When it comes time to celebrate a major milestone, we all do it differently. Some like to go on a week-long bender, others prefer a more wholesome family-friendly approach, and if you’re Marcus Walz, you toast your success by building thirty-two very special motorcycles. In 2022, Marcus, the custom bike builder of WalzWerk fame, announced he was crafting his 1000th full custom build, and given he was also commemorating 32 years in business, that’s the number of these special anniversary machines he chose to offer for sale. And just two and a half weeks after debuting the drawing of the bike on social media, they were all sold out. This is the penultimate bike in the series, a breathtakingly beautiful 1992 BMW R100RS, finished in the perfect Porsche colour.
A thousand custom-built motorcycles is a hell of an achievement, and you only have to look back at the bikes of the great Walz that we’ve featured over the years, to understand why his skills are so in demand. We’ve used all of the superlatives under the sun to describe the incredible bikes of WalzWerk, so we will try to contain our devotee-like praise for today, and simply launch into the beautiful bike before you. “So this bike belongs now to a very nice lady from Southern Germany named Simone. She commissioned this bike from us right in time, before the ‘1000th Series’ was sold out,” Marcus tells us.
The 1992 R100RS donor bike comes from the WalzWerk vast collection, and like all of their builds, it starts by being stripped back to a bare frame. From here, all of the brackets and tabs are cut off, and the key welds in the chassis are ground out and relaid to ensure superior strength and rigidity. The stock subframe never returns to the bike, and in its place is the famed WalzWerk replacement, with beautiful, neat lines and clean mounting points, it’s one of the best in the industry. The whole chassis is then sandblasted to perfectly prepare the surface, and then it’s all hit with a hard-wearing black powder coat.
“Since we want to keep the bike classic, we do not opt for an upside-down fork, but we keep the stock fork and lower it about 130mm. New internals, new progressive springs and new fork tubes were added. We also machine the lower legs and give them a nice and resistant powder coating in fine structure black, the same as on the main frame.” The triple trees are CNC machined for the job and create an uber neat finish, which is only enhanced thanks to the WalzWerk fork covers. At the rear of the bike, the mono-shock conversion is based on the “Sidewinder-Kit“ normally associated with K bikes. But it’s been beautifully adapted to the R, with a custom YSS shock built to suit.
For braking, you get a massive twin disc setup at the front of the bike, with the floaters clamped by a set of WalzWerk’s own four-piston calipers. “The bike sits on a set of Walzwerk Cross-Spoke wheels with gold powder coated rims and gold powder coated hubs. Spokes are stainless steel. To keep the classic look of the bike, we decided to go with a set of Shinzo tyres. But of course we have another wheel set ready with some soft Continental RoadAttack tyres in case Simone wants a real canyon carver and not just an Urban Warrior,” Marcus smiles. The rear drum brake is also upgraded, and the foot controls are another stunning piece from the company catalogue.
The visuals of the ‘1000th series’ all start with a Honda fuel tank from the ’70s, which is then shortened by 30mm to get the right look, and the tunnel is cut out and a new one welded in, to work with the BMW backbone. “The tank emblems are fully CNC-machined, powder coated and brushed. The tank is painted in an original Porsche colour from 1967 called ‘light ivory’ to match Simone’s old 911.” The headlight fairing is another WalzWerk product with an integrated 5 3/4” LED headlight, and when you turn to the rear, you see the beautiful upholstery work of the GT40-inspired race seat.
The iconic airhead engine is completely stripped back, with the cases blasted with a glass media to achieve a perfect finish, and then coated with a clear thermo finish. On the inside, it’s all rebuilt to new specifications, but to achieve the horsepower they’re chasing, the team modifies the crank and heads, with a port and valve job joined by a racing spec camshaft.
The ignition is modern electronic, and all the wiring and cables are run inside the cases for an uber clean look. The carbs are a set of 38mm Dell’Ortos with pod filters, and the exhaust system is the Walz ‘shorty’, stainless headers and SC Project end cans. And for that true classic touch, the rebuilt gearbox is pre-77 and kickstart equipped.
To take control of the beastly BMW boxer, steering duties fall to a set of CNC machined clip-ons, with small reliefs cut out of the bikini fairing, to allow it to be mounted hard up against the forks. The bars are kitted out with only the best components, with Kustom-tech providing the brake master cylinder, as well as the levers, MotoGadget supplying the small speedo, and all the lines are prepared by Wunderkind.
The indicators are the size of a button, so too the rearlight, so you really only see them when they’re illuminated. This commitment to minimalism results in a bike that weighs just 167kg with fuel on board and pumps out a very stout 85bhp. A classic Porsche 911 and a matching WalzWerk BMW, Simone really does own the very best Germany has to offer, and here’s hoping we see another thousand custom bikes, from the legend that is Marcus Walz!\.
[ WalzWerk ]