At the beginning of the 1980s, the development of a new motorcycle generation with four-cylinder and three-cylinder inline engines was nearly ready for series production at BMW. Apart from the new four-cylinder motorcycles, the plan envisaged only retaining the smaller Boxer models in the product range. Almost as a foretaste of the new direction, BMW presented a BMW R 80 RT, which only differed from the BMW R 100 RT supplied since 1978 by the 800 cc Boxer engine.