In the winter of 1976

Posted September 14, 2010 in NEW LONDON MC blog 


In 1976 I worked for a Subaru dealership, the owner decided to get into the Motorcycle Business, So in the finest tradition of thinking things through and looking into available franchises (not) he bought into a foriegn company salesmans pitch, unt vee became a Deutch Motorad dealer. Ya ve became German. Mention German Motorcycles and BMW springs to mind, BMW, Bayerische Motoren Werkes, Superior European motorcycles. Yup...Nope...He chose a future gold mine, Something different that when the American public saw it would climb on board. We became a MZ dealer. MZ? (Motorrad-und Zweiradwerk). Why do you think they called it MZ, I mean Motorrad is easy to say motor-rad, but Zweiradwerk?

Germany (Motorrad-und Zweiradwerk) Was started in 1956 when the Soviets dismantled DKW.
So since he bought into the franchise and had the product delivered, and we had no actual room for motorcycles in the dealership, we needed a place to keep them. So in the winter of 1976 I had 8 MZ 250cc Motorcycles in my basement. Blue and red. Ugly bike, large engine, no down tube. In the Spring they emerged into the Connecticut U.S.A. Sunlight, I headed off to other jobs, and by summer both the Motorcycle and Subaru dealership was out of business.

In 1992, after reunification, private investors restarted the MZ production. Hong Leong, a company from Malaysia, bought MZ in 1996. MZ motorcycle history.

klay