how the Russians roll

Okay, so imagine you are Russia in 1941 and you are about to confront Adolph Hitler’s war machine.

Trouble is he’s got these great motorcycles by BMW for his Blitzkreig operation and you’ve got nothin’.

motoleathers.com

So whaddya do?

Screw patent agreements. This is war.

You ripoff.

They secretly bought a few BMW’s, took the bikes apart and cast near-identical motorcycles from the original casings.

The official version of the Ural motorcycle is pretty plain:

http://www.imz-ural.com/the-ural-factory/

A vintage BMW cylinderhead:

Now here’s the Ural:

The full BMW they copied: 

www.fahrzeugbilder.de

In war, what goes around cycles around.