The Sputnik is a nice low end sidecar from Russia. No longer manufactured as far as I know, they are often found used at around $1000.
With a steel body and a slightly heavier chassis, it is a little more robust than the Velorex. A locking trunk is standard. They are a good match for a light or medium sized bike but a little light both in construction and overall weight for heavier bikes.
My biggest complaint with the Sputnik is the funky nose latch. It rattles, is hard to get latched and has sharp edges right where the passenger’s knees are.
I bought some latches from Mc Master Carr for about $15 and easily remedied this issue.
I drilled holes to mount the latches and used a pop rivet gun to attach the hardware to the sidecar body (The right side is shown but I installed a matching latch on the other side).
THe OEM latch was easily removed. I happened to have some corks from some scotch which were a perfect fit for the bottom of the grab rail.
While I was dealing with sharp edges, I beveled the corners of the nose piece at the passenger compartment with an angle grinder and padded them with a little black tape.
Mission Accomplished!
Looks to me like a good modification. So far, I have slipped some little pieces of fuel line (sliced lengthwise) over the latch points on mine to keep the front lid centered and to keep it from rattling, but this solution looks much better. I'll bet I can even come up with some corks for the grab rail ends, but they might be off of Irish whiskey bottles, rather than scotch.
