Retro-Mod BMW R1200GS Body Kit

I feel a "harkening" coming on… You know, harkening back to simpler times and the invention of the adventure-bike category in the early 1980s by BMW with its R80 G/S.

That feeling is, of course, coming to me because of the ultra-cool Unit Garage R120 G/S body kit for the 2004-2012 BMW R1200GS. The Italian company makes this bolt-on, no-mods-required body kit for the modern adventure machine to recall the early bike. It’s not cheap at 3920 euros or about $5000, but what price high style?

You get a great bunch of cool parts in a variety of available colors, and the orange seat is a nice touch. There are lots of options, among them a few neat ones for the windscreen: Hubert (Auriol) Gaston (Rahier) or (Jean-Claude) Fenouil, named after riders from the earliest days of BMW racing the GS in the Paris-Dakar Rally. The bike configurator at www.unitgarage.com shows you all the possibilities.

And while I love the aesthetic of the kit, Unit Garage claims it drops 14 pounds from the weight of the bike (see photo in the gallery of what stock parts get removed). So it’s functional, too. The kit is said to take about four hours to install and supplied painted and finished.

Shipping to the U.S. probably won’t be cheap. Maybe the good plan is to buy a GS in Italy, convert it there and ride back. Yeah… Any self-respecting rally aficionado would do it that way.