Josef Steib of Nürnberg founded the business in 1914, making saddles for horses, bicycles and motor cycles in the workshop at his home. In 1916 he added an automotive body shop and painting business, and began selling used cars in the early 1920s.
In 1925, Steib was approached by Ardie to build a sidecar for their TM-500 model, and as a result expanded his workshops for the purpose.
During the 1930s Steib purchased Stoppa, a small side-car manufacturing concern in the city of Essen. By this stage the company was one of the two market leaders for sidecars in Germany, the other being Stoye.
In 1933 Steib retired at the age of 45 and was succeeded by his 22 year old son, Joseph Jr.
The company continued to thrive and postwar production had reached 50 units per day by 1955. The following year production collapsed with the demise of Ardie, their main customer, but BMW were still buying a few.
This sidecar or "seitenwagen" is an S500 model that differs from the S501 in that the S501 has a hydraulic damper and the S500 has 2 coil springs and a rubber damper. I ordered my sidecar in 2005/6 through a local dealer from a company in Germany that says…
"We produce faithful replicas of the Steib sidecars as they were produced in Nuremberg in the mid-1950s. All individual parts and accessories of the sidecars are compatible with the original models. Our extensive range of spare parts leaves nothing to be desired for the restoration of original Steib sidecars…"
Painting, chroming and leather straps were done locally in 2007.
Since the BMW R60/2 was actually produced with factory sidecar mounts, the local dealer had no difficulty setting it up on the bike. The final drive gear was changed from 25/8 to 26/6 as recommended.
The result is a perfect match and a dream to ride.