Just after WWII Jawa presented the Perak. Perak means 'sprung'. At that time, that was the rear suspension that was the name giver, which was not yet common everywhere. The Perak was a (literally secretly under the eyes of the German occupier) completely new design with which Jawa gained a street length lead after WWII on the global competition that picked things up again with the pre-war models.
Jawa became a leader, also in sports. Unfortunately: the brand got bogged down in the swamp of socialist-communist principles and bureaucracy. But in countries like India they continued to be built en masse under license and sold as simple and solid motorized traffic. The two-stroke Jawas were – and are – pure consumer goods there.
In Europe, the low point was that it was too much trouble to take your Jawa to the scrapyard. We know someone who went to the local scrapyard every week to pick up Jawas. To be honest, he did not do this with a clear vision of the future. Farmer's son Henk was not very sharp behind the eyebrows due to long and too close relationships between nephews, nieces and other family members. But he had a lot of Jawas.
Jawas went from a few hundred guilders to a few hundred euros. And then came some nostalgia… But that was washed away by a tsunami of melancholy in what are now the separate countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The compatriots there realized that after the fall of communism they had squandered their heritage. And because they had warmly embraced capitalism, there were people in the former homelands who were not only well-heeled in nostalgia, but also well-heeled in euros.
This is how they managed to distribute their happy greed specifically over the types of Jawa that they considered most important/most beautiful/most rare according to history and taste.
The basic idea was: the older, the better; the rarer, the better; and preferably factory or period original. And the nicer, the better. Showroom shine vs. patina… That kind of thing. We saw a Jawa Californian 350 (which was actually designed to attract hard currency from the capitalist West and was therefore almost unobtainable 'locally') being knocked down at an auction for 9.800 euros. That machine cost 1.999 guilders new at the time.
Before that there was the Perak and Ogar story. The Peraks were those machines that the Germans believed were developed for the SS. With a brand new 250 cc block engine, front and rear suspension (Perak = 'spring'), reliable, economical and completely up-to-date. With a 350 cc twin cylinder the Perak became the Ogar. And 'Ogar' is in the corner of the Polish-Czech-Slovakian for hunting dog or something like a really tough guy.
Many Peraks and Ogars have had fresher blocks fitted at some point in their lives. It all fits perfectly. Hardcore men don't like that, but people who do understand the concept of 'time-original' are fine with it.
The generously plated Jawas of the fifties and sixties still had a large user factor. They were reliable and affordable transport for people who could not yet afford a car. From the 634 types onwards, the Jawas – most of which had 350 cc twin blocks for export purposes – were given a more modern styling. But they were already technically very dated, no matter how clever and well thought-out some parts were. The 634-638 machines have not really made collectors wild locally. But a kind of cult has grown up around them. And very nice examples are being put on the wheels.
The Red Style, Blue Style and a few more color schemes have the modern plastic looks the most implemented. And they are the least sought after.
Meanwhile, in India and via Prague, new Jawas are still being made. And that's nice to know. And quite greedy.
Feel free to let me know if you would also like grammatical or stylistic revision!
The Jawa Perak was my first motorcycle. In 1965 I was 12 years old and visited the local flea market (organized by the Scouting) on Sunday afternoon. There was the Jawa, built in 1949, made available by an elderly lady, whose husband had passed away. The Jawa had been in the shed for a few years and was now allowed to go, for the enormous sum of f 7,50 to support the Scouting. Because I was a member of the Scouting I was allowed to take the Jawa home and collect money (of course I didn't have that much money with me). I walked home with the Jawa and came back to pay. The Jawa stood in our shed for years and was thoroughly cleaned every now and then and sometimes started. When I turned 16, in 1969, and received a Tomos moped for my birthday, the love for the Jawa was over and disappeared to a scrap metal dealer, who roamed the streets every week with a box truck.
In the Jawa story there is one big fantasy, which seems to be very persistent. The reality is:
Jawa had very good contacts with DKW from the early thirties. The Jawa cars were based on DKW technology.
The Jawa motorcycles of the 1929s were based on British Villiers technology (except for the first model, in XNUMX, which was actually a German Wanderer)
When the Czech Republic (Sudetenland) was occupied by the Germans in the late 1930s, the JAWA factory was used for war production (Weapons and ammunition). DKW engineers were employed, who constructed a cheap and simple motorcycle for use at the front.
A few prototypes had been developed, a 250cc single and a 350cc twin in 1939. The first model, the 250cc single, was put into production and a few thousand were delivered to the front in Russia, in 1940 and the following years. The Jawa warehouses were full of parts for mass production and there were about a few thousand examples ready for delivery in Field Grey, when the war ended in 1945.
Jawa repainted that first Veldgrau stock in Jawa-red and marketed it as the Perak. Jawa was the first brand to deliver a hypermodern motorcycle to the public in 1945. From the gigantic stock of parts, more Jawas were assembled and Jawa continued to produce parts for even more Jawas. So dear people, the Jawa Perak was developed and made by DKW technicians in the Czech Jawa factory.
The 350cc twin was also put into production, in 1947, as Ogar (which was then still an independent brand). At the request of the Russians who were now in charge in the Czech Republic, JAWA and Ogar were merged and the name changed to JAWA typ 11 and Typ 12.
I write books about automobile and motorcycle history, which I do not market, because I use images from the internet in my books. And that turns out to be a crime (called image rights), which carries severe penalties.
I hope you will display this text in “Auto Motor Klassiek”. So that the Jawa fairy tale finally ceases to exist. I sometimes hear wild fantasies that Jawa secretly made motorcycles in a basement and behind a wooden partition in the factory. And adults accept that nonsense as the truth.? ???
I hope
350 twin. That was the bike I had a few lessons on in 72, dual controls, instructor on the back and then drove my finals. (2x) I never really got the hang of shifting gears on that thing, but it was brilliant! That's why it's an indelible memory.
Ogar was actually an independent brand, which was taken over by Jawa. The story is otherwise correct.
Forgot to mention that Jawa was for a time the most produced motorcycle in the world. The Soviet Union imported 100.000 per year, their own IZH was based on Jawa technology. Special were the Oilmaster lubricator, the encapsulated chain and the gearshift pedal that was also clutch and kickstarter.
Well, compared to the abundance of beautiful and fast Japanese, the brand had to back down. A Jawa 638 ran at 125. It was a workhorse. Reliable, affordable, economical, easy to maintain yourself are of course different qualities than flashy and fast and quickly worn out.
It was my first motorcycle, a Jawa 250, a 1 cylinder, I was 13 years old, it was a present from my father, a completely converted road motorcycle to a motocross bike, the thing was from somewhere in 1955 but that didn't spoil the fun, it had knobby tires, wide motocross handlebars and an open exhaust, it had more power than I could handle as an inexperienced rider, I had my hands full with it and I learned to ride it in the Handelse forests and on the Gemert circuit and rode it from village to village through the Brabantse forests, that was quite normal at the time, until one day I rode it on the public road in Handel and was stopped by a police officer, he told me that I had to walk home, otherwise he would tell my mother that I had been caught on the public road, I didn't really feel like doing that because I regularly got petrol money from my mother to go riding, and I walked home to the Rooye Asch in Handel. The Jawa was a very special motorcycle, you could push the gear lever in towards the engine block and pull it up and then it was the kickstarter, a kickstarter that had a special feature that if you operated the gear lever, and you kept it operated, so down or up, then it was also a foot clutch that you could also let come up, 1 lever that has three different functions on a motorcycle, only Jawa had and has that, a genius design. A nice story about it is; that the Jawa hit back while starting and that was a mean blow, there was a set square in my sneaker, my father looked at it laughing and told me that I was not a man and that he would show me how, the result was that the Jawa hit back and my father was catapulted over the saddle and his wooden clog was in two pieces. By the way, my Jawa did not survive the ravages of time, the chain broke and got stuck in the frame with the result that a gear broke off in the gearbox and I was never able to find a new one for it and everything was taken to the scrap metal trade. This first motorcycle is etched in my memory like an anchor that can never be pulled loose from the seabed and it has determined my further motor life and I still ride a motorcycle, with an electric starter, because my left leg still has a trauma from that Jawa.
It was my first motorcycle, a Jawa 250, a 1 cylinder, I was 13 years old, it was a present from my father, a completely converted road motorcycle to a motocross bike, the thing was from somewhere in 1955 but that didn't spoil the fun, it had knobby tires, wide motocross handlebars and an open exhaust, it had more power than I could handle as an inexperienced rider, I had my hands full with it and I learned to ride it in the Handelse forests and on the Gemert circuit and rode it from village to village through the Brabantse forests, that was quite normal at the time, until one day I rode it on the public road in Handel and was stopped by a police officer, he told me that I had to walk home, otherwise he would tell my mother that I had been caught on the public road, I didn't really feel like doing that because I regularly got petrol money from my mother to go riding, and I walked home to the Rooye Asch in Handel. The Jawa was a very special motorcycle, you could push the gear lever in towards the engine block and pull it up and then it was the kickstarter, a kickstarter that had a special feature that if you operated the gear lever, and you kept it operated, so down or up, then it was also a foot clutch that you could also let come up, 1 lever that has three different functions on a motorcycle, only Jawa had and has that, a genius design. A nice story about it is; that the Jawa hit back while starting and that was a mean blow, there was a set square in my sneaker, my father looked at it laughing and told me that I was not a man and that he would show me how, the result was that the Jawa hit back and my father was catapulted over the saddle and his wooden clog was in two pieces. By the way, my Jawa did not survive the ravages of time, the chain broke and got stuck in the frame with the result that a gear broke off in the gearbox and I was never able to find a new one for it and everything was taken to the scrap metal trade. This first motorcycle is etched in my memory like an anchor that can never be pulled loose from the seabed and it has determined my further motor life and I still ride a motorcycle, with an electric starter, because my left leg still has a trauma from that Jawa.
Such a new Perak is not bad at all!
How much would something like this cost?
Just checked; almost €7000,-! Mwoh, never mind. I consulted with my Shadow750ACE, he doesn't agree.
Such a new Perak is not bad at all!
How much would something like this cost?
Had two cz's, 125 and 175 cc. Enjoyed riding them. Then a california. Steered great and fast, no matter how it rode.
Quite high consumption for such a small engine, 350 ccc.
Apparently people in former Eastern Bloc countries were very happy to own one of these locally produced vehicles just as we are attached to old vehicles… it was a different time and for many people a happy time too…
Ostalgie is a beautiful concept: everything that once came from behind the Iron Curtain and was only looked at here with a pinched nose, with or without a small smile, is now going back to the East at adult prices.
Jawas, Trabis, Wislas and PMZs; former Eastern Bloc citizens are rolling over each other and eagerly opening their wallets.
Madness…