100 years of anything is an important thing to celebrate. It’s a nice, round number, and it looks cool if you get balloons in the shape of the numerals, but there’s more to it than that. A lot of things, people, and places don’t make it that far—so it’s hard not to feel a sense of occasion when you hit that century mark.
Take BMW, which will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the original R 32 next year, in 2023. We may only be on its 99th year here in 2022, at the time of writing—but that’s nothing to sneeze at, either.
Italian motorcycle publication Motociclismo recently sat down with BMW Motorrad vice president Dr. Alexander Wehr to chat about everything going on in the BMW sphere right now. Naturally, Dr. Wehr wanted to encourage all BMW fans to come to Berlin for BMW Motorrad Days, which will take place from July 2 through 3, 2022. As with most events over the past two years, BMW Motorrad Days was unfortunately canceled due to the pandemic—but in 2022, it’s back on, in a brand-new location.
In the tradition of anyone who has a good and/or exciting secret they want to reveal to you at some upcoming big event, Dr. Wehr stressed that there will be “some surprises” for those attending BMW Motorrad Days. He gave no further clues about exactly what to expect, but seemed content to hint very broadly at it being an important event on the calendar for BMW fans around the world.
Overall, Dr. Wehr touched on a number of topics in the interview, and we’ll post a link to it in our Sources so you can read the whole thing. One important thing to note is that BMW Motorrad—the parent company, not any of the individual regional branches—says it will not attend EICMA 2022 or Intermot 2022.
Currently, BMW Motorrad Italia also does not plan to attend EICMA 2022, although BMW Germany may possibly chose to attend Intermot. If BMW Germany does attend Intermot, Dr. Wehr said, they might have new models to show—but nothing that hasn’t previously been introduced. No premieres should be expected, he said.
Over the course of the pandemic, Dr. Wehr said, BMW learned that it’s a lot easier to spread its new releases out over the course of the year. Bringing new things out for riders on its own schedule instead of relying on the big shows as scheduling centerpieces seems to be working for the OEM, so it’s sticking to it.
Who doesn’t enjoy learning about new bikes? Not us, that's for sure. We look forward to finding out all about them no matter when or where they’re released.
