One final shot of the back of the 160mm sidecar fender. From this angle you can see the three holes that secured the wire harness for the top marker light on the sidecar fender. As of R75 serial number 756523, the rear light on the sidecar fender was no longer fitted. On these later fenders, even the holes for the harness retaining clips were no longer stamped in.

Several years ago I hooked up with some guys that had gone old car shopping in the Soviet Union. To help fill up their shipping container they brought back 4 R75s. This was one of them. An interesting mix of mostly early R75 with a good helping of Russian parts.

This is the second Russian R75. Also a mix of R75 & Russian parts. The Ural sidecar body can be seen well in this shot.

The 3rd R75 (no photo) was the most expensive of the lot, and really just a tan-painted bike that was no more original than the first two. Now this (green bike above) - this was actually the best of the four. Bike number 4 had one of those real late-war R75 sidecars, as pictured a screen or two back. I needed one of these for my 1944 R75. Of the four bikes, this was the only one with an original sidecar body. Just for grins, there was an original pillion seat, muffler heat shield, and spare skid pan in the trunk! Boy was I happy to get this into my van!

Flip-side view of the previous bike. The gas tank on this one is the final version of the 5 different styles of tank that were fitted to the R75. The bike itself was a very early bike from 1942. I was only interested in the sidecar though, so I sold-off the solo bike. Note the tractor tires on the rims! I had to cut them off with a hacksaw.

Here's a 1942 R75 that I saw at a BMWMOA rally about 10 years ago. The lettering on the nose says "Under new management".

A close-up shot of the front fender on the previous bike. This is the rarely-seen valance that was installed on the sidecar side to help keep the sidecar passenger clean. Mud wedged between the wheel and fender soon made these a luxury that they couldn't afford to continue, so they were dropped.

A pretty nice 1943 KS750. You can see the canister air filter on the back of the engine. This is an elaborate device that uses multiple chambers to create turbulence and try to route sand and other particles out the waste drain or to trap it in the canisters.

A close up shot of the KS750 air filter. Seen here upside down - the curved tube would be facing down when the filter is installed on the bike. You can see the removable chambers that would be emptied periodically under severe use conditions. The small tab on the bottom (holding the filter up) was something that an owner added afterwards, and is not correct. These filter units had a habit of falling off, so the bracket was probably added to provide an additional mounting point to keep from losing it. If you look closely, the canister in the front is different then the two behind it - that's because it's actually a copy made from an automobile shock absorber!

A nice view of the handlebar heating system used on R75s and KS750s. The heat defuser in front of the grip is an original unit, but the ducting is a substitute that's similar to the original.