War and Pieces- Soviet Sidecar Rig Resurrection

[MotoJ]

Once upon a time there was a documentary film-maker that traveled to Lithuania to shoot a film. While there, he saw some of the local citizens motoring around on old Russian motorcycles- some with sidecars. Thinking that looked like a lot of fun, he made some inquiries, and eventually met an old gentleman who told him "Da, no problemz, for you I make the sidecar motorbike, use only new parts, you take to America, no problemz!"

So, after a long wait, a lot of haggling, lots of palm greasing, and a nightmare of a shipping adventure, he had his shiny, newly restored, 1957 IMZ M72 sidecar rig parked outside his home in the good ol' USA.



I'm not the documentary film-maker, but I also like sidecar rigs, having built my first one this past summer, with a friend of mine. I've been having a blast on it ever since.
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=713860




I kept hearing about the cool old sidecar parked on a sidestreet in a quiet part of town. Nobody knew just what it was- some said it was a BMW, others said no, it was a Chinese copy of a BMW. When someone told me "Man, it looks like something Batman would ride!" I had to go look for it. This is how I found the ol' gal: