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Death of another bit of DDR History
Jun. 11th, 2008 08:41 amSo, those of you who've read this journal for a while or who know me in person probably know I'm a little bit obsessed with the DDR and with the CCCP; while I'm sensible enough not to have any belief that communism worked in any of these places (and am, disappointingly, not communist) I am fascinated by them. I'm fascinated by the concepts, and by the products, and by the history.
I'm amazed by the inginuity of engineers who were given so little, yet produced some incredible solutions.
And so I'm saddened to see that MZ, the maker of my flakey rusty 2-stroke (and my bright pink 2-stroke), a part of the once important IFA group, has announced impending closure. MZ went through closure several times, becoming MuZ and then MZ again after the fall of communism removed their ability to sell phenominally cheap bikes abroad, and removed their captive market crippling them financially. But this time I suspect it's for real. MZ once lead the world, incredibly. Had their racing team's rider not defected to the west, and taken his bike to one of the Japanese bike manufacturers, possibly MZ's history may have been different.
But sidelined and unloved, the writing's probably been on the wall for a long time. Despite producing some really excellent bikes in the last few years (not the sort of bikes I ride, but nice ones none-the-less), it appears they've not been shifting enough stock to make them profitable. And so MZ shall pass in to history.
Oddly this doesn't really affect my bikes. The equipment used to make them went to Turkey, to a company called Kanuni, long ago; although even they have stopped producing the smokey old Walter Kaaden 2 stroke engines of which I am so fond. MZ were one of the oldest motorcycle manufacturers in the world, and soon they'll be gone. I am somewhat saddened by this news.
