I Tried The £22,000+ Ural Sidecar! 

There were lots of sidecar outfits around back in the 50s and 60s as cars were still too expensive for a lot of families.

modern Urals are quite different. Back then, almost every part was made there and they just mass produced them without real quality check before release. Today, only the basic bike (engine, frame, tank, sidecar...) are made in the Ural factory (originally in Irbid, now moved to Khazachstan) and the quality has improved greatly. Tyres are german (Heindl), brakes are from Brembo, the electronic is from japan and the shocks are also imported from quality brands (the fork of mine is from Marzocchi for example). Of course, this and the fact that they now only produce a few hundred per year has a significant impact on the price unfortunately...

Remember Two Fat Ladies?

...or the BMW into scrap metal within 2 years... sidecar bikes have some completely different wear&tear aspects than normal bikes. Normal bikes tend to lean into curves for example, so the gravity is always oriented vertically relative to the bike itself. With sidecars, you have a lot of sideways tension acting on the wheels, forks and frame when turning. It's quite easy to have your frontwheel slip when yanking the bar too hard in a turn away from the sidecar's side. When you turn into the sidecar's side, the sidecar lifts very easily (you can do that in 1st gear at low speeds already) and the whole weight of the bike presses on the wheels from a 20 to 45" angle. Not the best treatment for your ball bearings and sealings if your wheels weren't made for this. But I agree in one sense: I always wonder how my Ural would feel if it had a 1 liter BMW boxer engine - and a 5th gear 🤫

That's about the most popular comment I get when people see my Ural Classic Retro: "...nice, but where is the machinegun?"

but not half the fun and challenge 😏

sorry to hear this. I agree - they can surprise you with some nasty behaviour if you let yourself get surprised by their various quirks. Especially when braking while going downhills. I had some hairy experiences one some of my first rides. Fortunately, it was a familiarisation ride which I chose to do in evening hours on a road that I knew had very little traffic at that hour so I could concentrate on the bike's behaviour only. Otherwise, that ride would have easily ended with a frontal collision as the bike has a tendency to stear into oncomming traffic if you brake too sudden on a downhill course and the best counter measure to this (easing the brakes) is quite counter intuitive in such a situation.