I appear to be hitting the same wall with France that I have with Italy--plenty of motorcycle units in the OOB, but none available from the manufacturers. … I'd also be interested in what other microscale wargamers are doing for a workaround.
So here is what one other microscale wargamer has done.
I believe that GHQ has motorcyclesI think those are German but at that scale a coat of paint covers may sins.
I have indeed implemented my French motorcycle company using GHQ's German motorcycles.
For me it was a little more than a coat of paint, but not much more.
I found that the helmets were not very clearly detailed -- this appears to be one of GHQ's older masters/castings, and did not have the level of crisp detailing we have come to expect on their newer infantry. Given the nature of the French motorcycle helmets, I found no visible conflict. No head-swaps needed, to my eye.
However …
The French sidecars have a sort of "boat" shape to them. This was not the case with German sidecars. On this, I just had to suffer through it -- I did not find it profitable to reshape the sidecars -- too fragile and not enough material available. Started to try, and quickly gave it up and just went with it as-is.
(This experiment left me with one unusable sidecar.)
However I did make mods to the MGs. First, the GHQ models come with an MG on every side-car. No one, not even the Germans, did this. So most of the side cars got their MGs clipped off. For those that remained I added a small slice of plastic sheet for a top-mounted magazine (for the French FM24/29 LMG).
Another rant is that none of the manufacturers offer empty / parked motorcycles. The motorcycle troops did not fight mounted, but moved to advantageous positions quickly and then dismounted to set up for the fight.
So I clipped off the figures on a number of my motorcycle combos and put them all on a single base to represent the unit's dismounted motorcycles. I don't have the flexibility of each platoon going somewhere separate, as I only had enough extra motorcycles to do one set of dismounted motorcycles.
All in all a compromised solution, but still an interesting enough unit to be valued in my French force.
No one does the 2 up motorcycle & rider that was a big part of the Italian forces in WWII and very identifiable even in 6mm.
I share this frustration. Before I committed my German motorcycles to a French force, I tried to kit-bash them to serve as Italians.
The GHQ models provide the motorcycles separately from the sidecars. I put some effort into mounting a figure as a second rider, using old C-in-C infantry figures with slung rifles (very thin and spindly legs, making them more suitable for bending into shape). It was, sadly, a fool's errand, and produced nothing useful.
The one motorcycle without a sidecar, left over from the experiments, was profitably used to make a dispatch rider, which might serve my French, Romanian or even US forces.
That's been my experience.
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)