In 2014, Michael Dunlop, son of Robert and nephew of TT legend Joey, gave BMW its first solo class TT win since Georg ‘Schorsch’ Meier led home his teammate Jock West in the 1939 Isle of Man Senior TT.
The first victory was at a record speed of 89.38mph and was on one of the factory-built, lightweight supercharged motorcycles, a replica of which was tested by Alan Cathcart in the January 2016 edition of this magazine.
The BMW 500 Type 255 Kompressor was one of the most sophisticated motorcycles of its time and were it not for the governing body’s – the FIM – postwar ban on supercharging, who knows how machines from the German firm would have progressed.
Read more in May’s issue of TCM
