufactured in 1969. "Further details are not known", he said, "because the delivery records are not complete anymore." The "anymore" part implies that the records did exist at one point. The only way I know what equipment the bike had on it originally is from a photo that the original owner took the day he bought it. That's great provenance for me but I was surprised that BMW had no real information.

[Deleted User 287]

The only way I know what equipment the bike had on it originally is from a photo that the original owner took the day he bought it.

Have you posted that photo here, yet?

[Kurt in S.A.]

The only way I know what equipment the bike had on it originally is from a photo that the original owner took the day he bought it. That's great provenance for me but I was surprised that BMW had no real information.

WOW, you probably have more info than I do on my R69S! That would be great to have the photo. Do you know the ownership lineage to you? I don't...I have some names, but have not been able to connect when any of them, except the PO.

I think the whole vagueness is just due to various people being involved in the process and not having any real system in place. I was only told them my /2 was built in March or April 1968. I was told, though, when it was delivered to the dealer which was in December 1968...mine is a '69 model. From what I can gather, the '68/'69 time period was a bit sketchy because of the economy, for one. I surmise that in my case, BMW was cranking out bikes, but dealers weren't asking for any deliveries since nothing was selling. When a dealer wanted a handful of bikes, BMW went to the warehouse, pulled out the required number of bikes, stamped VINs in them, and shipped them out. So, while all that waiting was going on, things probably get a little lost.

Kurt in S.A.

[Duane Ausherman]

Kurt, BMW didn't do a good job of documenting much of anything in ways that would be important to collectors. Ask any dealer of that era.

[CVA-42]

Yes, I do know the entire ownership history of the bike. I'll relate it because I think it's interesting. Surf on to something else when/if it gets boring. The original owner went to Ghost Motorcycles in Port Washington, N.Y. (north shore of Long Island) to buy a Harley. He wound up with the BMW only after the salesman talked him into it. The bike still has the original dealer stickers on it from Ghost showing all the other Euro brands that they sold at the time, many of which are now extinct. Interestingly, my buddies and I used to drive out to Ghost from the city on Saturdays to drool over the Bonnevilles, Lightning Rockets and such. We generally paid no mind to the big, ugly BMW's. When I first saw the Ghost stickers on the R60 many memories came flooding back. Anyway, the original owner rode the bike sparingly until around 1989 when he pickled it in his garage in Pennsylvania after moving from New York. There it sat until 2002 when a young guy who was visiting him noticed it and inquired about it. After an extensive conversation, he asked if the bike might be for sale. The owner asked him what he would do with it. The young guy said he would like to put it back on the road for his wife. The owner then said that he wouldn't sell it to him but that he would GIVE it to him if he cleaned it up, got it running, and brought it back so he (the owner) could see it and take it for a ride. They shook on it and over the following winter, the young guy cleans, polishes, fiddles, dis-assembles, re-assembles, replaces electrical parts, tires, this and that until one day in the Spring he decides to start it up. Nothing on the first kick, she coughs on the second, and she starts up on the third. Unbelievable. He brings it back to the first owner as promised but by now the older guy is so heart-breakingly sick with cancer that he can't ride it but he starts to cry at the sight of it. The young guy continues to get her in shape and, over the next three years, his wife rides it fairly regularly until she floods it out at the gas station one too many times and decides she needs something with an electric start. The bike goes on the market and subsequently moves from Pennsylvania to Ohio with the third owner. Now it's 2005 and the new owner, who is an American engineer but raised in Germany, proceeds to bring the machine to the next level. He sends the wheels to Vech for re-spoking and bearing service, has a bunch of bits re-chromed, and sends off to Germany for a lot of this and that. I have all of these German receipts and have since had a German friend of mine translate them for me. Turns out that the third owner actually apprenticed in Ernst Henne's Mercedes dealership as a young man. Anyway, after three years of ownership, the third owner falls upon financial hard times due to a divorce and sells the bike at a substantial loss in 2008 to a guy in South Carolina. This guy buys it only to turn it over for profit and that's when I came along in late 2008. I know all of this because the South Carolina guy put me in touch with the Ohio guy who put me in touch with the young guy in Pennsylvania. Each one of those people was generous enough to send me pictures and documentaton of all the steps along the way. I even have pics of the day that the second owner brought the bike back to the first owner after he got it road-worthy again.
In any case, the picture I mentioned that was taken the day that the bike came home from Ghost shows the Sport Tank, large seat, bar-end signals, crash bar, leather saddle bags, and a fairing that appears to me to be a Flanders. The bags and fairing are gone, the fairing having been removed by the fourth owner and sold separately. I'll post the pic if I can figure out how to do it. Thanks for reading ...

[Deleted User 62]

I'd like to see some of those pictures!

[Flatwins]

What a great story, CVA!

[Duane Ausherman]

Yes, that is a nice story CVA. Thanks for typing it up.

[Paul Spiegel]

@duane: I've got a bona fide 1969 Earles fork R69S, the one for which Joe G just rebuilt the drivetrain. Were they rare only in the US, or in Europe too?

[Duane Ausherman]

I don't know if they were rare in Europe too. The cultural use of the BMW in Europe and the USA was quite different. We toured and they raced. I would expect them to admire the telescopic forks far more than the Earles.

One must remember that it was very well known that BMW had a new model in the works. Why buy the old when the newer, better and faster is about to come out?

For one reason, maybe the rider wants something that works. The 70 model of the /5 was quite miserable.