Visit to Zschopau

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My wife and I visited the MZ works in Zschopau early last week. There were a few cars in the parking lot and a few people in the factory building. We were greeted by a friendly guy who spoke good English. He told us what was probably the standard line that the factory was not producing motorcycles at present, was waiting for a new buyer, and that things might get going again in a few months. Nothing we weren't expecting to hear.

There was a new 1000S in the lobby of the factory building as well as the one on the roof which you can see in the pictures on Google Earth.

We then went into town and visited the museum in Schloss Wildeck in the centre of town. We enjoyed the presentation; included are examples of most of MZ's production over the years, some of the prewar DKWs were on loan from Audi in Ingolstadt. Of particular interest to me was a Silver Star identical to one we own, and a new 1000S which strengthened my resolve to own one of these some day.

I wondered if we should take as a hint of things to come that there was a van parked in the centre of the village painted in KTM factory colours, and that there were brochures in the museum announcing a special version of KTM named for the city. It's probably just wishful thinking, but I can't help feeling that KTM might be a good match for what's left of MZ.

Later we visited the Horch museum in Zwickau where our guide expressed concern about the future of MZ. His feeling was that the future of all automotive ventures in Saxony (as well as in the world) is under threat, not boding well for new ventures in the motorcycle world.

It's a difficult time to remain positive about MZ's future. It seems to me that so much is going to waste if the company is not revived. But there's not much that I can do.....

Carter & Gabrielle
Maine USA

1959 RT125/3
1975 TS150
1995 Silver Star Classic
1995 Skorpion Tour
1995 Skorpion Sport

[iceman]

WELCOME ! Sounds like you had a great trip. Did you take ant pictures you can share ?

[Linegeist]

Yeah! That'd be really good!

Nice write up BTW.

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Pictures we took at the MZ Museum at Schloss Wildeck are posted here:
http://s191.photobucket.com/albums/z190 ... %20Museum/


carter
Maine USA

[iceman]

WELCOME ! Sounds like you had a great trip. Did you take ant pictures you can share ?

WOW !!! Glad i asked that is an awesome album of pictures.

Even down to the rototiller for the garden...Thanks

[nikitino]

Nice work Metric.....i wish i had a ton of $$$$, i'd buy the factory myself and fire that mother back up......

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I agree, nicitino. And it might not take all that much money. It's a great fantasy to get a bunch of enthusiasts together to do something like this, and I'm sure there are many people in our little group with talents they could bring along. Zschopau looks like it would be a pleasant place to live.

We can dream....