Everything for sport.
Higher, faster, further. It is well-known that sport is the realm of superlatives. And HP is no exception. But when it comes to High Performance, higher, faster and further is not enough. After all, we are on the hunt for the impossible. And the finish line is just the beginning.
When it comes to HP, it's all about sportiness, performance, fine materials. It is about setting new standards and pushing boundaries. This philosophy already embodied the first BMW motorcycle, the R 32, long before the HP brand was born. The machine from 1923 quickly had the reputation of the sporting jock, as Ernst Henne set one world record after the other with her. In 1939 it was Schorsch Meier who wrote history with his legendary senior TT victory on the BMW Kompressor RS 500 TYP 255.
In the seventies, Steve McLaughlin, Reg Pridmore and Helmut Dähne ensured a great deal of furore in the Superbike race with the win of the R 90 S in Daytona. After that, Hubert Auriol and Gaston Rahier continued the success story atop the R 80 G/S right through the desert, through the impassible terrain of the Paris-Dakar rally. After this, all things got quiet surrounding BMW Motorrad Motorsport. Too quiet, the employees believed. So they got things going themselves, out of passion for motorcycling and motorsport. This is the birth of HP.
What matters
HP stands for speed. But for innovation and new technologies too. For elegantly detailed solutions, safety features, weight reduction, and performance enhancement. At the same time, high performance is a reduction to the essentials, which promotes the sporty claim. Not one gram too much. And not one ounce of horse power too little. HP implies unconventional paths. The destination is clear however you reach it.
This has been the case right from the outset. "The project manager of the first HP model, Markus Theobald, has been speeding around in his free time testing on the tank meadows of the military base. He spent countless hours", Sepp Mächler tells us. Since 2007, he has been product manager of the HP range. "Motorsport always requires you to leave the beaten track. This is precisely what the project team has done already, and today is no exception."
Sepp Mächler
Production manager at HP4 RACE
The home stretch as a warm-up
When HP was introduced in 2005, the image of the super sports bike for which the HP was to create the basis was already running around the heads of the team back then. Before the market introduction of the S 1000 RR in 2009, the engineers in HP projects developed among other things the HP shift assistant, the race ABS and forged wheels as standard. And even after the launch of the super sports bike, BMW Motorrad has been shaping street racing with innovations like the first electronic chassis.
With the HP4 RACE, BMW Motorrad is once again setting the benchmark: for the first time, a manufacturer is producing a fully carbon frame and carbon rims as standard. It can always be more dynamic and elegant. This is the philosophy that stands behind HP: consciously expanding boarders – or setting them in the first place. The home stretch as a warm-up.
