Roland Sands and BMW have teamed up once more to create another new concept bike, the Concept 101 bagger.
Based on the K1600 luxury tourer, the Concept 101 follows a similar pattern to Honda’s F6B. It takes a fully-dressed street tourer and pares the bodywork down to a slightly more svelte form.
To counter the old-school look of the beaver panel accents (made of real wood!), BMW also included carbon-fibre and aluminum bits to show this is a high-end, pricy bike. You’ve got to pay to play the bagger game.
The machine was unveiled at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este on the shores of Italy’s Lake Como.
Will the Concept 101 ever see production? We’re guessing the answer is yes, as Roland Sands was the man behind the BMW Concept 90 that turned into the R NineT. Sands was a great choice to design this concept; he’s quite well-regarded in the custom world and would know the basics to building a great bagger, but he also has plenty of cred as a designer right now. That’s why Victory hired him to work with #Project156.
In any case, the Concept 101 is a little less far-out than the Concept 90 is, and it’s definitely aimed right at the US bagger market. According to their press release, “The name ‘Concept 101’ indicates the capacity of the concept bike, which has its roots in the USA. The capacity of the six cylinders is 1,649 cc – approximately equivalent to 101 cubic inches, which is the American unit of measurement for cylinder capacity.” It has that slammed-in-the-back look the custom cruiser crowd is hot for right now, the big front wheel, the low-profile windscreen – just the thing for riding down to Tim Hortons.
It will be interesting to see the impact the Concept 101 has on the market, if it really does arrive. Will this bike and the F6B have the same impact on the cruiser market that Yamaha’s V-Max did in the 1980s? Or will the Concept 101 follow the Honda Fury down in history as bikes that outperformed their North American equivalents everywhere but the sales sheet? Time will tell.
GALLERY
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OK, I’ll admit the mufflers didn’t really turn my crank. But hey, I will be looking over the windscreen, not at my own arse. Still want one.
Ucking Fugley! Maybe a dragster based on the 6 instead. Too many cruisers out there already. ; )
That is the hottest bloody beemer I’ve seen so far, I really, really want one.
Gotta say, I did NOT get that feeling. As far as Beemer cruisers go, I prefer the R1200C, and that’s saying a lot.
I was going to cite this as an example of Germans having no soul until I saw the RS connection. What happened to the simple beauty of a 70s RT?
As a gentleman in Monty Python once said, “Fetch the bucket.”
Now that is the ugliest BMW or probably any bike I have ever seen
Sorry, lose the wood grain unless its a 1963 Chevrolet Biscayne station wagon.
Is Roland Sands considered the next coming of Eric Buell – don’t the Germans have their own stylists and engineers ?
It’s big and ridiculous and looks like it will handle like a locomotive. North Americans will love it.