Price on a BMW R25 from 1955?

[R60 Sweden]

Just a question... i hardly see any R25 for sale here. But one popped up on an auction site. Barely 19 hours to go & I have no real clue on these. What is a "normal" price on these?

Here's the auction of the beauty...BMW R25 from 1955

[schrader7032]

Normal? Ha! I think it ranges all over just as it does for the twins. That one looks to be in nice shape. My '52 R25/2 was well north of $5000 on ebay here in the US. Not many singles are sold in the US, but are more available in Europe. Interesting in that somewhere around 40000 R25/2s were manufacturered but not that many of them have survived. Over 47000 R25/3s were built.

[R60 Sweden]

Not so common here in sweden. and it's still on about 2500 dollars... i'll keep you guys posted! would be nice to own when the spring is coming.

how do they come, are they as easy to work on as the R60 (which is my only BMW experience) if you compare?

[R60 Sweden]

On the same site this been out but the owner asks for over 6000 usd for it.

R25 with sidecar

have seen a few in germany, but for 5000 dollars & up.

[schrader7032]

Easy to work on? Well, only half the cylinders!! It's basically all the same. The singles are battery ignition not magneto ignition like the '55 - '69 twins. All that means is that your battery is part of the ignition circuit...no battery, no go. Slightly harder to set the valves as the cylinder points up under the gas tank. Not sure if they can be set without taking off the tank or not. In my case, I have a special situation. I had to drop the engine to get the valve covers off!! Something's wrong with the lower frame rail...I think it's been bent up a small amount, maybe as little as 10mm. That's enough so that it's a big puzzle to set the valves.

An interesting note I found out about the R25/3. The air intake is forward and under the tank! BMW did some intake air tuning and found that by routing the air in that way, they could achieve better engine response. Talk about weird? Well, maybe not so weird when you think about it. On the twins, the air tubes are not just there for show...they're designed to control the air and the length is important.

A read a website which discussed how the air comes rushing in and then the valves slam shut. Well the air continues to rush in, but then bounces back, then more air comes in. Basically, a wave pattern is set up due to this. So, by tuning the length you can optimize the wave and when it hits the valves and get a better air charge into the cylinders.

On the R26, they basically did the same thing but the air is now coming through an airbox under the seat. On my R25/2, it's just an filtered opening stuck on the back of the carb...no optimization to speak of.

Anyway, they're fun to ride around on, albeit slowly. My little green R25/2 really gets noticed.

[R60 Sweden]

I missed out on the auction, sad to say... but i'll wait. it was more of a hunch as i just ran into the ad.


Any pics of your little green mean machine?

[schrader7032]

I have one picture of my R25/2 in the photo gallery...haven't gotten around to taking anymore lately.

[R60 Sweden]

Man, now I have to look for one! Really a pearl in that colour. You almost can see the wild police chases, haha!

Well, I'm off to Veterama & a little tour in Germany soon. See what one can stumble over.

Do you ever look at www.mobile.de? It sometimes pops up some rare stuff (at some rare overprices) there. But fun to look & drem...