In the summer of 2006 i came to china for a month and it was during my two weeks in Xiamen that i saw my first CJ. “A boxer-engined, WWII sidecar? Here?!?” Then next day i saw another one, and then another. Though i had never heard of these before, i knew it was to become my life goal to own one. I immediately got to work. I did my research, found a job in Suzhou, went back to Ireland to get my stuff and say farewell to all my loved ones, then left with a one way ticket to China. 5 months of saving later, I was the ecstatic owner of my own CJ750. I named him Wolfgang.



Almost 3 years of ownership later, I thought I’d do him justice and do a little write-up about him. There’s already a butt-load of literature out there about these bikes, so I’m just going to put up some pictures and talk about a few little modifications I made.

















With the sidecar off. I rode it like this for a week in the days before I had my XTR. It was a lot of fun to be back on a real motorbike, but for sure it doesn’t handle the best. I found cornering takes a lot of concentration.





Spare pertrol can. The bike will only go about 5-10km on reserve, so after getting stranded a couple of times I got this. The luggage rack is also great for camping trips.





Sidecar headlight. Useful for driving on country roads at night. Cars coming your way know how wide you are and don’t try to bully you into the ditch.







Mountain bike rack. I got a machine gun rack and welded these 3 bits of stainless onto it. Very simple mounting system but works very well. (Note: this doesn’t work on most mtb’s, mine is a downhill bike with 20mm bolt-through axle)





Solid wheel for the back. The back wheel gets tortured on my bike, because I usually like let the sidecar lift up in the air as I make right turns. After two years of getting my back wheel re-spoked bimonthly, I finally got this. No more problems now.







Passenger air horn. I’ve had my air horn for a long time now and it’s saved my arse more than once. The red one you see in the picture though is a recent addition. It’s connected to a manual (not electric) pump that I installed inside the sidecar. The passenger can now use his foot to honk at people. The girlfriend loves it!
You can pick one up here.







Knee boards. They look ugly as poo but they’re essential in the winter. They create a bubble of warm air around each cylinder head that keeps my legs and man parts warm.





Mileage so far.





Never go anywhere without these…





…or you’ll probably end up getting towed.

That’s about it, thanks for reading! If I think of more I’ll add it later.