Vintage Motorcycle with Sidecar Coloring Page: PDF

Vintage Motorcycle Sidecar: History & Fun Facts

A Third Wheel Bolted to the Side

The sidecar was patented in England in 1903, just a few years after the first practical motorcycles appeared, giving riders a way to carry a passenger or cargo without building a whole separate vehicle. Early sidecars were little more than a wicker or wood chair bolted to a simple frame connected to the motorcycle, a far cry from the rounded bullet-shaped bodies that became standard by the 1930s.

That third wheel also solved the balance problem a passenger created, since a motorcycle carrying extra weight only on one side would otherwise lean and struggle to stay upright at low speed.

Round Fenders and Exposed Engines

Motorcycles built in the first half of the twentieth century show off their engines openly between the frame rails, with cooling fins and cylinder heads fully visible rather than hidden behind bodywork the way many modern bikes cover them. Deeply curved, rounded fenders wrapped tightly over each wheel, a shape drawn directly from bicycle design since motorcycles themselves evolved out of motorized bicycles just a few decades earlier.

Thin wire-spoked wheels, laced with dozens of individual spokes, replaced solid wooden and disc wheels because they flexed slightly and absorbed rough road shocks better on the unpaved streets common at the time.

Sidecars at War

Military forces on both sides of World War I and World War II relied heavily on sidecar motorcycles, since a three-wheeled machine could carry a driver, a passenger with a weapon, and supplies across rough terrain faster than a truck could travel on damaged roads. Germany's military built tens of thousands of sidecar rigs, some even with a driven sidecar wheel for extra traction off-road, a design detail that made those wartime machines nearly unstoppable in mud.

Photographs and newsreels from both wars cemented the sidecar motorcycle's image worldwide, and many veterans came home wanting a civilian version of the machine they had ridden overseas.

Family Transportation Across Europe

In the decades after World War II, when cars remained expensive for many families, a motorcycle with a sidecar became an affordable way to carry a spouse and children together on one machine across much of Europe. Manufacturers built dedicated family sidecars with two seats and even small windshields to shield passengers from wind and rain, exactly the rounded windshield detail traced on this page.

That practical family role kept sidecar production alive long after cars became more affordable, since a sidecar rig still cost far less to buy and run than a small automobile.

Sidecar Racing

Sidecar road racing turned the passenger into an active crew member, called a monkey, who leans and shifts weight dramatically to help the low, wide machine corner at speed without tipping. That racing discipline still runs today at classic motorcycle events, keeping the vintage rounded sidecar shape alive on racetracks even as most street riders moved on to other kinds of transportation.

Collectors and vintage motorcycle clubs still restore these old sidecar rigs today, keeping the rounded fenders and exposed engines running on parade routes and classic bike rallies decades after the machines first left the factory.