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An interview with Pieter de Waal, Vice President of BMW Motorrad USA

By Vince Winkel, Editor, BMW Owners News

In January, the BMW S1000RR will begin appearing in BMW Motorcycle dealer showrooms across North America. This new superbike is the culmination of almost five years of planning. For Pieter de Waal, who many of you have heard speak at the last two BMW MOA National Rallies, this bike has been a priority and a mission. The BMW Motorrad Vice President's excitement over the S1000RR is apparent to anyone who has discussed the bike with him, as we did in November.

Vince Winkel - BMW Owners News: Pieter you've been involved with the S1000RR since the beginning, is that correct?

Pieter de Waal: Yes. In the first place, I was in Germany responsible for sales and marketing at the time that the decision was made to build this bike. I want to give you the background on why BMW decided to build a Superbike, and what we have done in the U.S. in a pre-sales campaign to make sure that the motorcycle will be a success in the US Market.

BMW ON: Going back in time a bit, can you describe the genesis of the S1000RR?

Mr. de Waal: This project started about 4.5 years ago. I was in Germany and we decided to go for a superbike because it fits the brand of BMW. We wanted to bring young people into the BMW Motorrad brand. The current age profile of our customer is worldwide 47, and in America about 50. Our customers age at approximately .7 years per year. That implies that our existing customers keep buying our motorcycles as they get older, but we do not bring many young people into the brand. It's a major long-term concern.

Going for a superbike would give us brand new customers. In America, the average age of a 1000cc superbike owner is 34, and the 600cc is 23 years of age. This bike would give us access to a new generation of customers. People that buy superbikes are not looking at anything but a superbike, they are not interested in cruisers, touring bikes or GS bikes. There is little overlap between superbike people and the rest.

The superbike market worldwide is big, and it is even bigger in America. The motorcycle market has shrunk to about 75,000 new superbikes per year; it used to be about 150,000 per year total. We predict that we will make the best single-selling BMW model in the range. We expect it to outsell the GS and be very successful.

BMW ON: So the American market really is one of the driving forces in creating and launching this bike?

Mr. de Waal: Absolutely. Essentially, we at BMW have to follow a volume growth strategy. We invest more than any other company in research and development. We have a very high-tech company, and we pay a high price for that. All of us are in the volume game because it is that last 20% volume that makes a company really profitable.

We looked at areas in which it would be lucrative to expand. We looked at cruisers and decided that it's not for us. We decided that superbikes were a big volume area that was attractive to us, especially because it would bring us young people.

We knew that going for superbike would make America very important for us.

*LEARN HOW YOU CAN WIN THE S1000RR HERE!*

BMW ON: What's the Superbike market like in North America?

Mr. de Waal: The 1000cc superbike sector is dominated by four models: Honda CBR1000R, Yamaha R1, Kawasaki ZX10 and Suzuki GSX-R1000. These four models make 88% of the total worldwide superbike sales. We decided that we want to take the four Japanese brands head on. That is a different philosophy than Ducati had; they built an alternative version to the Japanese superbike. It is a different game. KTM also went for a variation to the theme.

We didn't go for that; it would have been much easier for us to build a BMW interpretation of the superbike, but we decided to build a mainstream bike and take the four Japanese brands in their own game.

That meant that we had to understand and play by the rules of the game; how they define a superbike and understand what makes customers tick (knowing what is important to them).

BMW ON: So what are people like me, and our members, looking for when they buy a bike like the S1000RR?

Mr. de Waal: Four things. Let's start with performance. 99% of the people that buy a superbike cannot ride the bike to its full potential. They rely on what they hear from the media. The motorcycle must have the highest power to weight ratio. Our bike has a substantial margin of the highest horse power- 193-and it is about 2 or 3 pounds heavier than the lightest bike, so we are on our game in this area. 455 pounds wet (fully tanked with ABS), 404 dry. Then there are the comparison tests: they buy magazines that compare the motorcycles and compare which ones have the fastest lap times. That is why these huge motorcycle magazines do comparison tests between models and analyze which is the fastest. We've entered into world superbike racing a year before we launch the bike (2009) to create credibility for the bike up front. They have done incredibly well for their first year in this motorsport competition.

Finally, the bike should look good. For us it was quite a dilemma because the motorcycle was built with an understanding of the Japanese criteria, and we knew it would look like a Japanese bike. We didn't want it to look like a copycat; we wanted it to look like a BMW. We decided to strictly follow a philosophy of form follows function. The function determined the shape of things. That is why certain elements are asymmetrical.

BMW ON: What about cost?

Mr. de Waal: We decided from day one that this motorcycle could not cost the normal BMW premium and it had to be within $1,000 of its competitors in America. It was a huge challenge to build the bike to meet this (price) point. We've announced it at $13,800 which is competitive with Honda's superbike, which retails for $12,999.

*LEARN HOW YOU CAN WIN THE S1000RR HERE!*

BMW ON: What do you get for this price that you may not get on a bike from another manufacturer?

Mr. de Waal: One of the things that we had in mind was to build a motorcycle so that the average rider could be safe and ride faster on this motorcycle. We believe that a rider of average ability would be faster at a track day with our motorcycle. You can dial in optional modes of operation by flipping a switch (rain, sport, race and slick). When you do this, three main areas of the motorcycle correspond: the race ABS, the dynamic traction control and the engine management. As you dial in different modes, the bike reacts accordingly. That means that the motorcycle assists you according to you ability, which makes you faster than you would've been on a conventional motorcycle. It costs $1,400 to add this option and 98% of pre-orders have included it.

BMW ON: You talk about bringing in new BMW riders, and younger riders. Are there any plans for a 600cc model?

Mr. de Waal: There are no plans to build a 600cc. The market is twice as big as the 1000cc in the U.S., but the equation becomes much, much worse for us because they sell for $2,000 less and are just as expensive to build.

We are as confident as one can be that this bike will do well. We've set ambitious volume targets on it, and are competitive price wise. The motorcycle is really fantastic. However, the final judgment will be from the media and what they publish about it.

Within the superbike fraternity, customers are not very brand loyal, so we fancy that we will be able to pull a lot of people off their existing superbike and onto ours because we stuck to the rules of the game that they acknowledge.

We have more than 600 preorders in the U.S., and that is before the media has started to write about the motorcycle and had the ability to do comparison tests. The initial signs are very positive.

For more on the S1000RR see the January 2010 issue of the BMW Owners News

*LEARN HOW YOU CAN WIN THE S1000RR HERE!*

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