Egon Mendel of Tamboerskloof in Cape Town has always been a fan of sidecars, those three-wheeled oddities halfway between a motorcycle and a vintage sports car. He’s also a Harley enthusiast but, when he asked the price of one of the beautifully crafted sidecar outfits built to order by the Milwaukee factory, the response forced him to look elsewhere.
Then a friend in Germany told him about the Ural.
In the years leading up to the Second World War BMW produced the world’s first combination with sidecar-wheel drive for the Wehrmacht. Most of them saw service on the Eastern front, where they impressed the Soviets with their outstanding cross-country capabilities. So much so that they captured one and took it apart with a view to building them for the Red Army.
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After the war BMW went back to making more conventional motorcycles but the amazing R75 lived on as the Ural, built in a truck factory in Irbit, deep in the Russian heartland.
| Most of them saw service on the Eastern front. |
The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s made the Ural more readily available in the West where it has enjoyed some success in, oddly enough, Germany. Mendel contacted the German Ural distributor with a view to bringing one to South Africa.
This was not a straightforward procedure; first he was told that he would have to wait nearly six months until the next time the factory would be producing bikes in the particular red that he wanted. Then, when he approached the South African Department of Transport for permits to import privately a brand new vehicle he ran into real trouble.
Since South Africans drive on the left, the DoT insisted that the chair be rigged on the left of the motorcycle, opposite to the standard fitting. Impossible, said Irbit; possible, insisted Mendel. It wasn’t until he was able to prove that right-hand drive Urals were routinely being built for the Australian market that the factory agreed to supply our hero with his dream outfit.
Even then it was a bit improvised; since the sidecar-wheel drive is taken from the right-hand side of the final drive casing on the bike, it wasn’t feasible on this model and in fact the combination is fitted with a Solo differential and rear hub. The left-mounted sidecar has also lost the sidecar brake that is a major factor in the Ural’s unusual stability.
Nevertheless, after more than a year of battling with red tape on both sides of the Equator, here is Mendel’s Tourist Delux:
| The DoT insisted that the chair be rigged on the left. |
The motor in this time-traveller is virtually the same as the pre-war R75 motor, except that in place of the original generator it now has a modern alternator; the 649cc flat twin has a compression ratio of just 8.8:1, which means that if you start it on petrol it will run quite happily on paraffin.
Power output is a claimed 24kW at 5800rpm and the factory boasts a torque of 44.1Nm, about the same as a Suzuki SV400 twin, without specifying at what engine speed it’s produced – probably anywhere from idle, to judge by the way this thing pulls.
It hauls the 330kg rig up to a maximum of about 105km/h but it will cruise happily all day at an indicated 90, returning reasonable fuel consumption from the 18-litre tank. Since most of the vibration is in the horizontal plane, you’d expect very little of the shakes to get through to the crew, but in fact the Ural vibrates strongly at any speed, particularly under acceleration.
It’s fed by two straightforward but nicely made Ikov slide carburetors and has heavily chromed exhaust pipes parallel to the ground. An electric start is fitted but isn’t really up to the job on a cold motor; best to start the rig with the familiar sideways BMW kick-start and reserve the electric foot for when you stall the thing in traffic.
The clutch is a standard car-type dry single-plate unit; it needs to be bulletproof for this application, and it is.
The gearbox is surprisingly modern, with a four-speed foot change on the left. However, if you put it in neutral, operate the secondary lever on the right of the transmission, and gently release the clutch, the unit will take off backwards - all those old jokes about sidecar rigs suddenly come to life!
Final drive is by an elegantly chromed, fully exposed drive shaft with two universal joints rather than the conventional one; I was a little concerned to see the universals doing their thing in the open air but was assured that, just as on the Yamaha Dragstar cruisers, with regular maintenance they last for ever.
The frame is a bit more modern than the running gear; it seems to be based on the R50 of the immediately post-war years but the Earles leading-link forks are distinctly period. Although solo Urals sport modern telescopic forks the Earles units are still available for the sidecar rigs because they work better.
The rear wheel has two more of the same, adjustable for preload only, and all four of the steel-rimmed, spoked wheels (front, rear, sidecar and spare!) are interchangeable. The wheels have a very clever hub design that allows all the spokes to be perfectly straight, an idea which is beginning to re-surface on today’s big trailies.
The brakes are also vintage technology, a twin-leading shoe drum set-up on the front wheel and a single-leading shoe at the back that’s more suited to a scooter than to a vehicle weighing more than half a ton fully loaded.
The sidecar sits on a rectangular chassis, bolted to the bike frame at about half a dozen places; it’s built like a bridge and frame flex is simply not an issue. The sidecar body is hand-made out of heavy-gauge sheet steel, as are all three mudguards. Behind the roomy and comfortable cockpit there’s a boot, accessed by releasing a spring-loaded catch that looks (and works) like a door handle and lifting the spare wheel, external carrier and boot lid together.
It’ll swallow a couple of big rucksacks and a helmet or two with room to spare, but I doubt that it’s waterproof.
Both seats on the bike itself are old-fashioned sprung saddles; they take some getting used to but are surprisingly comfortable on longish trips. The fuel tank has a little lockable storage compartment on top and rubber knee pads on the sides. The only plastic on the whole rig are the optional leg-shields.
The instrument panel and switchgear are pretty basic 1960s stuff but everything works all the time, including the trip meter and centrally mounted friction steering damper (I haven’t seen one of those on a new bike since 1979!)
On the road the Ural is heir to all the bad habits of sidecar rigs; it drags to the left on acceleration and pulls strongly to the right under braking as the unbraked chair tries to overtake the motorcycle. The steering is surprisingly heavy and left-hand corners can be a bit of an adventure until you get used to the dynamics of an essentially unbalanced tripod, while you get the (thankfully unfounded!) feeling that the nose of the sidecar is about to dig in on sharp right-handers.
Partly because of its excessive mass and underwhelming power, and partly because the geometry has been set up by an expert, the Ural is the most stable sidecar outfit I’ve experienced. The suspension, designed to deal with the Siberian Steppes, is surprisingly supple, although firm on initial movement.
There’s a lot of stiction in all the linkages and the test vehicle wasn’t fully run in at the time of the review. The rig’s only real failing is its brakes; due to the lack of braking on the sidecar wheel it takes a lot of stopping and the rider must constantly be aware of stopping distance as a safety factor.
I have to place the blame for this squarely at the door of the South African authorities; it’s worth noting that the (very) few other Urals (all military spec) which have been imported came in second-hand with the sidecar on the right and the third-wheel brake in full operation.
The Ural has undergone astonishingly little change since the original design was laid down in the 1930s and must surely hold the record for the longest-lived model, far surpassing even the IZH Jupiter and Enfield Bullet. It’ll go just about anywhere a Jeep will go, nothing ever falls off or breaks on even the roughest going and just 24kW will see it through mud, snow and even ice.
It truly deserves its nickname: the ultimate survivor.
Thanks to Egon Mendel for the loan of his heavy-duty lawn-mower. This Ural Tourist Delux outfit, the only one yet imported into South Africa – and likely to stay that way – is for sale at R42 000.
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