BMW R50 sidecar racer

Anyone remember when sidecar racing was televised on Australian TV? I watched them race at Phillip Island and boy were they fast and tricky. The passenger was the bravest man on earth in my humble opinion, hanging out the side and so low they touched the ground. Sometimes they even fell out! Anyway I built this Protar 1:9 scale BMW R50/2 sidecar racer model some years ago, and even then it was a challenging kit. Most parts didn't fit too well and needed a fair amount of cleaning, sanding and modifying to get a reasonable fit.

I decided to model mine on the championship winning bike of Max Deubel and Emil Horner. They dominated sidecar racing from 1961 to 1964, and they had a small mascot painted on their bike. It was of the two German cartoon figures called "Max and Moritz". The kit supplied decals were incorrect and I had to make up my own, using blank decal sheet and hand painting the figures and stripes that run along the bike. The bike was painted white (German colours) with a light blue stripe.

The kit was very well detailed - the engine even had pistons in it, and I cut away part of one cylinder casing to reveal the piston inside. I respoked the wire wheels with stretched sprue, as the original spokes were too thick. The BMW R50 was a fantastic bike for its day. It won the FIA sidecar world championships a total of 19 times since the series began in 1949.

Oooh yeah, now we`re talking. These thBeemers were awesome in their day, just about unbeatable. You have done a real nice job on this.

I had 2 different outfits when my kids were small. What a lot of fun.

i watched ones on dirt track speed way one nigth,that was hairy,one guy can off he got run over by 4 following bikes.great build.

That is just the sort of Motorcycling Subject That gets my heart racing !! What a beautiful build Terry, have you reworked the wheels ?
I have colored video footage here of that exact bike while running at the Isle of man.
Those guys had guts !

I think those guys had big balls too!

The wheels are re-spoked with fine plastic sprue - I had to make heaps of stretched sprue to match the correct scale thickness of each spoke. Each wheel was made up from two halves.

I cut out all of the kit wheel's thick spokes except for two that held the wheel hub in place centrally. I then glued each spoke in place and let them dry thoroughly before carefully cutting out the remaining original thick spokes and finishing the job. This had to be done to all six wheel halves.

It was a delicate operation but one that paid off, as the finished wheels looked heaps better than the original ones.

After reading your original post again I can see you've explained that in the text !!! Very nice job anyway.