THE URAL STORY
THE WHY? THE WHERE? THE NOW!
THE WHY?
The Ural story begins in 1939, with the pre-WWII planning of the USSR. The Soviet Union knew it would soon be going to war (despite the Molotov-von Ribentoff Pact), against the german Third Reich, and Adolph Hitler, the ruthless dictator of Nazi Germany. Joseph Stalin ordered the military to prepare in all areas, including the ground forces that would be defending the Russian "motherland" against the invading German Panzers, ground troops, and German special forces. Having seen the effects of the "Blitzkrieg" against the Polish Army, mobility was of paramount importance!
A meeting was held at the Defence Ministry of the USSR and the topic of discussion was what a model of motorcycles was going to be the most suitable for the Red Army. The Red Army wanted to modernise their equipment after termination of the military conflict with Finland. The motorcycles used so far had not worked satisfactorily, their technology was outdated and the manufacturing quality left much to desire. The official version reads that after long discussion the BMW R71 motorcycle was found to most closely match the requirements and 5 units were covertly purchased through some Swedish intermediaries in neutral Sweden and copied.
Soviet engineers in Moscow busily dismantled the 5 BMWs. They copied the BMW design in every detail and made moulds and dies to produce their own engines and gearboxes in Moscow. Everything about the bike was reversed engineered and early in 1941 the first trial samples of M-72 motorcycles were shown to Stalin and the decision was taken to produce them. (Incidentally, one of these original BMWs still survives and is on display in the factory museum. Harley-Davidson also copied the BMW design and delivered about 1,000 Harley-Davidson XA (Experimental Army) flat-twin shaft drive motorcycles to the US Army during World War II. Meanwhile in Japan, Riyushko was busy copyng Harley-Davidson V-twins!)
A more likely story is that the BMW factory
supplied the construction drawings and casting moulds. As a result
of the Molotov-von Ribentoff Pact transfers of technology had
taken place to support their Soviet "friends" in different
areas. Soviet engineers toured German aircraft factories and brought
back complete cannons as samples. The OPEL Kadett was given to
the Soviets just prior to the war, however it only commenced series
production towards the end of the war as the Moskvitch 400
In 1941 BMW began series production of R 75, and did not resume
production of R71. Supplying the Soviets with this supeceded model
would have seemed a good idea at the time. This would also explain
why the Soviets ended up making a copy of the Wehrmacht sidecar.
Soon a factory was set up in Moscow producing hundreds of Russian M-72 sidecar motorcycles. The Nazi Blitzkrieg was so fast and effective that Soviet strategists worried that the Moscow factory was within easy range of German bombers. The decision was made to move the motorcycle plant further east, out of bombing range and into the middle of the resource rich Ural mountain region. The site chosen was the small trading town of Irbit, located on the fringe of the vast Siberian steppes in the Ural mountains. Irbit had once been an important Trade and Fair centre in Russia before the Revolution of 1917.
The only substantial building in town was a brewery and it was soon converted into a R & D building to prepare for the construction of a massive new production complex to build the M-72 motorcycle. On October 25, 1942 the first batch of motorcycles went to the front and during WWII a total of 9799 M-72 motorcycles were delivered to the front for reconnaissance detachments and mobile troops.
After the WWII the Factory was further developed and in 1950 the 30,000th motorcycle was produced. Since then over 3.2 million motorcycles, mainly sidecar outfits, have been produced.
The history of the "URAL" had begun with the glory of helping to defeat the terror of Hitler's armies on the Russian and European battlefields. The "URAL" was built for the military only, up until the late 1950's when another plant in the Ukraine took over that job and the Irbit Motorcycle Works (IMZ) began to concentrate on making bikes for domestic consumption. The popularity of the outfits grew steadily with the Russian people and in the 1960's the full production of the plant was turned over to non-military production.
The export history of URALs started in 1953, at first mainly to
developing countries. But starting late in the 1960s deliveries
started to developed countries (including Australia) and more
and more URALs are there on the roads of all continents. URALs
are a unique combination of price, classic styling and side-car,
just like my "dad's or grandad's bike".
The main products of the plant today are the heavy duty URAL sidecar motorcycles designed for rough Russian roads, and the custom Wolf. There are a lot of places in Russia where only horses and URAL motorcycles can be used to transport gear to where you need it. URAL motorcycles are equipped with four-stroke air-cooled flat-twin engines, a four speed gear box with reverse gear, shaft drive, two disc dry clutch, spring shock absorbers and drum brakes. Although new solo models have been developed for western markets and watercooled engines have been available.
The motorcycles are mainly sold to the internal Russian market. They have also been exported to Australia, Great Britain, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Egypt, Iran, South African Republic, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and numerous other countries. The total number of sales since the factory was founded has been over 3.2 million.
THE WHERE?
The town of Irbit has over 50,000 residents, most of whom depend on the motorcycle plant for their livelihood. The town has only one other factory, producing specialty mirrors and glass. Irbit is situated 200 kilometers from Ekaterinburg (formerly Sverdlovsk) and is served by rail and road.
The total area of the plant is 68.1 hectares (168 acres), the total floor space area is 254,000 square meters (2,733,000 square feet), including more than 60,000 square meters for services. There is 3.9 kilometers of railway and 7.1 kilometers of road in the plant.
The plant has engineering and designing sections to develop new products, machines, tools and tooling. It employs qualified engineers and a skilled work force who are partially being trained in motorcycle technical college and technical schools in Irbit.
The plant has an iron foundry, a steel foundry and a light metals foundry. Pressure, chill, investment and shell mould castings are produced. It also has tube and rod cutting facilities as well as forming workshops. The forge shop is equipped with crank presses and induction heaters. The quenching is done using non-controlled furnaces of the following types: blast, chamber, rotary and high frequency.
The metalworking workshops are large scale production type and are equipped generally with rotary and special purpose machines. For painting and anodizing, complete lines of automatic machines are in use, including some made in Germany and Hungary. The assembly lines for engines, gear boxes and motorcycles are aerial type conveyors with mechanical air tools in use.
The number of machines for direct production purposes is more than 4,300 units including about 3,000 metalworking ones. About 40% of the equipment is out-dated to varying degrees. Much of the equipment was supplied by the United States in W.W.II for war materiel production under the Lendlease programme and ended up staying at the URAL plant after the war.
The engines, gear boxes, main drives, front forks, wheels, fuel tanks, frames, sidecars and handle bars are all manufactured in-house, with many parts still made by hand.
All the rubber items, electrical equipment, shock absorbers, PVC covers and some other items are bought from Russian subcontractors, (though the factory is moving towards soucing better quality components from Western Europe.)
The plant also manufactures some items for other automobile plants in Russia.
The supplies are stable from well proven subcontractors, mainly located within the Russian Federation. The plant has repair and tool making facilities and produces special purpose and non-standard equipment.
THE NOW! UralMoto Today
IMZ-Ural is the only Russian manufacturer of large capacity motorcycles and one of few manufacturers of side-car motorcycles in the world. IMZ-Ural is a conglomerate of companies producing and selling classic motorcycles in both solo and side-car combinations.
The plant was founded in 1941. In November 1992 it transformed into an open-end joint stock company "Uralmoto Joint Stock Company" a privatized entity owned 40% by management and employees through grant, 38% by auction with privatization vouchers (mostly management and employees also) and 22% retained by the government. In July 2000, the company was re-organised with the governments shares being redistributed to investors.
At the beginning of 1998 the business was bought
by private Russian interests and it is no longer a State Company,
bringing new ideas, new investments, new management, new production
techniques, new design, technology and above all quality control
of incoming, in-process and finished products.
IMZ have been given a new lease of life, with new models and an
engine that benefits the standards required by the sporting and
leisure rider of modern times. Whilst the outward appearance of
the engine is the same as before, quality control techniques have
use of better alloying and casting, better engineering tolerances,
better paint and chrome whilst retaining the advantage of continuity
with the inherently balanced design of a horizontally opposed
flat twin engine with roller bearings in a solid frame.
The future looks bright for IMZ, constantly improving it's role as an economic form of transport that is fun to ride and easy to maintain. The story is far from over.