Helmut Fath’s URS Pictures
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The historic racing motorcycle on which the legendary Helmut Fath won the Sidecar World Championship in 1968 and with which Horst Owesle took the title in 1971.
World Champion in 1960 riding a privately entered BMW, Helmut Fath spent the next few years out of racing following a serious injury. Rebuffed by the German manufacturer on his return, he set about building his own four-cylinder ‘URS’ racing engine, which took its name from the village of Ursenbach in Germany where the project was conceived. The URS was plagued by teething troubles in its first two seasons but delivered Fath his sweet revenge in 1968, when he and passenger Wolfgang Kalauch beat BMW-mounted Johann Attenberger to take the World Championship. In 1969 another serious injury enforced Fath’s retirement from the sport but the URS was not done yet. Horst Owesle took over the drive and after a promising debut season which saw him finish 7th in the 1970 World Championship, he and passenger Peter Rutterford secured the URS’s second World title the following year.
Part of the fantastic collection of motorcycles auctioned at the Bonhams annual sale of Collectors’ Motorcycles and Related Memorabilia at The Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show, Stafford, 2010.
