And now ladies and gentlemen, time for something completely different. The BMW boxer in its many guises has become a solid if occasionally staid staple of the custom world with professional workshops and shed builders turning out many a glorious but occasionally predictable incarnations of the BMW platform. You may just have thought you had seen every conceivable boxer, but not so, creativity will always win out.
The partnership of Frank and Inge, the contrasting yet complimentary minds behind Moto Sumisura, forms a platform for their creativity to thrive. The production and media career that Frank abandoned in the pursuit of motorcycle making is constantly reminding him to think outside of pre determined boxes, whereas Inge’s engineering background brings real world functionality and execution to the duo’s table.
Frank describes the Moto Sumisura project as “Motorcycle tailoring, taking rags and turning them into evening wear.”While transforming tired Beemers into more luxurious attire has predominantly been the case for the Italian marque, with this build they were given the opportunity to work with a box fresh BMW R nineT.
It seems that whenever top-shelf builder’s are given the R nineT to work with they see it as an opportunity to push the envelope. Costly and time consuming engine rebuilds and niggling reliability issues are of course scrubbed from the agenda leaving the builder free to get on with flexing their creative muscle. Motokouture and Valtoron experimented with sand casting when creating the Blokbeest while El Solitario unleashed the show stopping Impostor.
This magnificent steam punk, industrial behemoth is how Moto Sumisura saw the nineT platform. They began by turning their attention to the story and heritage which had initially inspired the nineT concept and with this knowledge set about tailoring the Moto Sumisura version.
“The nineT was created by BMW to celebrate the ninety years of its entry into the world of motorcycling and I decided to take inspiration from the first motorcycle, the R 32. That bike created in 1923, was born strongly influenced by the Bauhaus, the German school of architecture, art and design that operated from 1919 to 1933 and which was the key point for all movements of innovation in design related to rationalism and functionalism.”
All of the original bodywork and plastics were stripped away and sent out to pastures new leaving Frank and Inge to contemplate the bare nineT. The tank was replaced with a long, angular almost coffin like receptacle fabricated from mild steel with brass inserts. Throughout the build they were keen to experiment with materials
“I wanted to play with the alternation of brass, steel and aluminum brushed or worked with effects that resemble the African trip destination of the famous writer.” Slide us a Campari Frank, we’re not quite on your wavelength there.
“I wanted to play with the alternation of brass, steel and aluminum brushed or worked with effects that resemble the African trip destination of the famous writer.” Slide us a Campari Frank, we’re not quite on your wavelength there.
The rear subframe was removed and replaced with a fresh, box section fabrication which protrudes beyond the short diamond stitched single seat to form a luggage rack. The heart of the bike receives an architectural column of circular brushed steel to house all of the electrical components and other gadgetry.
The short plastic front mudguard of the original machine was replaced by a drooping bare aluminium item that I would argue has looks inspired by wind tunnel tuned speed machines, but would understand if you merely suggested it looked as if it were on backwards. The rear guard sits low below the frame echoing the front.
Like the fine evening gowns Frank imagines his motorcycles to be, the attention to detail is what makes it stand out in a crowd. The clocks are dressed in a brushed metal cocoon while torpedo-esque teardrops house the micro indicators. Wire wrapped grips sit on the end of the bars which are draped with a dimpled steel shroud. Every element has been considered for both beauty and function.
That striking headlight converted from an old boxer valve cover is a treatment that Moto Sumisura have dallied with before in their equally intriguingly fendered Jm-01.2. In this application the illumination comes from tiny L.E.D bulbs hidden within the cooling fins. It is just the most obvious example of Franks vibrant imagining of parts which is present across the entire machine.
Moto Sumisura build machines of remarkable character. The question of why seems to have been firmly elbowed aside and replaced with the statement why not in their Milan workshop, where creativity seems to be the drug they cannot live without. Long may it continue.
via The Bike Shed
