Courtesy Todd Koehn, BMW Motorcycle Enthusiast from Wisconsin USA.
Not Lufthansa Airlines pattern or color design, these claims on the Internet are false! New info from a fellow who worked at BMW US Importer Butler & Smith who said he helped open the cargo container on a snowy Oct day 1979 which held these silver blue striped Exclusive Sport R100S models. He stated the container had only 30 of these imported to the US, He said very rare bike. The stripe pattern he believed is likely copied from the Butler & Smith BMW 1978 Superbike racers. The blues in the stripes came from the Bavarian countries shades of blue in their flag. Exciting info after 7 months of searching and finally locating a Butler I Smith employee who was there when bikes were first seen by the importer! Incredible.
Update August 2013
Philip E. Rose
Todd,
Hi, I never hear it referred to as an Exclusive Sport, but I just looked in the ETK Parts Manual and that is what they call it, though they say Exklusiv Sport! I'm trying to remember where I saw it referred to as a Highline, definitely it was in some sort of BMW ephemera!
I can totally believe that only 30 were brought in, as I have never seen one in person, and I have been playing with BMW's for 30 years! Does yours still have all of the polished pieces on it? I think the fork lowers and rear drive were polished.
I know if I had one, I would be trying to source out a complete set of decals out of Germany!
Another reason so few were imported is that 1980 was the transition year between Butler and Smith and BMWNA, so that was actually their lowest sales year, in modern times. I'll friend you and you can check out some of my bikes!
Thanks, Phil
Images of Todd's Toaster Tank R75/5 and his very trick Triumph Thruxton appear in the appropriate BMW and Triumph owner's galleries.
