Four reasons the new BMW R 18 cruiser will be a sales flop

One of us — either me or BMW Motorrad — is very mistaken.

Yesterday was supposed to be the day BMW revealed its long-teased, much talked-about new cruiser with the monster-sized boxer engine at an unveiling party at the Handbuilt Show in Austin during the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas weekend. The coronavirus outbreak changed all that, just as it has changed so many other more important things, and we got instead a virtual unveiling.

BMW builds a big cruiser — just as big cruisers are dying out. BMW photo.

A lot was already known about the R 18, as this model has had a long runway. It surfaced as a couple of concepts at the big international bike shows, then was slated for production, and now has emerged in final form, with BMW hoping to have models in dealer showrooms sometime later this year, if even more best laid plans are not torn asunder. The concepts got people talking, which is what concepts are supposed to do, and the sheer scale of the thing drew more attention. Apparently all that was enough to get BMW executives past whatever remaining nightmares they still have over their last attempt at a cruiser, the maligned R 1200 C of two decades ago. So they greenlighted the thing.

BMW showed several versions of its R 18 cruiser at its virtual unveiling, including this one with a solo saddle. Lots of customizing options will be available. BMW photo.

Considering how much has been invested in this concept already and how hard BMW has promoted it, those executives must be quite confident they have a winner here. I’m equally confident it will be an epic sales flop. One of us has to be wrong. I’m putting this on the record now so I can come back in a couple of years and either crow or eat crow.

I predict the R 18 will find an initial burst of sales as a relative handful of buyers who love it absolutely have to have one at any price. And then the vast majority of crusier riders will be content to walk over and look at one, if it shows up at their local bike night, but would never consider buying one.

Here are the four reasons I think the BMW R 18’s sales will flatline near zero after a very brief initial burst.

One thing I really do like about the BMW R 18 is some of the clever tech included, such as the cornering lights integrated into the traditionally round headlight housing. BMW photo.

#1: Most of the world won’t care

Big cruisers mainly sell in the United States. Elsewhere, such as Europe and Australia, there are pockets of enthusiasm for cruisers but they sell in small numbers. The R 18 will definitely not be a world bike. In the biggest markets, like India, China, Indonesia, etc., a 350 cc motorcycle is considered big. An 1,802 cc bike starting at $18,500 just doesn’t start at all.

#2: Even in the United States, big cruiser sales are plunging

The heavyweight cruiser category saw the biggest decline of any motorcycle segment in the United States in 2019, with sales down 17 percent. Harley-Davidson, which is belatedly trying to branch out but has focused almost exclusively on the heavyweight cruiser market for decades, has seen sales decline for five straight years. Baby Boomers are aging out of motorcycling and younger riders don’t want a big, heavy, expensive cruiser. They tend to want motorcycles that are fun, lighter, reliable and affordable. So combine points #1 and #2 and you see that BMW basically has one narrow market segment in which to sell the R 18 in numbers and that segment is dying.

There’s no truth to rumors that BMW R 18 riders will be required to be preceded on the highway by a car with flashing yellow lights and a “WIDE LOAD” banner. But a boxer engine does get wide when you poke it out to 1,802 cc. BMW photo.

#3: Cruiser buyers are traditionalists; the R 18 is non-traditional

There are religious cults that are more flexible in their thinking than the typical U.S. cruiser buyer, who will consider nothing other than an air-cooled V-twin. We’ve seen this for 40 years now. Back in my youth, Japanese companies tried to get a slice of the cruiser market by putting stepped seats, slightly raked front ends and high handlebars on their parallel twins and four-cylinder models. They didn’t make much headway until they started building V-twins. Even then, success was limited. Even when foreign companies built an air-cooled V-twin cruiser that imitated Harley-Davidson styling, the vast majority of cruiser buyers bought a Harley instead, anyway. As my former boss used to say, “Go to Daytona Bike Week and you’ll see 250,000 rugged individualists all wearing the same black T-shirt.” Cruiser riders adhere to orthodoxy. They don’t want to stick out. And boy does that BMW boxer stick out. Just look at it.

#4: The R 18 doesn’t even capitalize well on BMW’s own traditions

BMW plays up the R 18’s nods to tradition, and I admit the exposed drive shaft is a clever touch. But the traditional virtues of the boxer were good torque, relatively light weight (or, at least, low-placed weight) and ease of maintenance. Torque it surely has, but the light weight and agreeable handling of BMWs from the airhead boxer era are not going to be part of the R 18’s performance package. The engine alone weighs 244 pounds! BMW’s heritage line, with the R nineT variants, particularly the Racer and the Urban G/S, provide modern performance with homage to BMWs of the past. Try to find the beloved BMW of yore that was an oversized cruiser and provides the tradition for the R 18 to build on. It doesn’t exist, and I’d say that was a good thing.

This is a boxer that successfully trades on some of BMW’s richest tradition. The R nineT Urban G/S is an attractive reminder of how BMW invented the adventure-touring class. BMW photo.

I think BMW did a good job with the styling and the R 18 includes some interesting tech, such as the cornering lights built into the traditional round headlight shell. But in the end it’s an expensive motorcycle built for what is, globally speaking, a niche market that is quickly dying. It flies into the headwinds of all the trends in the industry. So even though it looks far, far better than the R 1200 C cruiser that was one of BMW’s biggest miscalculations, the R 18 will be, I predict, just as big a flop.