June 2002

My name is Erik Bahl and I have been a vintage BMW enthusiast for 15 years. My first bike was a 1964 R50/2, which I rode around for several years. I knew little about it except it was a reliable ride, which took me on many adventures. After a handful of pre 70’s BMW’s I decided it was time to get and restore an antique BMW. So the story begins…….

The bike I acquired is a 1941 BMW R12 that was born on the 6^th of March 1941. It was delivered to the "Heereszeugamt Munchen" which purchased materials for the military authorities. According to the BMW historical archives it started out its life gray in color. The engine, frame, and ID tag are matching (#32076). The engine is free and has compression. The transmission cycles through all four gears. It came out of a barn in Germany a few years back. I believe the last time it was on the road it called France its home, as both tires are quite old and of French manufacture.

The bike appears to be complete and original with the following exceptions. The headlight and top triple tree plate that the handlebars attach to apparently found themselves donors to other bikes. Also the front lower motor mount bolt that passes through the frame and engine block was gone (I found out from Vech that a front sidecar motor mount bolt for a R69S is the same). The rear taillight and license plate holder is not correct and appears to be Triumph. Does anyone have a clue what bike it is for? Thanks to Richard Scheckler, he said that the tail lamp is from a TWN (Triumph Werke Nuernburg) of what year I do not know yet. If anyone can specify the particular bike I would like to know.

At first I thought the paint might be original as the bike did not appear to have been disassembled and I could not see any other colors underneath small scrapes. Of course this was prior to my contact with BMW. From several people I have talked with, BMW only produced military bikes this year and they all came out of the factory painted gray. This bike is military which is evident from the front fender, footpegs, and rear steel footplates.

I was sent a CD containing many original manuals in a jpeg format from Martin Mikula in Slovakia (Thanks Martin). I printed them out and have been studying and translating as they are in German for the most part. I am in the information gathering stage. I plan to study parts breakdowns and any other info I can locate before I start to disassemble and restore the bike. If anyone has breakdowns for the Bosch magneto I can use them.

• Original tool kit
• M2B15 BMW Engine, like the one used in a Victoria Motorcycle
• Any other interesting pre-war BMW motorcycles, parts.

If you have any of the above items please contact me with price and condition.

5 March 2004 - I am now in the reassembly process. Things are cleaned and repainted. In order to remember what I started with I had to look through some past photos. Here are a couple shots right off of the truck. The photo above was after an initial degreasing and washing. This is what I really started with.