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There are rare moments of remarkable clarity and forethought in the realm of motorcycle design, when machines are produced with such innovation and beauty that they are scarcely credible as products of their time. These motorcycles can occupy one of two positions in subsequent conception: they can be held aloft as gamechangers, as the designs that pushed the goalpost forward and forced everyone else to catch up, or they can fade into obscurity only to be appreciated by a limited few who recognize how advanced they truly were. Many remarkable designs fall into the latter category, the genius of their creators only recognized long after they pass into anonymity once the rest of the industry has caught up to the future that was laid out well in advance. Appreciation of these machines is only possible in hindsight when we see how their details foreshadowed subsequent trends.
German motorcycle designer Norbert Riedel was one such forgotten innovator, and his Imme R100 proved to be a masterpiece of design that has only began to earn true appreciation in recent decades. Once a cheap and cheerful form of transportation that was designed and built within the restrictions of a postwar economy, the Imme became one of the most fascinating examples of motorcycle design to emerge during the mid-20th century – and would prove to be one of the most beautiful motorcycles of any era. They were a machine out of time, a vehicle that applied nascent principles that were still decades away from the mainstream, and a series of ingenious design elements unified into a coherent whole that has since earned the accolades of some of the world’s motorcycle elite. The Imme was not just a cleverly constructed motorcycle, it was one of the most beautiful pieces of modern industrial design that nobody has ever heard of.
