Sunday, July 18, 2010

1994 ИМЗ-Ural, 71st Street and Second Avenue

I spotted this after coming out of Grace's Marketplace with a hundredweight of overpriced organic veggies and juices to soothe a hangover, and even through one bleary eye behind a smeared glasses lens I was able to pick out that fuel tank shape and kneepad, and the passenger seat. A vintage BMW is one of my favorite things on earth. It was only when I got closer I realized it was a Ural! Great story behind these- the Russians basically knew the panzers were coming in 1941, and didn't have a good bike for the Red Army, so they just bought up a few used R-71s from some Scandos and started cranking their own out (the Krauts rather sniffily packed up R-71 production in 1942). The factory had to be moved to the Urals during the siege of Moscow, hence the name. They've been making this reverse-engineered BMW copy ever since.

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