Lee Nichols, 1971-2022

Richard remembers one of the key players in modern motorcycling

In January this year we lost one of the standout leaders of the motorcycle industry in the UK. Lee Nichols was most recently the head of BMW Motorrad Japan. However, prior to this Lee spent the previous 20 years of his career working for BMW in the UK. Lee joined BMW in the mid-90s, initially working in the car division, despite a passion for two wheels that stemmed back to being a top-level national BMX racer in his youth. In 2007 Lee joined BMW Motorrad as a Regional Manager. This is where you may have first met him. Always a committed and smiling face manning the BMW stand for shows at the NEC, Excel, GS Trophy and beyond, his natural enthusiasm and engaging nature would leave everyone he had spoken to thinking they were the only person he had spoken to.

He found his niche when he was promoted to National Marketing and PR Manager in 2012. Lee’s enthusiasm combined with his passion for the brand and a commitment to hard work was a winning formula. But what does a Marketing and PR Manager do that you might have seen or been impacted by?

Lee’s achievements were numerous and prominent. The year 2014 marked 75 years since BMW had last campaigned at the TT race on the Isle of Man. Lee recognised the opportunity that the anniversary represented. The BMW S1000RR had been launched a few years before and was already a star on the race track. The anniversary and a class-leading sports bike, what could possibly go wrong? Well lots!

The risks, the cost and the publicity, win or lose, would be huge, but Lee was convinced and won the argument, with BMW committing to the TT for 2014. Having flown to Ireland to meet and sign Michael Dunlop as its rider, the BMW S1000RR stormed to victory, winning all the big three: The Senior, Superbike and Superstock races. A clean sweep and a huge PR and Marketing success.

Lee was also the lead at BMW Motorrad UK for the Motorrad Days tour in 2011 when we took 249 people on 199 bikes to the festival in Germany. This is still the largest single group ever to attend the festival. Two hundred and forty-nine people, grasping steins and singing their hearts out in their BMW Motorrad UK shirts on Saturday night was a sight to behold.

During the evening I kept seeing a chap walking through the UK group in our VIP area, each time with a different person in tow. It turned out this was a very senior chap from BMW (AG) walking the Marketing Managers from France, Germany, Italy, etc., through our group asking where their country groups were.

In subsequent years we have battled for space in the VIP area with groups from all these countries and more, although the UK is almost always still the biggest. In 2019 Lee was back with a group from his new home, BMW Motorrad Japan.

If you have been to Motorcycle Live in the last halfa-dozen years you cannot have failed to notice that the centre of the BMW Motorrad stand has been given over to an off-road arena.

As Marketing and PR Manager, Lee was central in breaking the humdrum tradition of static displays of bikes bolted down, choosing to make them fly instead. The team from BMW Off Road Skills sliding, jumping, pulling rolling burnouts, all done in the space that some people struggle to U-turn their bike, became the stars of the show.

Once again, last year, this high-energy display played no small part in BMW Motorrad winning the Best Stand in Show, again.

In 2016 Lee was promoted to Director of BMW Motorrad in Japan. This highly competitive and difficult marketplace has been the first step for several previous Global Heads of BMW Motorrad. If you can master the complexities of Japan, the home market of the ‘big four’, with a culture and tradition completely different to the west, then you can do pretty much anything. Lee moved out to Tokyo with his family and an amazing five-year adventure ensued, littered with more successes.

Lee was due to start a new role as the Head of Brand and Global Communications for BMW Motorrad based in Munich in January. A new adventure was starting. Lee was without doubt destined for bigger and even better roles within BMW. All his friends back here in the UK were looking forward to the almost certain day when he would have headed up BMW Motorrad in the UK.

Every event and show that Lee was involved with was hard work, successful and always, always great fun. Not surprising from a man who had this mantra in his notebook: ‘Life holds special magic for those who dare to DREAM.’

So, if you have been to the TT and watched the S1000RR flash by; or attended the NEC and marvelled at 250 kilos of airborne BMW; competed at the GS Trophy; or enjoyed a tour to Motorrad Days, then Lee Nichols had an impact on your life, like so many other lives, even if you didn’t know it.

Lee Nichols, 1971-2022. Lee is survived by his mother, brother, and his wife Debbie and their daughters Lauren and Charlotte.