As we closed the book on 2022, BMW officially unveiled two limited edition bikes to celebrate 100 years of BMW Motorrad. Since 2023 marks the brand’s 100th anniversary, it released both the R nineT and R 18 100 Years Editions. Just 1,923 of each of these bikes would be made, the OEM said, and the careful styling that draws a direct line all the way back to the R 32 couldn’t be denied.
Now, BMW Motorrad Nederland has taken the BMW legacy into the future with its own custom 100 Years Edition creation. Friends, this is the CE-04 100 Years Edition—and only one of them will ever be made. While it, too, draws styling cues from the R 32, it pushes that styling in a new direction, as BMW and other legacy bike makers stand on the edge of a significant shift in technology and personal mobility.
The CE-04 100 Years Edition is, of course, pretty much just a styling exercise. One thing that BMW sought to make clear when it initially introduced the CE-04 was just how easily riders could change the look of this electric scoot to suit their own personal style and preferences. The CE-04 100 Years Edition is nothing if not a tactile example of that fact.
Gallery: BMW CE-04 100 Years Edition
Sporting the elegant white pinstriping familiar from those early BMW Motorrad bikes, it also gets a special saddle with 100 Years embroidery at the back. The original BMW logo rather than the new one is also a nod to the company’s past, which is simultaneously riding on the most current representation of BMW’s two-wheeled future here in 2023.
Now, clearly, no one is going to mistake the CE-04 100 Years Edition for a classic BMW—but that’s not the point. In a way, this composition seems to say “we’ve been here for 100 years, and we’ll be here for 100 more.” Like any art, it’s open to interpretation, and is not intended as a statement of fact.
Sure, you might say, the CE-04 wasn’t around in 1923. Then again, neither was the R 18 or the R nineT, so why not push the 100 Years idea into even newer territory with an electric scooter?
