Monday, April 12, 2010
The following are some catalogues from my collection I re-discovered when searching for another item and I'm sure they'll prove of interest to some. The focus is on the Steib sidecar catalogue from 1939 with some excerpts from 1936 and 1939 BMW catalogues, featuring the motorcycle most likely to be attached to the larger Steib, the BMW R66.
I start with a photo of a genuine Steib badge as fitted to the postwar S500/501 sidecar and my ownership of it is an interesting tale.
While in Tehran, Iran, Judy and I camped in the Gol-e-Sar campground and to my amazement there was a Steib sidecar standing alone in the ground, no motorcycle attached and with a pile of house bricks supporting it where the motorcycle would normally be. Alas no photo of it was taken. Inquiries revealed it had been there for some years....
I removed the nose-cone badge that you see and the fittings to attached the sidecar to a motorcycle and we took these with us when we left to travel westward. I did note a small bracket made of angle iron, welded to the rail around the sidecar and assumed it was to hold a one gallon oil or petrol/gasoline tin and fitted by a previous owner.....
Bad weather with late snow forced us back to the camp ground a week or so later to await better riding conditions and I saw the sidecar was now gone..... seems they had removed it to a dump in the interim....
Living in London a little later I accompanied a friend to Liverpool to collect some BMW parts he had purchased from a chap living there...the conversation went to my trip...the fellow said he had set out in 1968 with friends to ride to India. He had a BMW R60/2 with Steib sidecar and produced photos. To my amazement there was the welded bracket...you guessed it, it was his sidecar!!
Seems the sidecar was filled with food for the trip and by Iran was empty and the unladen sidecar was considered a nuisance and removed in the Tehran camp ground.... they rode to India and returned to the UK...
Small world eh?Left click on the images to enlarge.
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