BMW to Supply Bikes to CHP

Dealing a major blow to the Kawasaki motorcycle image, BMW of North America Inc. said Tuesday that it has won a contract to supply 150 of its latest-model police bikes to the California Highway Patrol.

The contract halts a seven-year run for Kawasaki Motors Corp. USA in Irvine, which built its commercial popularity on the prestige associated with supplying the CHP and other police agencies.

The deal with the nation’s biggest buyer of police motorcycles is separate from the CHP’s ongoing comparison of BMW and Kawasaki machines. Results of that five-year study are expected in 18 months.

The contract is part of the annual bidding to replace a portion of the fleet of 400 CHP motorcycles. Kawasaki had won that bid every year this decade.

BMW won the contract despite the fact that its R1100 bike is, at nearly $16,000, more than twice the price of the Kawasaki KZ1000 police model, which has sold for $7,500.

But BMW tried to make the overall cost lower by guaranteeing that it will buy back its motorcycles after three years, or 60,000 miles, said Renae Biale, a spokeswoman for the Woodcliff Lake, N.J.-based company.

“We won the bid with the buy-back provision,” said Anthony C. Felice, president of A&S; BMW Motorcycles in Citrus Heights.

Executives at Kawasaki, as well as CHP officials, couldn’t be reached for comment.

BMW was able to offer the buyback provision because the police model is essentially the same as a civilian model that Munich, Germany-based BMW sells around the world, Felice said. The Kawasaki police model is specially made, with no civilian counterpart.

The police market represents less than 1% of the 330,000 motorcycles expected to be sold in the U.S. this year. But it’s an important market because it provides high visibility and a tacit product endorsement by some of the hardest-riding motorcycle users in the country.