MZ Motorcycles to close

Headline, "......not a loss to motorcycling" ha, yes they may have been pretty crap looking bikes but have you forgotten who made two strokes good??

Posted: 10/06/2008 at 20:59

Bit of a shame that. Perfect commuter bikes, near indestructible!

Posted: 10/06/2008 at 22:05

*gutted*. Not sure my old ETZ would ever become an expensive classic tho... And those ISDTs are already rare as..

Posted: 10/06/2008 at 22:30

It is very sad, I for one will miss MZ. I have met some of the guys at the factory and feel terrible that after all the work and effort they have put in over many year it is all coming to an end.

Posted: 10/06/2008 at 23:25

What's the red bike in the picture above with the tigeraft tank sticker,is that an MZ ?

Posted: 11/06/2008 at 05:48

No, it is a Yamaha YZF450 engined Minimono built by Tigcraft. I raced it in 2005/6 in thr European Supermono Championship. Won loads of races and still holds the odd lap record.

Using Honda RS125 rolling gear with a steel trelis frame, lovely thing.

Bloke.

Posted: 11/06/2008 at 21:07

It's a shame they have to close, my first 2 real bikes were MZs and they were great for the money.

Posted: 11/06/2008 at 21:12

Despite the snide editorial comment, the loss of MZ is a sad day for motorcycling. The loss of another historic European manufacturer can not be a good thing, especially when they have such an impressive racing history as MZ. It was their engineer Walter Kaaden who figured out how to extract maximum power from a two stroke by using disc valves and exhaust resonance, and Suzuki were the first Japanese company to make use of those secrets after rider Ernst Degner defected to the West. The rest is history, and all the two stroke race victories since the sixties were thanks to MZ's talented engineers. The company was obliged by the communists to concentrate on commuter bikes but have been bravely trying to expand their range since the '90s and showed some promise for a while. I hope the brand is rescued by BMW or some other company who can give them the restart that they deserve.

Posted: 14/06/2008 at 16:12

For all the criticism MZ 2 stroke bikes were surely some of the best products the iron curtain had to offer, and for the conditions these bikes were produced in were bloody good workhorses - which they still are in fact.

Basic, utilitarian, rugged, fun to ride and ultimately cheap is surely what MZ bikes were always intended to be - and all the better for it... 

Their enduring popularity meant it was only in the late 90s with tightening emissions laws that the German factory stopped producing the ETZ and Saxon 2-stroke range, even still they were able to sell the rights on to a Turkish firm Kanuni who continued production up until a few years ago.

So in that sense the bikes continued the communist legacy far beyond what might have been expected.

As mentioned MZ led the way in 2-stroke racing throughout the 60s and into the early 70s, the Japs only gained a hold in grand prix racing following MZ's main rider defecting to Suzuki and allowing them to steal their secrets!  

Posted: 14/06/2008 at 17:34

My first bikes were MZ's a ETZ150 and late Saxon 301 which I still have and both are fantastic versitile bikes and untill the BMW GS series nothing touched them for all round performance and practicality.

Their new bikes are also very good machines extremely well built but unfortunately they cant compete with the Japs on price.

Real shame, as MZ is a classic that deserves a better reputation than some journos like to tarnish it with, it deserves none of the comments as other eastern bikes like the russian and czech heaps of crap and even today the old ETZ bikes stand head and shoulders above the quality some Chinese and even Italian manufacturers spew out.

Posted: 14/06/2008 at 17:39

You can't get a bike simpler, more rugged and user-friendly than an MZ - that was the whole point of them.

As bikes built to be used in harsh conditions across eastern Europe using crap petrol and yet be fixable by virtually anyone with only basic tools they were great, these bikes really were the personal transport solution for the iron curtain! 

Anyone who appreciates a good solid bike that's well, if basically, engineered can see the virtues of MZs. In terms of materials and production quality they're great.

How many engines can be stripped merely with use of a clutch puller and no other special tools!? 

Not fast or flash, but that was never the nature of the market they were manufactured for.  

'even today the old ETZ bikes stand head and shoulders above the quality some Chinese and even Italian manufacturers spew out.'

Posted: 14/06/2008 at 18:06

the recent 1000cc models were supposed to be quite good, but let down by bad spares/dealer support from what i understood?

Posted: 14/06/2008 at 23:21

Tis a sad day

Posted: 14/06/2008 at 23:52

Its a shame, a real shame.  Wish it was the Jap factories closing down, would be great.

Posted: 15/06/2008 at 19:25