The Luxury Bikes

he 2009 Superbike World Championship is going to be spectacular. BMW is finally in the game with a big literbike, and they should make for an interesting season. This being their first year, I really don’t think they’ll be in contention, but they’ll probably finish well and up the level of competition with the rest of the crowd.

Either way, the most exciting part of BMW entering the race will be the production S1000RR. People have been looking forward to this bike since BMW announced it’ll be entering Superbike. Although, according to BMW Motorrad CEO Hendrik von Kuenheim, there will be only 1,000 S1000RRs built in 2009, meaning they’ll be impossible to find. Plus you know they’re getting snatched up by money men and celebrities first. Check out pictures of the official race version and production version:

No word on the price yet, but considering the high level technology in the S1000RR, it’s got to be up in the high teens at the least, I would say even more, but they’re going to at least try to compete with the Japanese.

Only good can come from this. It’ll be a fun to watch season, and the production S1000RR will spice up the whole pack of production literbikes. Competition is a beautiful thing, and BMW does it well in their automotive scene; they make quality driver’s cars. The 3 Series is a Car and Driver’s 10Best mainstay, even the big sedans have real zip; and anything with an M badge is just perfection. So it’ll be nice to see them compete on two-wheels with something other than big touring and heavy enduro bikes. And, according the von Kuenheim, the S1000RR will only be the first of several new ‘S’ supersport models, all of which will be designed specifically to compete with the Japanese sportbikes. Very, very awesome.