BMW's Best Seller of 2022: The R 1250 GS

2022 was the first year BMW Motorrad sold more than 200,000 motorcycles: 202,895 worldwide, up 4.4%, another record. The R 1250 GS and R 1250 GS Adventure accounted for almost 60,000 of them. Two body styles of a single platform were carrying roughly 30% of everything the company sold, which is a level of concentration you rarely see in a full-line manufacturer.

As in 2021, what BMW published is a pair rather than a model. The GS and the GS Adventure are reported as one combined number and the number is rounded, so almost 60,000 is the claim and there is no split behind it. Set that against the rest of this series and it still looks generous. Harley-Davidson publishes no model-level units. Polaris publishes none for Indian and Honda publishes none for the US, which is why our picks for those three rest on segment shipments and the companies' own marketing language. There is one caveat specific to 2022 worth naming: BMW did publish a US total of 17,690 motorcycles, but no US model-level breakdown, so nothing here tells you how many GS units sold in America.

The rounding also blunts a comparison people reach for. BMW said over 60,000 for 2021 and almost 60,000 for 2022. The direction is clear enough. The size of the move is not, because two rounded figures on either side of the same threshold cannot be subtracted from one another honestly. What 2022 supports is that GS volume held near its peak while the company as a whole grew past 200,000 for the first time.

The R 1250 GS in 2022

The bike itself was a carryover in every way that counts. The 1254cc ShiftCam boxer twin, 143 Nm or 105 lb-ft at 6,250 rpm, with the usual footnote attached: BMW's global figure is 6,250 rpm and BMW USA published 6,500 rpm for the same engine. We publish the global figure and the discrepancy together rather than choose.

Seat height is the number most GS shoppers actually decide on, and the standard seat sat at 33.5 inches. Claimed weight was 549 lb. US pricing held at $17,995 for the R 1250 GS and $20,345 for the R 1250 GS Adventure, unchanged from 2021, which in a year of broad price increases across the industry is its own small piece of information.

One model family, roughly a third of a manufacturer

The 30% figure is the thing to sit with. BMW Motorrad in 2022 was selling sport bikes, tourers, roadsters, scooters and a cruiser, across a lineup spanning several engine families, and one adventure platform in two trims was responsible for about a third of the total. For scale, the S 1000 RR, a genuinely successful superbike in a shrinking category, cleared 10,000 units in the same year. The GS pair was in a different order of magnitude.

Concentration like that is a strength and an exposure at the same time. It gives BMW enormous leverage in one category and enormous dependence on it, which is exactly why the R 1300 GS replacement programme, revealed the following year, was such a high-stakes piece of engineering. Get the GS wrong and you do not lose a model, you lose a third of the business.

It also explains a lot about how BMW markets. The GS gets the launch events, the anniversary editions and the press fleet, and the rest of the range gets what is left. For how that compared with Harley-Davidson's touring concentration and Honda's very different volume strategy in the same year, our best selling motorcycles of 2022 roundup puts the four answers side by side.

What that concentration means if you are buying a 2022 GS

The practical upside of a bike this dominant is depth. Dealer technicians see R 1250 GS models constantly, parts availability is not a question, and the aftermarket for luggage, seats, screens and suspension is deeper for the GS than for anything else in this comparison. If you buy a used one and something needs sorting, you are not the first person to need it sorted.

Resale behaves the same way. A model that sold in these quantities has a thick, liquid used market with enough comparable listings that pricing is transparent. That cuts both ways: you are unlikely to find a bargain nobody else has noticed, and equally unlikely to overpay badly if you do basic research.

The seat height remains the real filter. At 33.5 inches on the standard seat and 549 lb claimed, this is a motorcycle that a significant share of riders cannot flat-foot and cannot comfortably pick up alone. No amount of sales volume changes that, and it is the single most common reason people who want a GS end up on something else. Our 2022 four-brand comparison sets those numbers against the Street Glide, the Scout and the Rebel 500, and the seat-height spread across the four is wider than the price spread.

2022 is the year the GS story becomes a company story. Almost 60,000 units across the GS and GS Adventure, roughly 30% of a record 202,895, in the first year BMW cleared 200,000. One platform, two trims, a third of a manufacturer.

Cover photo: "Paris Motor Show 2018, Paris (1Y7A2035)" by Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.