Irbit Motorcycle Plant is a Russian manufacturer of heavyweight-class motorcycles.
In the late 1930s, a meeting was held at the USSR People’s Commissariat of Defense to choose a motorcycle model for the Armed Forces. After comparing various prototypes, including foreign ones, it was decided to use the BMW R-71, which was in service with the Wehrmacht, as the basis. To maintain secrecy, representatives of the Soviet Union purchased five BMW motorcycles in Sweden. Two motorcycles were sent to the Moscow Motorcycle Plant (MMZ), created on the basis of a bicycle factory; one was kept as a reference sample, the fourth was taken apart down to the smallest parts, and the last was handed over to process engineers. They analyzed the chemical composition of every component, studied the depth and nature of surface machining, and the cleanliness and precision of manufacture.
After that, a specialized design bureau for heavy engineering was established on the basis of the Moscow experimental plant “Iskra.”
Mass production of the new motorcycle, designated the M-72, began in August 1941. On October 21, 1941, the Evacuation Council under the USSR Council of People’s Commissars decided to relocate the Moscow motorcycle plant and the workshops associated with motorcycle production to the Urals, to the city of Irbit.
In Irbit, the plant, which became the Irbit Motorcycle Plant, was housed on the premises of a former brewery. The former malt house accommodated the assembly shop and the first machine shop; the fruit drink and kvass shop housed a portable steam engine; the brewing section became the heat-treatment shop, and the pickling section became the foundry. However, not all workshops could fit within the allocated area, so some had to be located at the Irbit Trailer Plant (APZ), 3 km from the main site. The engine shop was placed in the APZ club, the gearbox shop in the field-kitchens-and-sleds shop, and the tool shop in the fasteners shop. Overall management at the new location was carried out by the chief engineer, who was also the plant’s first director, Fyodor Mikhailovich Lomanov; all technical and process matters were overseen by chief designer N. P. Serdyukov, a graduate of the Red Army Air Force Academy, who for several years starting in 1935 completed internships at BMW plants.
In 1992, the plant was corporatized, changing its name from IMZ to the open joint-stock company “Uralmoto.” 40% of the shares remained with the plant’s managers and workers, 38% were held in the form of privatization vouchers, and 22% remained under state control. From that time, the plant repeatedly changed its name, went bankrupt several times, and reduced its workforce.
In 1997, IMZ produced four thousand motorcycles.
In 1998, the plant sold motorcycles worth 67 million rubles, while its debt amounted to 380 million rubles. Soon the enterprise was bought for $5 million by Kakha Bendukidze, a shareholder of the “United Machine-Building Plants” (OMZ) group. It was assumed that the plant would begin producing a fundamentally new model called the “Volk.” However, it soon became clear that the plant’s capacities did not allow this.
In 2000, the plant went bankrupt. Because of debts to energy suppliers, electricity and heating were cut off in October; that winter not a single “Ural” was assembled in Irbit. Ultimately, the plant was bought by its top managers—Dmitry Lebedinsky, Ilya Khait, and Vadim Tryapichkin. The enterprise was named LLC “PC Irbit Motorcycle Plant.”