The sidecar class was introduced to the Isle of Man TT in 1923.
That year marked the first dedicated Sidecar TT race, held over three laps of the Mountain Course, a distance of roughly 113 miles. Freddie Dixon and passenger Walter Denny won the inaugural contest on a Douglas fitted with a special banking sidecar, averaging 53.15 mph.
The class did not remain continuously on the programme. Sidecar racing was dropped after the 1925 event because of a lack of entries, then returned in 1954 on the shorter Clypse Course for machines limited to 500cc. It later moved back to the Mountain Course, with engine-capacity rules changing over time.
A common mix-up is to date the class’s modern Formula 2 era to its original introduction. FIM Formula 2 sidecars were introduced much later, in 1990. The original Sidecar TT therefore belongs to 1923, even though the class has been suspended, reintroduced, and reorganised several times.