Hello....
I bought this sidecar in Turkey near the Syrian border, when I was working over there many years ago. The interior was a mess so I had it refurbished in Turkey and they did some work on the body. I never got around to getting a bike, so I have this sidecar and want to sell it, but don’t know enough about it. Found a few things on the internet, mainly one article which I have copied below. STOLZ sidecars were manufactured in Berlin, Germany between 1921 and the late 1930’s.
So does anyone know about them? Know anyone who would be interested? What bikes would work with it? Any idea what it's worth?
Here are a few pics of the sidecar, the interior and the STOLZ emblem on the front of the sidecar.
Greatly appreciate if anyone can help. Thanks!
And here is the article about the STOLZ sidecars I found on the internet:
STOLZ SIDE-CARS By Gerry Frederics
This small manufacturer was located in the outskirts of Berlin. The company was started sometimes in 1921 during the times when only intrepid souls started anything in Germany, the country being brutalized and plundered by the French and British. Civil war-like conditions prevailed, foreign born eastern European communists (having stolen German names) clamoring for the overthrow of the democratically elected government and street battles between foreign-directed, financed and well armed Bolsheviks and the Freicorps, the volunteer militia defending Germany wherever it was necessary. Eventually the Freicorps was joined by the National Socialist SA some of whose members were murdered in cold blood by Bolshevik agitators, encouraged by the likes of Käthe Kollwitz, the artist. To start a manufacturing concern under those conditions required special courage and conviction, to put it mildly.
The Stolz side-car company prospered despite it all and ended up one of the most advanced of them all in the 1930´s, building on an enviable reputation of strength, innovation and reliability. Even as early as the first half of the 1920´s they offered a no-holds barred guarantee of 5 years, a sure-fire way to convince the buying public of their quality. Their machines came in a large variety of models, anywhere from simple single-seat to more luxurious models with leather interior as well as models for industrial applications, ideal for plumbers - for tradesmen in general. The suspension was handled by rubber bands and the styling was reminiscent of the torpedo-style used by several other manufacturers. Whether they were the originators of this unique system or merely part of the avant-garde I do not know. The price of these high quality models was predictably rather high, yet the machine sold reasonably well due to its excellent reputation.
In the middle 1930´s they appeared with a racing model which competed in the 500-cc and more side-car classes successfully on an international basis. This was a clever marketing strategy, since in Germany racing success was writ large. The make of the racing bike in the photo extant is unknown, but under closer examination, it appears to have been a water-cooled DKW 500 or 600 or the marvelous 1000 the largest 2-stroke super-bike ever produced. At the end of the 1930´s, they stopped production of civilian models; whether they became part of the defense industry and what happened to this small company has been impossible to ascertain; what is certain however is, that if they survived the conflagration, they were plundered and stolen blind by the Soviets.
