BMW (Ernst J. Henne) 1929-30

For many Germans the Ingolstadt-Munich road, with its long, broad straightaways, was merely a pleasant, restful, and safe thoroughfare. For BMW of Munich, on the other hand, it was the ideal place to run record-breaking motorcycles at full speed. One of the most successful earlier models was the BMW 750. BMW's first attempt to beat the record that the English racer Herbert Le Vack had set with a 1,000-cc. Brough Superior-JAP took place in 1929. The smaller displacement of the BMW 750 did not bother the BMW's technicians. They thought that the lower position of the engine would reduce the vehicle's resistance to the air so that the motorcycle could outdo Le Vack's 129.06 m.p.h.

Ernst Henne, wearing a bubble helmet, rode his BMW 750 at some 135 m.p.h. on September 19, 1929. About a year later Joe Wright rode an 85-h.p. OEC Temple-JAP 1000, with supercharger, at 137.32 m.p.h., taking the record back to Britain again. On September 21, 1930, Henne rode a BMW substantially identical to the one he had used in 1929 and set a new record. Henne drove the kilometer in 16"24 at an average speed of 137.66 m.p.h.

Originally produced in 1929 and modified in the years thereafter, the BMW streamliner featured an overhead valve version of BMW’s flat-twin four-stroke engine. A Zoller supercharger was mounted to the front of the crankshaft. The bike started out open, but fairings were added during its progression, and in its 1937 form, it was a fully-faired streamliner.  In 1936, the displacement was lowered from 736cc to 493cc and the output increased slightly to 108 bhp at 8,000 rpm. The bike featured telescopic front fork suspension.