After the success of the R 18, BMW seems to be expanding its cruiser line-up in the near future with an R 12. The Germans have recently registered the name R 12 in several countries, including the United States and Germany.
The new trademark that BMW has registered in the United States, Japan, Australia and Germany under the name “R 12” is intended for “engines and parts thereof”, from which only one conclusion can really be drawn: BMW uses a smaller version of the R 18 worked.
Of course it cannot be said with 100% certainty that there will actually be an R 12, manufacturers often record things that are never used, but this time the question does not seem to be whether, but when the R 12 will be. will make an appearance. Judging by the name, the R 12 will have the same design lines as the R 18, but with a 1200 boxer engine.
When BMW had made the decision to return to the Cruiser segment, a 1,800 cc boxer engine was developed, because in that segment it’s all about a mega-sized cylinder capacity. That was also the reason why the R 1200 C, BMW’s first attempt in production from 1997 to 2004, flopped at the time: the displacement was simply too small to pass for a real Cruiser.
“There will be no direct successor to the cruiser in our next model generation. This is due to technical considerations: the new engine you know from the GS has been consistently designed for low weight and therefore offers – very deliberately – only a small margin for a larger displacement. And since the trend in the cruiser segment has long been well above 1,400cc, a cruiser in its former, classic style with a smaller engine would no longer fit our concept for the future. But this doesn’t mean we’re moving away from the cruise philosophy with BMW motorcycles once and for all. On the contrary, it is quite conceivable that we would interpret this theme very differently one day.”
It would take 16 years, but then the Germans launched the attack again with the launch of the R 18, of which several variants were put on the market within a few years. This has resulted in a serious boost in sales, 46 R 18s have already been sold in the Netherlands in the first 4 months of this year, more than double the number of 18 in the same period last year.
The success of the R 18 may well give the R 12 the boost that the first R 1200 C lacked. The R 18 as a figurehead and the R 12 as a more affordable variant that will also be a lot lighter – and therefore easier to drive. The success of the Harley-Davidson Sportster S and the Indian FTR1200 also shows that in the Cruiser segment too, it no longer necessarily has to be a large cylinder capacity.
The only question remains which block BMW will use for the R 12. Currently, the GS (and RT, R and RS) is powered by the 1,254 cc boxertwin, but given the fact that this block has water cooling, that does not seem the most common the obvious choice. The 1,170 cc air-cooled block of the R nineT seems to us to be a much more logical choice.
– Thanks for information from Motorfreaks.