Bmw S600rr

BMW S600RR

ROUNDUP

The rumors won't die but the company says the bike won't live

IT DOESN’T TAKE CALCULUS OR CLAIRVOYANCE TO FIGURE OUT THAT BMW has worked on a 600cc sportbike, one in the same vein as its crushingly successful S1000RR.

Rumors were piping-hot last year, fueled when BMW secured an Internet domain name incorporating S600RR, but the Germans denied such a bike was in the offing anytime soon. Rumblings continued, though, perhaps because the bike is simply such an enticing idea. But after my recent conversation with BMW Motorrad General Director Hendrik von Kuenheim, a middleweight sportbike from Munich seems very unlikely. Von Kuenheim very clearly described the decimation of the 600 market around the world, which is much worse off than motorcycles as a whole, and said that BMW would only consider building a bike if the market returned.

So, with the 600cc sportbike market virtually non-existent in the U.S. (one Japanese manufacturer’s sales were roughly 90 percent lower in 2010 than in 2006) and with worldwide sales of middleweight sportbikes off by more than 70 percent, well, you can see why BMW might choose to stick with the liter class, at least for now. But, hey, we can dream. —Mark

Mark Hoyer