Phan Hoàng Đức
CITY SLICKER
I don’t think anyone could argue that we are living in fairly interesting times. Wherever you look in the world, mad things are happening. Stuff that you wouldn’t have predicted 20, 10, even five years ago.
Stuff like BMW making a scooter, maybe? Yep; at the turn of this decade, BMW was very much a heavyweight outfit, selling proper, big-bore, hardcore motorcycles. Giant Dakar-ready adventure bikes, six-cylinder mega-tourers, slick naked machines – even world superbike race reps and competition-ready enduros: they were all produced by the Bavarian firm. Where would a single-cylinder automatic scooter fit in there?
Well, here it is – the C400 GT. And with hindsight, you can sort of see the sense it makes. Okay, here in the UK, the scooter segment is still fairly niche: outside metropolitan areas, buying a scooter is still an unconventional choice. But in the rest of Europe, they sell like the proverbial hot cakes. Take a city break in Milan, Paris, Barcelona or Lisbon and you can hardly move for the things. I was in Turin last year, and was genuinely amazed at how many two-wheeled step-thru autos were parked up. Literally hundreds of the buggers lined up at every bike park.
So the market was always there – and with firms like Piaggio, Yamaha and Suzuki all producing high-tech, high-capacity maxi-scooters, the path was pretty clear for BMW. Build a middleweight twin in the 650cc class, plus a smaller 400-class single-cylinder machine, add on some BMW tech and premium brand sex-appeal, then sit back and watch the sales pour in.
And that’s what the firm’s done: the C650 twins covering the full-beans inter-city scoot sector and the C400 singles as the smaller options. With electric versions on the back burner while battery and charger tech catches up, it looks like a solid plan for future two-wheeled city transport.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
I’ve got a slightly longer jaunt as my first taste of the C400 GT though. I’ve picked it up from BMW HQ in Farnborough, which is a 35-ish mile motorway jaunt from my gaff. And I’ve just swapped an R1250 GS behemoth for the little scoot, so the change is pretty massive. I throw my backpack under the seat, bolt my phone holder clamp onto the mirror stalk (the bars are all covered with plastic panels) and plug my iPhone into the BMW’s power socket. This is a faff without the right kit: the Cherman engineers insist on using the ‘DIN’ standard 12v power socket rather than the fag-lighter sized socket which everyone else (except Triumph) uses. Luckily I have the correct charger from the lovely folks at Ultimate Addons, get me…
I adapt to the very different riding experience within a mile or so, just in time to slew onto the M3 northbound. A 400 scooter, even a ‘GT’ version, is a very different fish from the 1250 GS, but I’m already fairly satisfied with my new surroundings. The little scoot has the exact same keyless ignition and dashboard as the bigger bike, and this version also includes the useful controller wheel on the left-hand bar grip. The dash itself is fairly austere on the move, with just a large speedo readout and smaller info panels for range and the like. There is a ‘My Vehicle’ display which gives more info, and an ‘urban’ mode with a bar tacho, but I do feel like there’s potential to get more out of the considerable colour screen real estate.
I didn’t get round to the faff of linking my phone and a headset to the dash via Bluetooth – I still prefer having my phone on a bar mount and a direct BT link to some earphones inside my lid for James O’Brien on LBC and Mark E Smith on old John Peel recordings. The BMW setup is a good one though, and if I was sticking to one bike for a while, I’d get stuck in with it.
