In 1937, Ernst Hene rode a supercharged 500cc overhead cam BMW 173.88 MPH, setting a world record that stood for 14 years. Ernst Hene died at the age of 100 in 2005. World War II to 1960. The end of World War II found BMW in ruins. Its plant outside of Munich was destroyed by allied bombing. It is commonly alleged that an entire assembly line in the Eisenach facility was dismantled by the Soviets as reparations and sent it back to the Soviet Union where it was reassembled in Irbit to make Ural motorcycles. However the IMZ plant was supplied to the Soviets by BMW under licence prior to the commencement of the Great Patriotic War. After the war the terms of Germany's surrender forbade BMW from manufacturing motorcycles. Most of BMW's brightest engineers were taken to the US and Russia to continue their work on jet engines which BMW produced during the war.

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When the ban on the production of motorcycles was lifted in Allied controlled Western Germany, BMW had to start from scratch. There were no plans, blueprints, or schematic drawings. Company engineers had to use surviving prewar motorcycles to create new plans. The first post-war BMW motorcycle in Western Germany was produced in 1948. In 1949, BMW produced 9,200 units. By 1950 production surpassed 17,000 units. The situation was somewhat different in Soviet controlled Eastern Germany where the Eisenach plant was producing R-35 and a handful of R75 motorcycles for reparations. Eventually this plant became EMW. In 1951, BMW introduced the first sporting motorcycle, the R68. It was a 594cc single cam engine with 7.5:1 compression ratio and larger valves. The carburettor venturi throat sizes were 26mm. As the 1950's progressed, motorcycle sales plummeted. In 1957, three of BMW's major German competitors went out of business. In 1954, BMW produced 30,000 motorcycles. By 1957, that number was less than 5,500.

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