{"id":29489,"date":"2017-03-11T23:28:24","date_gmt":"2017-03-11T12:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pipeburn.com\/?p=29489"},"modified":"2017-03-12T10:13:34","modified_gmt":"2017-03-11T23:13:34","slug":"1960-ural-m-52s-motorworld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/1960-ural-m-52s-motorworld\/","title":{"rendered":"1960 Ural M-52S – Motorworld"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It’s the mid 1950s in Russia.\u00a0As the country\u00a0sunk deeper into its Cold War with the West, Soviet\u00a0military minds began to realise that if push ever came to shove, they would probably need a replacement for their current army\u00a0motorcycle, the Ural<\/a> (or more correctly, the\u00a0Irbit) M-72. Based on a brash reproduction\u00a0of the\u00a0BMW<\/a> R71, its 20-year-old days were numbered. The replacement? Well, if pinching ideas from\u00a0Deutschland worked once… So they acquired themselves an R51\/3 and got to work removing the pork knuckle and adding a little beef stroganoff of their own. And then they took it racing. The result? Meet the Ural M-52S from Motorworld by V. Sheyanov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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In the early 1950s, the Central Design Bureau of Motorcycle Engineering (sounds like a real<\/em> fun place to work) in Serpukhov received an official-looking brief from Moscow to carry out the design and research work to create a motorcycle with a boxer\u00a0engine and\u00a0a capacity\u00a0of 500cc.\u00a0A key part of their brief was the requirement to make the new bike as cross-compatible as possible with the outgoing\u00a0M-72. The two motor works\u00a0already manufacturing the M-72 \u2013\u00a0Irbit<\/a> and Kiev \u2013\u00a0got\u00a0to work.<\/p>\n

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In 1954, the first experimental M-52 with a motor designed by\u00a0the Central Design Bureau was ready for testing. The features of its\u00a0new top-hat engine are best described\u00a0in\u00a0the CDB report from the time, \u201cThe engine is largely based on the use of M-72 engine parts, for example, a series of crankcase was used with minor changes in the latest processing operations. The diameters of the crankshaft necks, piston pin and rollers with separators remain unified with the corresponding parts of the M-72 engine.\u201d Clearly, Moscow was more interested in backward compatibility than spending their hard-earned Rubles\u00a0on\u00a0innovation. And\u00a0with a looming space race on the horizon, could you blame them?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The pushrod valve train\u00a0was\u00a0borrowed directly from\u00a0BMW’s<\/a> R-51\/3 road bike, but with typical Russian ingenuity the design was promptly improved on in various ways, including cylinders that were\u00a0cast from an aluminum alloy with pressed\u00a0cast-iron sleeves for the best of both metallurgical worlds.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then in 1957, the party-sanctioned production of the sporty Ural<\/a> \u2018M-52S\u2019, specifically designed for highway\u00a0and circuit\u00a0racing<\/a>, began. It was based on the chassis of the latest racing M-77, but equipped with a specialised fork with a front axle from the M-52.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The power plant\u00a0was a sporty<\/a> modification of the garden-variety\u00a0M-52. Testing at the time apparently showed it to be every bit the equal to the legendary BMW<\/a> R37, which was considered one of the best racers<\/a> in the post-war years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The M-52S is easily identified by its valve cover sporting\u00a0three longitudinal ribs. Internally, it also features a few go-faster tweaks including\u00a0an increase in the compression ratio to 9.0:1 and two bigger, better carbs.\u00a0All the hard work resulted in the\u00a0engine saw power being increased to a whopping 35 hp.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And with this peak power being delivered at a healthy 6200 rpm, the bike\u00a0could reportedly hit\u00a0the magic ton. It’s interesting to note that in addition to the \u00a0technical modifications, this speed was also achieved by feeding the little beauty high-octane fuel. Sounds like a lot of effort for a 35hp\u00a0racer<\/a>, yeah? Boy, we’ve sure come a long way since then.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But the bike’s most attractive feature is probably its\u00a0collectability. In the period from 1957 to 1961, a meagre 20 units were produced. And to add some nice vodka-flavoured icing onto the Ural<\/a> M-52S cake, each and every example of the bike was assembled by hand. Speaking of hands, we’d like nothing more than to get\u00a0our hands on one. Specifically in conjunction with a long stretch of deserted Russian highway and a few hours of spare time. See you there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

[Motorworld by V. Sheyanov<\/a>\u00a0–\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0–\u00a0Instagram<\/a>]<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s the mid 1950s in Russia.\u00a0As the country\u00a0sunk deeper into its Cold War with the West, Soviet\u00a0military minds began to realise that if push ever came to shove, they would probably need a replacement for their current army\u00a0motorcycle, the Ural (or more correctly, the\u00a0Irbit) M-72. Based on a brash reproduction\u00a0of the\u00a0BMW R71, its 20-year-old days were numbered. The replacement? Well, if pinching ideas from\u00a0Deutschland worked once… So they acquired themselves an R51\/3 and got to work removing the pork knuckle and adding a little beef stroganoff of their own. And then they took it racing. The result? Meet the Ural M-52S from Motorworld by V. Sheyanov.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,49],"tags":[1448,384,734],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29489"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29489"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29515,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29489\/revisions\/29515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}