BMW Motorrad May 2013 Worldwide Sales ReportFollowing the release of a few new models, including the 2013 R1200GS and the 2013 F800GT, BMW continues to shatter its sales records.
BMW Motorrad began with a record-breaking year of sales, the Bavarian motorcycle manufacturer selling over 106,000 motorcycles and maxi scooters worldwide in 2012.This success continued throughout the beginning of 2013, and once again BMW Motorrad has reported a record-breaking month of sales. The latest is for May; BMW says it sold 14.2-percent more vehicles last month than it did in May of 2012. BMW says 13,081 motorcycles and maxi scooters were sold in May (previous year: 11,457), which was the most ever sold in the month of May.BMW says 52,400 motorcycles and maxi scooters (previous year: 48,918 units) had been sold from the beginning of the year through May – an increase of 7.1 percent over the same period last year.Heiner Faust (Head of BMW Sales and Marketing) says: “We have achieved our best May result to date with double-digit growth as compared to the previous year.“We are currently 7.1 percent above last year with an all-time first-quarter high in 2013, a record in April and a very strong May. While we are pleased to say that the very difficult markets of Southern Europe, Italy, Spain and France are showing very stable sales results, we are seeing especially good growth rates in the overseas markets of North and South America, Asia and Russia. Germany – our strongest single market – is also seeing a positive trend in spite of the unfavourable climate situation.“The main driving force behind this development is provided by our new models, the BMW R 1200 GS, BMW F 800 GT and BMW HP4 as well as our maxi scooters, of course. We are anticipating another powerful stimulus from our new travel enduro, the F 800 GS Adventure, which goes out to dealerships in mid-June.”
Hello everyone and welcome once again to the Ultimate Motorcycling podcast—Motos and Friends. My name is Arthur Coldwells.
Motos and Friends is brought to you by the Yamaha YZF-R7—Yamaha’s awesome supersport machine that is as capable on the racetrack as it is on the street. …and it’s comfortable too! Check it out at at your local Yamaha dealer, or of course at YamahaMotorsports.com.
In this week’s first segment, Senior Editor Nic de Sena rides the BMW K 1600 GT. This is the sporty bagger version of BMW’s K series of machines, those are the models with the awesome 6-cylinder engine. The GT has been given a little makeover for 2023, and Nic gives us his take.
In the second segment, I chat with one of my all time heroes—three-time World Champion racer ‘fast’ Freddie Spencer. I’ll do my best not to come off as too much of a fanboy here, but frankly it’ll be tough!
In my humble opinion, Spencer is a contender for the GOAT—greatest of all time. Sure, his career was a little shorter than some, and his number of championships falls behind the likes of Lawson, Doohan, Rossi, and of course Marquez. But at the time, Freddie literally changed the way motorcycles were ridden. 30 years before Marc Marquez, Freddie was able to push the front wheel into a slide, corner after corner, lap after lap in order to get the bike turned faster than anyone else. Freddie took completely different lines and was able to get on the throttle so early he could out accelerate anyone off a corner.
In the modern era, of course Freddie is the chairman of the FIM MotoGP Stewards panel. This is the panel of referees for all three classes of Grand prix racing. I talked to Freddie about his task there, and although for contractual reasons with Dorna and the FIM he cannot talk about specific riders, teams, or events, nevertheless his explanation of the job makes for interesting listening. It’s a tough job, and frankly I wouldn’t want to do it!
At any rate, Freddie’s new book ‘Feel’ is available on Amazon—I’d highly recommend you reading it whether you’re a fan of Freddie or not, even whether you’re into racing or not; every rider has something to learn from his mental approach.
Actually—Ultimate Motorcycling is giving away five copies of the book—signed by Freddie himself—to the first five listeners who contact us with the correct answer to the question: How many national AMA championships did Freddie win, and which years were they?
Please email your answers to producer@ultimatemotorcycling.com and we will contact the winners and send you a signed copy of Feel. Those five winners will be announced on a future episode. Unfortunately for legal reasons this offer is ONLY open to US residents.
So, from all of us here at Ultimate Motorcycling, we hope you enjoy this episode!
