“Burley Motorsports was started way back in my dear mother’s garage.  All we did was work on desert race cars and all kinds of custom stuff all day long.  Mom was a super lady.  She loved all of my freaky  racing buddies, put up with our loud noise and even oil leaking on the driveway.  Towards the end of many long days, she often put on big barbeques for us.  At times,  Mom’s house looked like a wrecking yard, but no one ever left the Beveridge house hungry.  Thanks, Mom, you are surely missed by all.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       -Burl Beveridge, Owner

And thus was the beginning of Burley Motorsports. Burl Beveridge, known as Burley to his friends, started learning about custom fabrication, design and the intricate workings of engine components early in life. Even his 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Hepp, who lived down the street from him,  can still be heard telling the tale of how “amazing it was to see Burl busy in his garage building motorcycles in 5th grade, when other students were just learning how to write well.” Burley clearly had a naturally keen understanding of geometry and physics, combined with an innate mechanical know-how.

He began learning about the mechanics of an engine at the age of seven by breaking them down and then rebuilding them. By age twelve, he was cutting apart and piecing back together the entire motorcycle chassis to build his own motorcycles. He ran many winning races with these custom-fabricated motorcycles and was the Class Champion in several classes of motocross races throughout California.

It was at the age of16 that Burley began to work on building better four-wheeled machines. He was employed with a local mechanic in Santa Barbara, who specialized in the maintenance of BMWs. His boss was a gruff, hard-nosed German man who took Burl under his wing and taught him all he knew about the German automobile, and it was here the Burl’s life began to unfold. 

In 1988, at age 25,  Burley’s Bimmer Service was born. For the next 16 years, Burley’s Bimmer Service was the premier BMW repair shop in Santa Barbara, CA.  His understanding of the vehicle was unsurpassed and other shops in town would send problems they could not solve to Burley.

During this time, Burley was making his name known in the off-road desert-racing circles. He won numerous races running Class 10 cars, and then won numerous more after he switched to the more exciting Class 1 (“Unlimited”) cars. Having also built these hard-core cars himself, he was the 1996 Unlimited Class Champion of the Baja Promotions Race Series and the Unlimited Class Champion of the M.O.R.E. Race Series in 2000.

Burley now spends his time taking all of this desert-racing knowledge and applying it to his most exciting business thus far, Burley Motorsports. BMS is dedicated to the manufacturing of safe, high-quality, durable performance parts for Volkwagen Vanagons, showing a particular fondness for the famous Syncro model. He enjoys the interaction with the warm Vanagon community and always does his utmost to please his customers. He is respected within the community as an honest, customer-oriented pioneer whose vision leads the industry.

Burley Motorsports is a fun-loving, family organization, now located in northern California.