So, the Ural motorcycle is a product of some amazing reverse engineering and 2 countries not getting along. The whole story started in 1939 when Russia’s leader, Stalin, knew that Hitler was up to no good & would eventually attack them even though Germany and Russia had a peace treaty. In preparation of a ground attack he commissioned the development of the Ural sidecar motorcycle.
They went to neutral Sweden and bought 5 BMW R71 units, secretly smuggled them back to Russia and started to reverse engineer the heck out of the bikes. In 1941 the prototypes were shown to Stalin and he was so impressed he approved them immediately. The bikes were originally produced in a factory in Moscow but Stalin was so concerned with Germany’s infamous Blitzkrieg attacks that he decided to move the factory further east to a super remote town called Irbit in the Ural Mountain region close to the Siberian steppes.
Once the war was over Russia kept producing the bikes for the military and eventually, when the company was sold, they started making bikes for civilians. Ural has been at it ever since crafting beautiful, rugged and utilitarian bikes. We are thrilled that these machines of beauty fell into our hands and couldn’t imagine using another moto for Dapper Tours.
