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Soviet motorcycles have been imported into the UK for many
years. Certainly just post WWII some of the German based
machines were imported privately, but the major organised
importation started in the early 1970's.
Fred Wells of Manor Park London.
Mr Wells brought in mainly the Ural M63 and provided good
service to his customers, even getting a Ural engine strip down
and rebuild article in the journal "Motorcycle Mechanics". He
was one of the first to ride a Ural outfit across the Sahara
desert in around 1971.
COSSACK the SATRA UK Trade Name, 1973 to 1979.
SATRA (the Soviet American Trade Association) set up a company
called Satra Belarus (Belarus being a Soviet State at the time
and the name used for their really tough tractors) to import and
distribute a wide range of Soviet motorcycles (and tractors).
The various Soviet motorcycles were sold by Satra Belarus in the
UK, Australia and USA and were given the UK Trade Name of
'Cossack'. The 'Cossack' trade name specifically applies to
those Soviet models sold by Satra through the UK, it is not a
Russian trade name and is not applied to motorcycles sold since
1979.
NEVAL MOTORCYCLES. (UK company and Trade Name) 1970s to
1990s.
Neval Motorcycles were originally a Cossack dealer in the
1970's. They then took over importation of the Minsk in the mid
1970's, then took over the sole concession to import most of the
Soviet motorcycles in 1979 until withdrawing from the motorcycle
side of their business around the mid 1990s. Nevals sold mostly
in the UK, but also exported some to certain States of the USA,
including the Dnieper MT10-36 with UK fitted single SU carbs
fitted to meet tough emission laws.
BRITAINE 1980's
Importation of the Minsk in small numbers, based in NE England.
REGENT 1980's
Importation of the Minsk by Regent took over after the cessation
by Britaine. Company director of Regent was previously a
director of Neval Motorcycles. Developed trail and also a
competition trials version in direct association with the
factory. Also produced sidecars for the larger motorcycle.
URALMOTO 1990's to present day.
All imports
of the IMZ Ural into the Europe come in through Ural Motorcycles GmbH.
Poschacherstraße 32. 4020 Linz, Austria. From here they are distributed
to the dealers in Europe. Thus the UK dealers receive their Urals &
sidecars via Austria, see
http://www.ural.cc/index.php?impressum
The
Cossack Owners Club supports the owners of all new motorcycles sold
through the UK companies and dealers that obtain machines from the
UralMoto factory in Russia. The club has no financial or other
dependency on the manufacturers, importers or dealers, but does work
with these organisations to further the greater cause.
Further documents on this site
There are (Autumn 2002 planned) a series of 20 or so
documents also accessible on this website. They are formatted as
PDF files can only be accessed only by "Adobe Acrobat" software.
CLICK Adobe Acrobat Free Download to download a free copy of the
PDF reader from the software writer's site, this is completely
safe and legitimate. These PDF format files can then be viewed
on the screen quickly in relatively low resolution "SCREEN
FORMAT" or downloaded in higher resolution "PRINTABLE FORMAT"
should you wish to save them to your PC and print them later.
This process then speeds up access to the additional information
in high quality.
These additional pages were created by me early in 2002,
initially with the intention that they would exclusively
supplement the excellent book written in the USA by Michael
Weaver "Antique Russian Motorcycles". A hard copy of the
complete book is available by 'snail mail' from the author:
Michael Weaver, 2204 Shady Birch Lane, Garner, NC 27529, USA for $66
- 2nd Edition out now. These additional
pages cover much of the more recent information about Soviet and
later Russian and Ukrainian motorcycles. The photographs are in
black and white for now, but at reasonable resolution, since
they were intended to be reproducible on normal photocopiers. In
time the photos will be made available in full colour, but the
black & white reproduction does not detract from the detail of
the photographs.
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