Due to a lack of imagination at BMW, there is now a new BMW R12. But the real R12 was a side valve. And there was someone who went completely crazy with it.
Louis Lepoix bought his R12 at an auction organised by the French army, but he didn’t keep it for long. “My father was short of money and had to sell it in the late 40s. Since then, nobody knows where it is,” says his son. “Some of the design elements were later used in the design of motorcycles produced in Germany in the 1950s by small companies: Louis used the BMW to make his name in the German motorcycle industry and designed many machines from the 1950s for Kreidler, Hercules, Horex, Puch, Maico, Triumph, Bastert and Walba.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much information left about this BMW, or who bought it. “My dad tried to track it down; we always assumed it was probably exported to the US at some point.”
Does anyone, anywhere, know where this bike is? If you have any information, please let us know.
“My father Louis Lucien Lepoix (1918-1988) was an industrial designer – born in France, but mainly based in Germany during his career. Without any support from BMW, he designed and built an extremely streamlined motorcycle based on a BMW R1947 chassis in 12,” says Bertrand. Phenomenal in terms of styling. But considering the thermal limitations of a side valve engine, the question is how the cooling performed.
There are parallels here with the work of famous American designers Norman Bel Geddes and Raymond Loewy, but at the time Lepoix designed his R12, he didn’t know they existed. “He didn’t speak or read English,” says his son. “He came from a family of little means, his parents were simple farmers.”
The mail we received was sent to the leading 😊 classic magazines in Europe and the United States. And that is because Mrs. Kűbler as manager of the LePoix archive would very much like to know where this creation has gone.
Apparently there is a replica of it in a German museum
Images FTI Erika Kübler.
