I heard somewhere that those motorcycles were designed FOR ITS USE WITH SIDECAR, and riding them without sidecar was potentially dangerous… Well, maybe that’s why I never found a wartime pic of any of them without the sidecar. If anyone can confirm this, it will be really appreciated. I have Italeri motorcycle kits Nº 315 (BMW R75 with Sidecar) and Nº 316. If that is true, then I should get two sidecars for kit 316 (BMW R75 and Zündapp KS750). Thanks a lot in advance. Best regards.
José.
Looking at the specs of both Bikes, YES they were designed for side-car use.
The Sidecars wheel was powered and also had a brake, the Bikes also used a differential.
The gear-system also included a reverse gear and off-road gears.
So yes handling and performance would be impacted without the sidecar.
HTH.
This became a big deal when LionRoar offered their bikes with sidecar as separate kits without the sidecar. Lots of discussion occurred over on the Axis forum on Missing Lynx and the conclusion was what you surmised: the bikes were not meant to be ridden w/o the sidecar attached. Blunder by Lionroar.
Very interesting. Now did the Germans also not use large numbers of motorcycles that had no sidecar? Were these a completely seperate variant/type?
All these motorcycles came from the factory with sidecars-BUT- a good number of them we’re later re-ftted(un-fitted) from the sidecar to run as a regular 2-wheeler. No blunder by Lion Roar–I was happy to see them offer bike kits with and without myself. I built this one.
I didn’t find any (period )photos of sidecar-less bikes on the net- but I saw a couple in books - The version existed but was far less common than that with sidecar.(On both the R75 & the Zundapp-which shared many parts)
Thanks a lot for your replies. I’ll build the motorcycles OOB, with some wiring added. I want to place them in a little diorama, using Dragon’s German Feldgendarmerie kit 6061
Now, I’d like to know the color to use on all the bikes, considering the figures I want to use. It says “'39-'45 series”, but I don’t know if the figures are with uniforms used by 1941-42 or uniforms used by 1944-45. Any info will be appreciated as well. Best regards.
José.