Satra Corporation was a US trading and metal processing company. It is primarily known in the United Kingdom for its Satra Motors Limited subsidiary, which was the official importer and distributor of

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

cars and motorcycles in that country from 1973 to 1979. Satra is an acronym for "Soviet American Trade Association".

Subsidiaries

Satra Motors imported, modified, and distributed Soviet

car A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...

s, such as

Lada LadaAccording to various sources, the name Lada is derived from a Russian word for Viking longships (). (, , marketed as LADAFrom 2004 onwards Lada is marketed worldwide, including in Russia, using the all-capitals brand name written in Latin sc ...

and Moskvich, and

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike; uni (if one-wheeled); trike (if three-wheeled); quad (if four-wheeled)) is a lightweight private 1-to-2 passenger personal motor vehicle Steering, steered by a Motorcycle handlebar, handlebar from a saddle-style ...

s made by Ural, Dnepr, Voskhod,

Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...

, and the IZh whose Planeta and Jupiter were marketed. The motorcycles were sold in Britain and Australia under a single brand name, Cossack. Satra Motors was based in Carnaby,

Bridlington Bridlington (previously known as Burlington) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is on the Holderness part (Flamborough Head to the Humber estuary) of the Yorkshire Coast by the North Sea. The town is ...

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, often abbreviated to the East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, S ...

on the old airfield.

Cossack motorcycles

The term Cossack Motorcycle can apply to any number of

s, made in the former Soviet Union, a reference to the horseback riding

Cossacks The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic languages, East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borde ...

. Some are derived from the design of the 1938

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...

R71

sidecar A sidecar is a one-wheeled device attached to the side of a motorcycle, Scooter (motorcycle), scooter, or bicycle, making the whole a three-wheeled vehicle. The combination of a motorcycle with a sidecar is sometimes called a ''rig'', ''outfit' ...

motorcycle. Examples include the Russian Ural or the Ukrainian

Dnipro Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...

. ''Cossack'' was also the brand name applied to all Soviet

motorcycles A motorcycle (motorbike, bike; uni (if one-wheeled); trike (if three-wheeled); quad (if four-wheeled)) is a lightweight private 1-to-2 passenger personal motor vehicle Steering, steered by a Motorcycle handlebar, handlebar from a saddle-style ...

distributed by ''Satra Belarus'' from 1973 to 1979, originally located in

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, southern England,''Motorcyclist Illustrated'', October 1974, p.63 ''The Cosssack Range. Voskhod 175, Jupiter 350, Ural 650''. Satra Belarus Limited, Canada Road, Byfleet, Surrey, KT14 7JX'' Accessed and added 2015-03-09 later moving to Carnaby in eastern England and being used by the Australian importer, Capitol Motors until May 1976 when their motorcycle division closed. Ural,

, IZh, Voskhod and

were some of the former Soviet Union manufacturers whose bikes were imported and rebadged.

Citations

General and cited references

* * * * * * {{refend

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20060929034012/http://www.cossackownersclub.co.uk/cossack_tradenamed_bikes.pdf * http://www.cossackmotorcycles.com/index.html Auto dealerships of the United Kingdom AvtoVAZ Companies of the Soviet Union Defunct companies based in New York City Foreign trade of the Soviet Union Motorcycles by brand Soviet Union–United Kingdom relations