Larry Edsall / Special to The Detroit News

Cars are parked in front of the Rosson House, a Victorian home built in 1889 for Dr. and Mrs. Roland Lee Rosson. The Rosson House is the focal point of historic Heritage Square in downtown Phoenix, where the third annual Motoring Thru Time car show was held February 7, 2009.

Unique Chinese bike still motors its way through time

By Larry Edsall / Special to The Detroit News

February 9, 2009

Those vehicles included cars ranging from a 1907 Brush to a 1983 Chevrolet Camaro Z-28, as well as several fire engines, a 40-foot Valley Metro transit bus, several travel trailers, a 19th century high-wheel bicycle and a motorcycle that's unique for the way it has motored through time.

The motorcycle is a 1958 Chang Jiang 750 M1M with matching sidecar. What makes the motorcycle unique is that the bike was in production for 68 years, dating from 1938 into the 21st Century. What makes the bike even more special was the route it followed as it motored through time, a route that began in Germany and wound its way through the Soviet Union on its way to China.

David Olesen of Mesa, Ariz., has always been interested in motorcycles with sidecars, and at one time thought about getting a sidecar to attach to his Honda.

"But it didn't seem proper," Olesen said.

What he wanted was a motorcycle that was designed to have a sidecar, something like those wonderful and historic pre-war BMW bikes.

Though it looks like a classic BMW motorcycle, this bike's production has quite a story, a story that starts in Germany, wends its way through the Soviet Union, reaches China and eventually brings the bike to the United States.

Then, one day, Olesen found a photograph on the Internet of the Chang Jiang, a motorcycle made in China. It and its sidecar looked just right together.

Olesen started searching and discovered three theories regarding the Chang Jiang's history:

1. that in 1940, the Soviets bought BMW motorcycles in Sweden, took them home and did reverse engineering, putting their version into production in 1942;

2. that Soviet spies stole blueprints to the BMW R71 and sent them to Russia, where they were produced as the Ural M-72;

3. that BMW licensed the R71 and sold tooling to the Soviets because BMW had the new R75 in development. The R75 was a sidecar bike with amazing off-pavement capability because of a driven wheel on the sidecar, a locking differential and selectable low range.

Chinese writing on the oil filler cap testifies that while this motorcycle and sidecar may look German, they were produced in China.

Olesen likes the thought that Russian spies stole plans to the bike, though he notes that some of the machinery used to build the bikes in China came from Germany, perhaps as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, perhaps because the Soviets removed it during the war.

Regardless, beginning in February 1942, the bikes were built as Ural M-72s in the Soviet Union and then, starting at the end of November, 1957, in China, which explains why Olesen's bike, which is based on the pre-war BMW, technically is a 1958 Chang Jiang 750 M1M.

"Thousands of these were built in China," Olesen said.

Of course, Olesen had to find a way to get his bike from China to Arizona. First, the bill of laden was lost. Then the bike spent three weeks on the dock, waiting for shipment on a stand-by basis. Finally, there was a problem with some of the other documents. Eventually, late in 2006, Olesen got his bike. "As a rookie importer, I thought it went smoothly," Olesen said.

Olesen says that because it's based on old technology and because there's an ample supply of spare parts available from China, he can maintain his bike and ride it as much as he wants, which wouldn't be the case if he owned a true vintage BMW, a valuable bike he'd eagerly put in shows, but would hesitate to put on the street.

The tailfin of a 1963 Cadillac Series 62 convertible frames a pre-motoring method of transportation, the cover wagon that sits in front of the Phoenix Museum of History. The history museum and the Arizona Science Center are located adjacent to Heritage Square to form the Heritage & Science Park.