Have you seen this BMW? Yes, it’s all silver!
I am a U.K. subscriber to your excellent magazine, and I enjoyed the Under the Radar article in your July/August 2012 issue about the BMW R27. It brought back memories, as I owned a very rare R27 back in the early 1960s. As you can see from the picture, it was silver and not the usual black! The machine, I am told, was specially built for the wife of the chairman of the BMW owners club around 1959.
I owned the bike for around two years and subsequently part exchanged it for a CB450 Black Bomber. The only fault I had with it was the gearbox oil seal had a tendency to leak from time to time, which caused clutch slip. No matter how many times I replaced the seal, the fault always came back. Having said that, I very much enjoyed riding it, and whenever I parked it at bike meets a crowd would gather as nobody had ever seen a silver BMW! I have tried to trace back to see if it is still surviving, without success. It would be nice to know if it is still around. As you can see I fitted it with a small screen from a Moto Rumi and a rear luggage rack off an R50.
I recently retired as the chairman of the CBX riders club (U.K.) after 14 years and still own a 1979 CBX and a GL1500 Goldwing.
— Mel Watkins, CBX marque specialist VJMC(U.K.)/North Wales, U.K.
