Book Review

by

“Motorcycles and motorcycling in the USSR from 1939”
A social and technical history
Author: Colin Turbett

Published by: Veloce Publishing Ltd, Veloce House, Parkway Farm Business Park, Middle Farm Way, Poundbury, Dorchester DT1 3AR
Email: [email protected]
Fax: 01305 250479
Hardback, 280 x 207mm (portrait); 128 pages with 286 photographs and illustrations.
ISBN: 978-1-787113-14-5
£25; $40 USA

This is a refreshing book as it not only covers the origins, models and specification of these motorcycles from the early days, but also shows how they were used for work, sport and pleasure in the countries where they were manufactured.

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This often mirrors how these motorcycles were used in the UK when they first started to be imported in the 1960s, from cheap, utilitarian and rugged transport, to far more of a leisure and indeed ‘collectable’ motorcycle.

Virtually all of the machines made by the State-owned factories in the USSR until its demise in 1991, both military and civilian, can trace their heritage back to pre-Second World War BMW R71 machines and it’s believed the Soviet Union was using the design under licence and copies of DKW 125 and 350cc two-stroke machines were made after the whole plant was shipped back to Russia postwar as part of the reparations for wartime losses.

Read more in the September 2019 issue of TCM – on sale now!

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