BMW R 36

The BMW R 36 was a motorcycle project BMW pursued from 1937 to 1939 with a single-cylinder engine and shaft drive, planned as the successor of the R 35. Rudolf Schleicher, head of the motorcycle design office, patented a cylinder head on 15 July 1937 based on experience with the BMW aircraft engines Hornet and BMW 132, with the spark plug at the front and the intake port with air filter and carburettor and the exhaust pipe side by side at the rear, which he used in motorcycle building for the first time. On 23 January 1939 he presented a near-series motorcycle, but in mid-1939 the project, design type 236, was cancelled, and a prototype was destroyed in an air raid on the Milbertshofen plant in 1944. The kick starter sat on the left to ease fitting a sidecar on the right, the bolted tubular frame resembled that of the R 20, and rear suspension, planned here for the first time on a BMW single, reached series building only in the R 25 from May 1950. The front had a telescopic fork and both wheels had half-hub brakes.