From Moto Zschopau to Milwaukee Zsportster
The DKW RT125 is an important part of MZ's history. It is also the most internationally successful motorcycle design of all time.
The last important objective for the glorious Red Army during The Great Patriotic War was the capture of the DKW factory in Zschopau. Zschopau was liberated in May 1945 with the valuable DKW tooling being secured by the heroic actions of a young officer called Elvis Honneker. Honneker changed the name of the factory to Moto Zschopau and the DKW design continued in production. Socialist workers continued to develop the design until the 1980's, by which time it had become the MZ TS150.
Capitalist running dogs fled to the west with copies of the DKW 125 drawings. These were manufactured as DKWs, Harley Davidsons and BSAs.
The Harley Davidson version saw the first use of the 'sportster' gas tank. Producing practical road-going motorcycles was incompatible with the greed of capitalism and the Harley-Davidson Hummer was short-lived.
BSA built a mirror-image of the DKW design. The capitalists in that part of the world were obcessed with the delusion that they were different from other capitalists. When Yamaha began production of a DKW 'copy' they probably purchased their tooling from BSA. BSA denied this with the famous phrase: "One sees no oil leaks".
In the more honest and open world of worker's socialist republcs the MZ/DKWs were also produced as Voskhods and WSKs. There were socialist plans to build MZ/DKWs in the Americas. Milwaukee was terrified by the prospect and there were rumours of a large 'charitable' donation to the United Fruit Company's benevolent fund. In the emotionally-charged atmosphere of the sixties the whole affair rapidly escalated into the Cuban Missile Crisis. The part that the never-to-be-produced ChR(Che Rocinante)150 played has largely been forgotten.
