I have a funduro, the second I've owned as I really regretted selling the first one. The original ones where built for BMW by Aprilia in Italy, they're' the same as the Aprilia Pegaso except the Pegaso has a 5 valve head and BMW changed the head design to 4 valve. They feature twin Mikuni carbs, twin plugs and twin exhausts. The later GS's did away initially with the twin plugs I think but returned to them later. Switchgear is the same as some Hondas, as are a lot of the ancillary electrics.
The engines are Austrian Rotax units and the bikes design was by a British guy Martin Longmore.
I believe the GS range were all from when production was moved to Berlin. The later G650's I think maybe built in China.
Mine bops along happily enough at 75mph around 5k rpm or so. You can add an extra tooth to the front sprocket if you're likely to do more motorway work, it calms things down, at the expense of some flexibilty in city traffic.
Many who use them in traffic drop the gearing down a tooth to aid the flexibility.
The very early ones (with the indicators as part of the fairing) had a bit of a design gaff in that the front sprocket was only held in place by a circlip. There are a few tales of the circlip popping of and the chain doing all sorts of damage. Never happened to my first one, but I did always ensure I put a new circlip and stuck it down with silicon goo.
The new Funduro has a normal nut on the sprocket, as does the more road orientated version the ST which has lower suspension and a smaller front wheel.
They don't like being laboured and will get quite snatchy if under 3k rpm, however, keep them spinning and all's good.
Mine never gets less than 57 mpg, I understand the injected ones can achieve up to 80 mpg on the motorway! The injected ones are the GS and belt drive CS models. There's a variant of the GS, the Dakar, that has a 21" front wheel in keeping with its more off road stance.
Known issues are the head bearings go off largely because with the oil being in the frame the headstock gets warm and they were originally installed with margarine not high quality grease
Voltage regulator/rectifiers can fail, there are pattern parts to replace and the intake stubs can crack with age I think that's about it really.
Handling is really good on them, all in all a brilliant cheap to run first bike/commuter/all rounder.
