BMW R 37

The BMW R 37 was the first sporting motorcycle built by BMW. It was developed in parallel with the company's first motorcycle, the R 32, and was shown to the public at the German automobile show in Berlin on 10 December 1924. Its longitudinally mounted two-cylinder boxer engine used overhead valves in light-alloy heads designed by the young engineer Rudolf Schleicher, a head layout that went on to shape BMW motorcycles for decades. The R 37 also set the building-block pattern of later BMW generations, sharing frame, gearbox and base engine with the touring models and differing mainly in valve gear and cylinder bore. Only 152 were made before production ended in 1926, and the R 47 followed it. Schleicher won a gold medal for Germany at the International Six Days Trial of 1926 with the R 37 he had developed.