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I believe this is Chinese but what do i know. Does anyone know anything about them. Are they worth anything for older ones. Do they run decent.
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There is a Wikipedia description at chang jiang motorcycle - Search. They have been made since the 1950s in side valve and overhead valve types. Here in the UK we see quite a few cheap new Chinese motorcycles which are often unmaintainable because of lask of spares and poor build quality. -
Chang Jiang, Ural, & Dnepr are basically copies of 1938 BMW technology. During and after WWII BMW military bikes were reverse engineered and these three companies made a lot of these bikes. Sure, they look the same but the materials, metallurgy, electrical components, and assembly techniques were sub standard.
However, if you eliminate the poor quality motorcycle and attach that tank-like sidecar to modern (1978) power.....
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Do not confuse Chang Jiang with Ural and do not confuse them with BMW.
While they all "look" similar -- there are massive differences.
This is because there's two very different things going on.
Ural was a war reparation. It sounds strange to vintage bikers; but nobody wanted BMWs 1930s designs at the end of the war. They were state of the art in 1935, but totally out of date by 1945 and of no use to the Western Allies for either civvy work or military work.. Much like the battleship, they became obsolete during the course of the war due to new tech that could out do them with ease. They were very heavy, very slow, very poor economy, and VERY easy to knock out of service. Like all motorbikes, they were great for dispatch duties and scouting; but they did not function as "light attack vehicles" in the manner envisioned. The technology moved on. And, it was hard to beat the Jeep. It carried more, was cheaper to produce than most bikes, far faster, and far easier to train the average GI to operate/maintain.
So . . .
The Soviets took several BMW/NSU designs back to the USSR along with the rocket scientists that couldn't get along with Von Braun; as well as the designs for a huge 30T press (https://www.gasparini.com/en/the-wor...aulic-presses/) Those presses are what the soviets really wanted . .. and they took a bunch of other stuff to make sure they got them. To this day -- 40-50T presses are highly valued and key to many military grade machines. We literally cannot build many advanced aircraft without them.
On the other half of the equation; the western allies then split up other industrial and chemical designs. For example, Ford and GM passed on being given the machinery, tooling and designs from the Volkswagen plant! Ford thought none of the German designs were any good . . .then came to quickly rue that decision as the Beetle ate into everyone's market. The MC makers mostly split up Zundapp and DKW -- the most famous models we know of as the BSA Bantam in the UK and the Harley Hummer in the US. Both are DKW war reparations.
The reason for all of this is that for the first three years after the war, German industry was not allowed to produce vehicles. NSU famously kept it's work force after the war by contracting with the allies to repair their vehicles and do fleet servicing! They also had almost no tools or dies or presses due to the reparations . . .and it wasn't until around 1948 that the German vehicle industry got rolling again.
What does this have to do with Chang Jiang?
From 1946 to 1948 there was an active Civil War in China fueled by the US and USSR. At the same time; there was also a rapidly building tension between the Soviets and the US in Korea (the 49th parallel was set by the US and USSR because Korea had been a Japanese colony, which they split in half).
Remember, the Soviets backed Mao, the US backed Chang Kai Shek -- and both were still concerned about Japanese resurgence. It's been 80 years; but the Russians and Japanese are still actively at war from August 1945 and the Soviets still occupy several Japanese Islands (which the Japanese seized after the first Russo-Japanese war). All of this meant the Chinese Red Army was never fully supplied by the Soviets in a sustainable fashion for fear they would lose and those material being available to the Western powers to over run the borders. Mao's famous "long march" is what turned that tide around -- but the civil are ended before the Soviets started giving them better material . . . and then the Korean war broke out and the Chinese got involved very fast when the USMC made it to the Chinese border.
Being crafty and by now used to 20 years of material shortages, the Chinese more or less combined parts stocks with reverse engineering to create the Chang Jiang. Ratier did something very similar with BMWs in France. Due to international sanctions -- it was challenging for the Chinese to get good machine tools or metals until the 1970s. So, yes, the Chang Jiang is considerably more crude and heavier than similar appearing Soviet designs. They worked with what they had . . .and what they had was not terribly good.
Finally, keep in mind that a lot of what we label as "chinese" in the US is actually from Taiwan. Prior to Nixon opening China to western trade; China was more or less cut off from the West from 1948 onwards.
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Interesting read. Thanks for that.Comment
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