Motorcycles for the police: BMW wins over the California Highway Patrol

To celebrate BMW North America’s 50th anniversary, the company is telling the 50 most important stories from the last 50 years.

BMW has been building motorcycles for police and the military since the early 1930s, and its bikes are widely used by police departments from Europe to the Far East. In the U.S., however, BMWs have always been somewhat rare compared to the Harley-Davidsons favored by patrol officers on the East Coast or the Kawasakis preferred out West.

In 1996, when BMW released the R 1100 RT-P, it easily outperformed Kawasaki and Harley. Unfortunately, its price of $15,828 was more than twice the $7,871 price for a Kawasaki. The R 1100 RT-P’s maintenance costs per mile were lower than those of the KZ1000 P, but BMW still had to get creative to secure a contract with the California Highway Patrol (CHP).

“We didn’t want the liability of a lease, so we sold the motorcycles with a buy-back clause,” says Frank Stevens, then BMW Motorrad USA’s national sales manager. “The perceived useful life of the motorcycles was 60,000 miles, but we knew the motorcycle had a tremendous amount of life beyond 60,000 miles. California agreed to pay much more up front because the total cost would be less if the motorcycle survived to the end of the term.”

BMW agreed to re-purchase the bikes for $9,928 each, reducing the net cost to $5,900 —$100 lower than the price of the Kawasaki that the state would typically auction for $600-1,800 after three years on the road.

A&S, a dealership based in Sacramento, had been a BMW dealer since 1988, and the firm had won the contract to supply the CHP with motorcycles thanks in part to its location in Roseville, just outside Sacramento.

“There were only a couple of dealers that had the capability of doing that contract,” Stevens says. “You have to have a lot of staffing, a big facility, and a lot of money to buy these things and wait for the state to pay you.”

A&S delivered the large order of R 1100 RT-Ps and “built all of the original bikes, like 25 a month,” says Howard Pine, son of A&S founder Sheldon Pine. “We loaded up truck after truck, and we never had a bike damaged in transit.”

Following delivery, A&S’s role was like that of any BMW dealer in California. “Each CHP office had its bikes serviced by local dealers, and BMW NA handled the buy-back operation,” Pine says. “Every dealer had the option to buy those used bikes from NA for local sales, so they got spread across the state.”

Though the BMWs required less maintenance than the Kawasakis, that was mitigated by the significant mileage each bike accumulated. “I think the record was 60,000 miles in 17 months,” Stevens says. “A lot of the bikes would reach the 60,000-mile limit in 24 or 30 months, so they moved the limit to 80,000 miles, then 100,000 and 120,000.”

The need for frequent maintenance was a boon to local BMW dealers. “It’s a wonderful boost to the dealer service business,” Stevens adds. “If officers were fortunate enough not to pick up a nail, they’d still wear tires out within 4,000 to 6,000 miles, depending on how the officer rode, and they’d have to look at the brake pads at every service, because they go through brakes much faster.”

BMW could sell plenty of parts, which helped to make the program profitable despite the buy-back clause. The program also brought new customers to the marque, as the officers who rode BMWs on duty bought BMWs as personal transportation.

“They discovered how well BMW dealers take care of their customers, which created a bond of loyalty that certainly didn’t exist with Kawasaki.” — Stevens

CHP officers were also given a discount on BMW’s civilian bikes. “They experienced a relationship that radiates through all of the people within their orbit of influence, and it really did contribute noticeably to sales of motorcycles in California.”

The California Highway Patrol loved the BMWs, but the program didn’t continue without interruption. Under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the CHP began buying Harley-Davidsons. Even so, the CHP continues to add new BMWs to its fleet, though the buy-back provision no longer applies.

Today, about 3,500 R 1250 RT-P motorcycles are in service in this country, used by more than 500 state and local police forces.