Few people now remember
that the history of the creation of racing motorcycles successfully launched
the firm BMW had continued in the USSR, the construction of sports motorcycles
produced at the time of the Gorky automotive plant, as well as Serpuhov the
Central design-and-experimental Bureau (ЦКЭБ), often are not less
interesting, than design, created by German engineers. These pages Moto history
is still covered with the darkness of oblivion.
In the USSR history the
creation of the first sports motorcycles dates back to the early 30-ies, when
the first special design. In addition to individual drivers, created its
revolutionary design, and motor plants in the prewar period have created a
number of interesting sports motorcycles. In Taganrog it was TEESE-4, TEESE-6,
TEESE-7, TEESE-51, in Leningrad-1. In Izhevsk was also created several sports
cars on the basis of Il-7 and Il-8. However, with the beginning of the war,
these works were stopped.
In 1940 in the USSR after
the comparative tests of the 15 different types of motorcycles foreign brands
was selected and was recommended for serial production motorcycle BMW R-71,
known in the USSR index M-72. This event is considered to be one of the most
significant in the history of road building in the USSR. In itself the history
of the production of the M-72 and its modifications have repeatedly been
described, we are more interested in M-72 as a base for the creation of sports
cars. In this story there are a lot of white spots, and, maybe a lot of us up
to the end and did not know, and yet try to systematize known to us disparate
facts and comment on them.
Today it is difficult to say that, in fact, motivated by the designers of IMZ in 1943, apparently, in the years of the war in the first place came the need for a more powerful machine for the army, and of sports using it they thought in the second turn. In addition to military-purpose M-75, the designers could become a good and civil machine. Overhead valve engine has considerably expanded its operational capacity of the machine. An example of a motorcycle company BMW, always had in its lineup as Nizhne valve, and upper valve model similar in its design, served as an excellent proof of this.
In the early postwar years, the work on the machine continued the Car continued to prepare for the launch into serial production. In June, 1948, in the journal "Car" the article goes William Beckman "Soviet sports motorcycles". In it the author represented the reader new sports and racing motorcycles. An overview of these machines began with a description of the M-75. On the then-existing classification of the upper valve of the machine called "sports", but they are lighter and more forceful version, designed for competitions, "racing". To illustrate this publication has become a photograph of the experimental "sports" M-75 with a sidecar. The machine shown in the picture, was a purely road version of a motorcycle with a sidecar. The only thing that distinguishes it from the serial production of the M-72, was overhead valve engine, and a special charm which gave the extended valve cover, total as for the final, as well as for the intake valves. It is remarkable that this ski "live" to our days and is stored in the funds of the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow.
