{"id":6016,"date":"2009-08-21T18:26:56","date_gmt":"2009-08-22T01:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mattcastille.com\/me\/2009\/08\/retro-thing-the-art-deco-motorcycle-that-time-forgot\/"},"modified":"2009-08-21T18:26:56","modified_gmt":"2009-08-22T01:26:56","slug":"retro-thing-the-art-deco-motorcycle-that-time-forgot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mattcastille.com\/me\/2009\/08\/retro-thing-the-art-deco-motorcycle-that-time-forgot\/","title":{"rendered":"Retro Thing: The Art Deco Motorcycle That Time Forgot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"6a00d83452989a69e20120a4eb7f5f970b-800wi.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\n

The sheer beauty of the BMW R7 prototype takes my breath away. A single copy was crafted in 1934 by design engineer Alfred B\u00f6ning. His vision was a departure from the “bicycle with motor” design still prevalent in the 1930s. The R7 incorporated sweeping enclosed bodywork, a pressed steel frame, valanced mudguards and then-innovative telescopic front forks.<\/p>\n

The R7’s beauty was more than skin deep, however. The transmission featured an ‘H’ pattern hand shifter and the 800c Boxer engine crafted by Leonhard Ischinger was decades ahead of its time. The revolutionary engine includes a forged, single piece crankshaft. The cylinder housing is a monoblock with a hemispherical combustion chamber, eliminating the need for a troublesome head gasket and the camshaft is positioned below the crank (allowing more convenient plug placement).<\/p>\n

[From Retro Thing: The Art Deco Motorcycle That Time Forgot<\/cite><\/a>]\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The transmission featured an ‘H’ pattern hand shifter and the 800c Boxer engine crafted by Leonhard Ischinger was decades ahead of its time. … The cylinder housing is a monoblock with a hemispherical combustion chamber, eliminating the need for a troublesome head gasket and the camshaft is positioned below the crank (allowing more convenient plug placement). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4RRl-1z2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattcastille.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattcastille.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattcastille.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattcastille.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattcastille.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/mattcastille.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattcastille.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattcastille.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattcastille.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}