Forum bmwbike.com

Hello -

First post... I've recently acquired a '52 R25/2 to go with the rest of my "fleet". From the BMW archives, I've been told that the bike was delivered to the dealer Utz in Mainz. The motor vehicle letter (in German) that came with the bike indicates that the bike served as a police bike in Montabaur, Germany, from the mid '50s to late 1970, and then retired. The letter also indicates that it had license plates for Freiberg, likely before going to Montabaur.

I am interested in finding out more about the bike's history, possibly how it got from Mainz to Montabaur. The odometer shows 14xxx kilometers and has surely gone around once. Any history I could find would tell me how many times it might have turned over and if there was any serious maintenance during that period.

Does anyone have any suggestions on who to contact? My German is nicht so gut...well, non-existent! An interesting turn of events is that the sister city of Montabaur is Fredericksburg, Texas, which is only about one hour from my house. I hope to make some contacts through that organization and see if I can get some more information.

Thanks for any help. I look forward to getting the bike back on the road.

Kurt in S.A. (South Texas)

Hello Kurt,

I am Juergen from Germany residing in Cologne area. Currently I am on my way to get my 25/3 of 1955 on the road again (might take me one more year). I have read your article. May be it could be of help to get a copy of the German papers.
I am also member of a German forum for the single cylinder BMW's. There is also an English section. There you can get a lot of technical information and help.
The home page's adress is: www.bmw-einzylinder.de.

Looking forward to hear from you.

Best regards

Juergen

Juergen -

Thanks for the post. I do have some paperwork, a "Fahrkraftzeugbrief" or something like that...can't remember it right now. Not sure if that is the "paperwork" you're thinking of...is there something else I should be looking for? It has a number of pages that provide info on the police history, but some pages are missing probably because they document the personal ownership of the bike before police duty. Based upon the license plate numbers listed, it seems it might have been used in Freiburg before going to Montabaur. I have provided a copy of that to an individual in Montabaur...he has also submitted an article for the local paper to help find someone who might remember the bike.

I have visited the single cylinder site and the English forum. I have paged through the various posts but I didn't see much recent activity...sort of like here. But I'll try to check in once in a while. I suppose I should sign up over there and also put out some feelers.

Thanks...Kurt in S.A.

Update... I've been emailing with a local person in Montabaur and was asked to submit information to run in the local paper. The article came out last week. The editor has indicated that he's going to interview several people who remember the bike or have knowledge of the R25s used for police service. I've also received a photograph from a former policeman that was taken about 1961. It shows a number of twin cylinder BMWs in front of the police station (the Schloss) as well as a single cylinder bike on the end. The policeman believes that the picture of him with the bike is likely the bike that I now own.

Kind of interesting getting some insight into this little Schätzchen.

Kurt in S.A.