I once asked a BMW car marketing guy what differentiated his company's image from rival Mercedes. "Simple," he said. "We build motorcycles; they build trucks."

And considering its traditional image as a maker of staid and stolid motorcycles, BMW has an impressive record of performance innovation: the first factory-faired sport bike, the 1976 Daytona-winning R90S, for example; more recently, the astounding K1200R, the world's fastest street standard; and the bike that created the adventure touring category, the R80G/S of 1981.

Often emulated, never quite rivaled, BMW's GS series remains the benchmark for "big trailies": the bikes that the GS range has inspired since 1980, including the Cagiva Elefant, Triumph Tiger, Moto Guzzi Quota, Aprilia Caponord, KTM Adventure, Suzuki V-Strom, and (outside the US) Honda's trio of twin-cylinder trailies, the Transalp, Africa Twin, and Varadero.

ISDT and Paris-Dakar
In the late 1960s, BMW almost quit making bikes. They needed capacity to build more cars, the motorcycle market was in a downturn, and the aging R60 and R69 were essentially obsolete. But motorcycles are about performance, a trait BMW wanted buyers to associate with its cars; so instead it lured Hans-Gunther von der Marwitz from Porsche to re-invent its motorcycle range. Thus the "slash" series of BMW boxers was born, the /5, /6 and /7s, built in a new factory in Spandau, just outside Berlin. Von der Marwitz's basic design was so good, it ran until the last "airhead" twins of 1996.

Though von der Marwitz retained the opposed-twin layout, he completely revised engine internals, using a one-piece forged crank with plain bearings, moving the camshaft below the crank, and driving it by chain, not gears. A handsome aluminum casting housed the alternator and other ancillaries, while an engine speed clutch drove a four-speed gearbox (in the /5) with - as all BMW's had up to that time - shaft final drive

The International Six Days Trial (now Enduro) has been a proving ground for motorcycles since 1913. Helmut Scheer entered the 1970 competition on a modified R75/5, winning silver, and Herbert Schek took the gold in 1971 and 1973. For 1979 and 1980, BMW successfully entered the new over-750cc class with the competition-only GS80. But the company was eyeing a bigger prize.
First run in 1979, the Paris-Dakar rally had caught the public's attention. Yamaha XT500s won in 1979 and 1980, but BMW planned a major assault for 1981, with its latest creation: the R80G/S.