the bike is the kind of thing Jay Leno collects. I would really like to see such a piece go to a real collector who would appreciate it and show it off the way he does.
the bike is the kind of thing Jay Leno collects. I would really like to see such a piece go to a real collector who would appreciate it and show it off the way he does.
Since 1925, about 150 different racing outboards have been made.
Excellent idea Sam. Perhaps Peer could make an effort to contact him or his museum with information that it is for sale. Another possibility is the Motorcycle Museum at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Al. Eileen and I stopped there a couple of years ago on the way back from the World Championships at Lake Alfred. It has probably one of the largest exhibits of bikes of all types in the world. Don't know where they got it, but they have one of the Road Racing versions with a Konig 500CC engine in it.
I seem to remember Peer saying several years ago when he was in the US, that the BMW/Konig conversion had a 350cc engine in it.
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Dieter was friends with the BMW motorcycle people. BMW motorcycles I believe were made in Berlin. Dieter showed me some of the machines that were given to him by BMW when they updated. That was in the days of two stroke and I have to think that Dieter probably traded off some good advice.
From Dieter's own mouth in 1975 he told me that BMW gave him two motorcycle frames. I don't know what year he was given them or when they were built. Nor who built them. After learning more about Kim Knewcombe after his death, I thought maybe he did, but the motorcycles I saw in Dieter's shop didn't look like the one in the above pictures. Steve Litzell could fill us in with more facts, but I remember what Dieter told me about the BMW frames. He said that he had a 350cc konig installed in his, and that Hans had a 500cc Konig in his. I can clearly remember that because I thought to myself when Dieter told me that, I thought to myself a 350 Konig would be a killer.....and Hans wanted more. It made sense knowing Hans.
If anyone knows collectors like Leno or museums that may have an interest in either the bike or motor, please pass it on to Peer.
Or have them contact Peer directly. Peer has a website for his business, www.krage-tuning.com .
WOW! Thanks for those pics Ralph!
Really not much more to add to what has already been said. The bike i saw at factory had a D motor on it and was also a BMW Frame. The in house frames were made by Kim and Dieter I believe. Dieter only said little about this bike and when I asked about maybe riding it, with a very ashen look on his face, he sternly said NO! I do not want to hurt another friend. I left it at that and did not ask more about this. I did ask Uli and he gave to me a little history but we did not get into many details. I was more interested however in boat motors and the 8 cylinder that was being made at that time. I received my 8 cylinder from Uli Rochelle last week and it will look good next to my 8 cylinder I made and other Konig collector motors.
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Wow Steve....an 8 cylinder Konig from Uli?...the one you made...plus the C you built for Louis? What else do you have? I hope you will post some pictures.
There's a book, if you can find it, "Classic German Racing Motorcycles" by Mick Walker, that has info and pix on the Konig-powered bikes and sidehacks. A mechanic named, IIRC, Helmut Fath, built his own bikes and motors similar to Konig's.
Wayne:
You are correct in that the BMW/Konig that Peer Krage has is equipped with the 500CC version of the Konig motor.
There is another bike that is owned by Peter Konig that has the 350CC engine I referred to in an earlier post. When Peer Krage was here in the uS several years ago for a World Championship race, we had the pleasure of visiting with him away from the race course, and I was sure he mentioned a bike that had a 350CC motor.
It seems, from an e-mail conversation I have just had with him, that indeed as you mention, there were two frames given to Dieter by BMW. One frame was from a larger model of bike, and that one is the one Hans passed to Peer after his death. It has the 500CC motor. The other is a smaller frame from a BMW R 60 and that is the one with the 350CC motor that is with Peter Konig.
I gave Peer some further information regards the Barber Museum and he is going to try to contact them thru the Barber web site to see if there is interest, since they already have one of the road racing bikes with a Konig in it. There could possibly be interest in the motor owned by Herr Gessner also, as they do have a small display of older Johnson and Evinrude racing engines. When Eileen and I were there several years ago they were not available to inspect with the main display, but they could be seen from a staircase that gave a view of the workshop area where the bikes are rebuilt and maintained. We understood from a museum employee that as the outboard collection grew, it also could be added to the main display. The maintenance/rebuild area is generally not open to the public except for special events like bike race weekends or swap meets as EzyRider mentioned in his post about the museum.
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