"The Sidecars"
 |
Along the far wall sat three sidecars that instantly caught my eye. To understand my enthusiasm and appreciation all you would need to do is take in one Sidecar race and you too would be hooked. What also became apparent was that two of the three were not BMW sidecars, but an EMW sidecar and an AWO sidecar. Why would a BMW collector have two bikes from another manufacture? |
| EMW (Eisenacher Motorenwerk) logo looks like a BMW logo except red. |
 |
After World War II Germany was split, leaving several BMW plants in East Germany and several in West Germany. The plants continued manufacturing motorcycles after World War II. EMW continued using the BMW name until 1952. Following a trademark lawsuit the East German plant changed their name to EMW (Eisenacher Motorenwerk). EMW still used a round logo similar to the BMW except instead of being blue it was red. A lot of the components of the EMW and AWO (Autowelo) bikes were interchangeable with there counterpart in West Germany. The one difference that was evident was that the East German bikes (EMW & AWO) were still using the pre-war technology when compared to the BMW bikes being built during that time period. |
| AWO (Autowelo) logo |
 |
The other side car, which was definitely built for racing, was a much newer sidecar. In fact Dave said, "That it's to new to race in the Vintage class and to old to be competitive against today's sidecars." The sidecar was built by a certified Nuclear Welder and showed in the workmanship of the welds. Dave's hunch is that the aluminum used to build the sidecar is probably nuclear grade material too. |
| To old to be new and to new to be old. |
| Motorsports | Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 |
Pictures and Web Designed by bfbrawn Photography