Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Eurofile BY ALAN CATHCART M Z'scomeback en en en li; i1 1 '" 4 With Ge rma n y a bo u t to ce lebra te th e 10th ann iver sa ry of reun ificat ion , MZ, th e best-kn ow n motor cycle brand of th e former East Ge rmany , is on the verge of a major relaunch . Reco ns ti tu te d eig h t y ea rs a go as Mu Z, under the d irection of Czec h-bo rn ind us tria list Petr-Karel Korous, the onetim e Ea s t Ger ma n m arqu e was p u rch ase d b y M a la y sian m a gn at e Ron Lim's Hon g Leo ng motor cycle empire in 1996 - with the intention of provid ing a Eu ropean R&D so urce for new products, as we ll as an entree into Western markets with a range of bikes headed by a se ries of new large-ca pacity mod els . These will be headed by a su percharged fou r-s troke pa ra llel tw in , the firs t-ever v o lum e-produc tion stree tbike fi tted with an engi ne-pow ered com pressor (as opposed to an exha u s t-d riven tu rbo ), u sin g a n engi ne d esi gn developed for Mu Z by R&D house Swissau to. . The colla bo ra tion that started in 1996 between th e reborn Ge rma n bike company and the Sw iss engine specia lists o n this new twi n-cy lin de r four-stroke fami ly in turn led to a 1998 tak eover of the ELF 500cc GP project - a project th at pr eviou sly sa w Swissa u to's very powerful, u ltra-co m pact, sid ecar-derived , sing lecrank, V-four, two-st roke engine used in a French-b uilt ROC chassis. But now the MuZ 500 team - ru n by form er sideca r Worl d C ha mpio n Rolf Bila nd - u ses a Br itis h -b u il t fra me d esi gn ed by th e team's former rid er ; Eskil Su ter , and has stu nne d th e GP w orld by twic e ta king pole po sition for 500cc GPs this sea son in the hands of Dut ch rider Jurgen va n d en Goorber gh. Despite th e po les, race res ults fo r h im a n d th e tea m ' s ot her rid er, GP veteran Luc a Cad alora, ha ve been somewha t less tha n ou tstanding. But the impressive perfo rm a nce o f w ha t is essentially a hom e-buil t bi ke running on a fracti on of the bud get of the Japanese wo rks teams , has persuad ed Hong Leong to res to re the MZ nam e to the tan k bad ge of it s Ge rman MuZ satellite's products - there's no lon ger a per ceived risk that th is wo uld tar them wi th th e negati ve image of th e chea p, cheerfu l and smoky MZ tw o-strokes of the Co mmunist era . And to relaunch the marqu e, tw o new families of MZ mot orcycles, fro m op posite ends of the pe rfo rman ce spectru m, ar e abou t to d ebu t in the year 2000. Firs t to ap pear w ill be th e ra nge of bud get- p riced 125cc four-val ve singles powered by M Z' s own DOH C fours tro ke engi ne, w hich ini tia lly w ill be res tr icted to 14.5 h p to comp ly w ith European licens ing laws. The bike, however, has the capacity to d eliver m u ch more per forman ce than this, compa ny insiders say, as we ll as grow in capa city. A modern , ceo-friend ly replacement for the MZ two-stroke sing les of yes teryear, fitt ed in a sim ple, tubu lar s teel fra me , the MZ 125 will be so ld in th ree versions for the 2000 m odel year - a low-s pec ru na bou t, a m ul tip urpose street enduro; and a more aggressive-looki ng fun bike. Co mpa ny sou rces say the new mod el has cloc ked u p mo re than 31,000 miles in road tes tin g witho ut p roblems, and will initially be so ld on ly in Europe as an alte rn ative to scoo ters. Plans then call fo r it to go in to prod u ct io n in H ong Leong's fac to ries in Malaysia or China to sa tisfy Asian-mark et dema nd, ea rly next cen tu ry . At the other end of the prod uct line is MZ's o ther new ran ge of bikes, pow ered by a DOHC, eig ht-valve parallel-tw in engine with 360-degree cra n k throw s (so , two-up, pi st on wi se) an d a si ng le gear-drive n balan ce shaft. Fitt ed wi th a so p histi ca te d EFI syste m d esi gned in TP Gand Piaggio: Part II Th e revela tio n that Am eri can ve n tu re capi talists T PG - th e money men w ho tu rned Ducati aro und - had str uc k a d eal w ith key shareholders the Ag neIli family to acquire the Piaggio two-wheeled empire (and, with it, the historic Vespa scooter and Gilera motor cycle marques) is borne out by su bseque n t reports in the Italian press tha t an agree men t has indeed been reached . The rumored price tag? $650 mill ion. New s that ownership of the bel oved national sy mbol rep resented by Vespa, immortalized in Italian movies of the '50s and '60s, coul d 'em igrate' to the United States has se nt shock waves through Ita ly, with Com m un ist MP Nerio Nesi, chairman of the Itali an Parliam ent's ind ust ry committee, pressing indus try mini ster Pier Lui gi Bersa ni to take steps to ru le ou t such a pu rchase. Bersani ha s refused to do so, beyond stressing the need for Piaggio' s man ufacturing base to remain in its hom eland - an assurance implicitly given at a meet ing between Piaggio Employmen t Director Lino Martino and union represe nta tives on Au gust 31, at the com pany's Ponted er a facto ry HQ near Pisa, It was ther e tha t Piaggio forma lly advised the un ion s of th e TPG 'approach , and co m m it ted to in vestment totaling $290 million by 2001, aimed at lifting annual eng ine prod uc tion at Pontcd era to 750,000 units, from the presen t 450,000. Howev er, TPG doesn 't yet have a don e deal, acco rd ing to Piagg io cha irman Alessa ndro Bar ber is, w ho stated on Sep tember 1 that "tw o or three more mon ths are still need ed to co nclud e negotiations with TPG. These ar e serious talks, and so a series of checks is need ed , within the context of a re-launch of the company." Th e fact tha t TPG is now at th e stage of cond uc ting d ue d ilige nce o n Pia ggio under lin es repo rts that th ey' ve seen off a co m peting bid from thei r bitter U.S. riv al s GE Capital, the investmen t banking arm of America's Ge ne ra l Elec tric co ng lomera te. To bid for Piaggio, GE Capita l had assembled a co nso rti u m of Itali an banks and ou ts ide in ves tors w hich includ ed such notable names as the Ben etton Gro u p, Aprilia's Boggio family and the Merloni empire w hich , amo ng its va rious consumer goods int erests, also o wns Benelli, A takeover of its gia nt Vespa-building rival w ould have bee n a ver y favo rab le step for the Aprilia and Benelli scooter opera tions, but it seems now that it won't ha ppen. Ditto for an ea rlier a pproach from Canada's Bomba rdi er g ro u p (o wners of Rota x), w hich admits that ea rlier thi s ye a r it w as in talks to buy Piag gi o, which "end ed qui ckly." In purcha sing Piaggi o, TPG - which wa rm ed up for a n annou ncement with its Aug us t 31 takeo ver of prest ige Swiss shoe manufa cturer Ball y, to ad d to a port foli o that includes Du cati , Continental Airlines , Del Monte foods, J. Crew fashions and Virg in Ent ertainment - will be hoping to repeat its successful turnaround of Du cati on a lar ger scale, by em p loying the same techniques a nd , possibly , th e sa me people, to achieve this. Whil e it's too early to forecast TPG' s pr ecise st rat eg y if the acquisition do es indeed go ah ead, spe cu latio n censers around its possible de cision to split Giler a off in to a sepa rate company, to be' floated off in due course as TPG d id w ith Ducati, after development of the range of spo rtbikes alread y under development, as pr eviously revealed in this colu mn . Brita in by Sagem (who a lso su p p lie s fu el-injection packages to Triu mph and Excelsior-Henderson, among o thers ), th e 85 x 66 m m , 749cc .MZ twi n was developed by Swissauto in conju nction wit h another Swiss com pany . That company is non e o the r th an Web er (maj or spo nso rs o f th e Mu Z 500 GP rac e r) , tho ug h the twi n was developed to MZ's d esign sp ecifications. MZ deve lo p ment en ginee r Pe ter Liebin g (forme rly the wo rks team's race en gi neer wh en they ran th e Yama hapow ered Sko rpion in the World Superbike Champ ions hip Supe nnono su pport series) is acting as develop men t engineer for the motorcycle R&D program of w ha t is termed the "MPE" motor - as in "Multi Pu rp ose Engi ne " : Ma rine, au to mo ti ve a n d in d u s tria l applica ti o n s a r e a lso envis aged by Webe r. The engine will be ma nu factured in Sw it ze rl and . Fo r this reason, MZ had to d esig n a six-s p ee d gearbo x for the tw o-wheel ed versi o n. The faet this is fully extractable (to allow for quick changes of internal ratios) gives some idea of MZ's ultimate competition intentions for the new engi ne . .Th e ver y ligh t d esign (it we ighs just 123 pounds, w ith th rottl e bodies) has been running since June , wit h MZ boss Are scooters in TPG's future? This, sav financial observer s, wou ld allow TPG to conce ntrat e on th~ir core scooter market, w ith the company likely to be rena med Vespa SpA , to focu s att entio n on its grea tes t asse t, the hist oric generic scoo ter name. Alternatively, a d eal could be struck to join Gilera (w hose trad em ark product is the kind of four-cylinder motorcycle Ducat i would never wa nt to man ufa cture) wit h Ducati under th e same corpo rate roof, either as a se pa ra te entity fro m Vespa o r as its pres tige product arm. But all this is dep endent on a deal to acquire Piaggio ind eed bein g struck. Stay tu ned . Koro us - him self a useful rid er - clocking u p th e first 60 miles in testi ng at the Sachsenring GP circuit close to the company's Ho hndorf factory , near Dresd en, before ma king wa y for factory test rid - . ers to rack u p another 12,500 road miles on the pair of pro totypes . Meanwhile , rather th a n u pdate the Sey mo u r Powe ll -desig ned Ya ma ha TDM-engined Ko bra s ports twin tha t wa s u nve iled in 1994 to house the new engine, MZ has d esigned its own composit e fra me. It closely rese m bles th e new Bertelli Tornad o 900 chassis by featuring twi n para llel steel tu bes o n eac h side of the twi n-spar design, keyed and glued in to cas t-a lloy u pri ghts in w hich the a lum inum swi nga r m p iv ot s . To clo th e the n ew t w in- cyl ind er ran ge (whic h will als o include a 650cc end u ro ve rsio n) , MZ co m miss io ne d Ta rge t De si g n - t h e Ger m a n -based d es ign house that crea ted th e Ka tana range of bikes for Su zu ki back in th e 1980s and are work ing w ith Sachs on its new ra nge of Suzuki-powered V-tw ins. Target has com ple ted the cla y version of the firs t MZ twin ' s fin al s ty li n g, a 750cc twi n th at is d escribed by factory sources as looki ng "very dramatic ." . The bike is likely to retain the Kobra name an d will be a middleweight fully fa ir ed s p o r tb ike a imed at the Du ca ti 748 /Laverd a 750S m arket sector. (So it w o u ld be a ca nd ida te for Supersport racin g in SS guise. Th e fuel-injected bike w ill be launch ed in 75-hp base-m odel fo rm w it h a targe t d ry weig ht of 407 pou nds in street form , but wi th a kit ted 95- h p ve rsion a lso availa b le fo r th e street, to form the basis for 600 /750cc. class four-st rok e racin g.) The bike will be launched at Int erm ot 2000 alongside at least one o ther mod el pow ered by the sa me normally as pi rated eng ine - a naked roads ter. Sport tourer and end uro versions will follow lat er. How ever, the MZ twi n al rea dy incl udes the facility to ad d a supercha rge r via a detachable cover abo ve the gearbox, and d ri ven directly off it rather th a n via a toothed bel t. "Th is is more com p lica te d, because of th e d iffi cul ty in main tai n in g a cons ta n t pres s ure, but it g iv es a bet te r respon se with no throttle lag, hen ce our decision not to us e a belt," says an MZ ' ins ider. " Bu t w e ha ve n ow found a w ay to resolv e the install ation problem s, and in any case we decid ed to launch the standard engi~efirst, because su percharging

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