Six Cylinders – The BMW LT Finally Grows Up

Motorcycle News just reported from the EICMA Milan Show that next years BMW LT will be powered by a six cylinder engine!

Rumors have been floating around for a few years now that BMW was working on a six cylinder engine to compete with the GL1800 in displacement.

So now it looks like the "Brick" may be on it's way to the past.

The engine is a straight six – so, yes, there are six cylinders across the frame, just like the 1978 Honda CBX1000. But it doesn’t look absurdly wide.

"BMW have just revealed a concept bike at the Milan Show which features a six-cylinder engine that will appear in next year’s LT grand tourer.

BMW hinted that the concept bike itself is something of a red herring, but the 1600cc engine is not – it will appear next year powering their grand tourer. This will compete with the likes of the Honda Gold Wing, Victory Vision and Harley-Davidson Electra Glide.

The engine is a straight six – so, yes, there are six cylinders across the frame, just like the 1978 Honda CBX1000. But it doesn’t look absurdly wide, presumably because modern manufacturing techniques have let BMW cram each 266cc cylinder close to its neighbor.

BMW say the engine is extremely smooth and torquey and builds on the company’s car heritage of straight six engines."  -MCN

I waited as long as I was going to, to replace the 2002 BMW K1200LT in the stable. Last January I purchased a Honda GL1800 and have never regretted the decision.

I'm sure there will be a lot of kinks to work out of the new power-plant, and the early adopters of the LT-6 will pay for it with down time and shop visits.

In the BMW Motorrad Press Release they state: "Six-cylinder power units have always had particular appeal, offering not only supreme smoothness and refinement, but also superior power and performance as well as a truly emotional driving – or, in this case, riding – experience.

A further point is that the typical sound of a straight-six almost like a turbine is absolutely incomparable, with straight-six power units at BMW having stood for fascinating engine technology in BMW cars for more than seven decades."

It's interesting that BMW still has not remedied the Final Drive design that continues to fail, stranding riders. I myself have experienced two(2) such final drive failures on my BMW's and will not consider purchasing another BMW until they pull their collective heads out of their Final Drives!

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