DKW Auto-Union Project: 1965 Zweirad Union moped manual

Wednesday, 1 August 2018

1965 Zweirad Union moped manual

Motorcycles had been DKW's mainstay since the early 1920s to the point that before the outbreak of the Second World War, DKW was the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world. In the aftermath of the Second World War it was again motorcycles, especially lightweight, cheap motorcycles like the RT125, that helped the company re-establish itself in West Germany. Motorcycle sales grew year on year until they reached a peak in 1956, then began a precipitous decline as the war-devastated economies of Europe experienced an economic boom. Auto-Union was not immune from this industry-wide recession and their DKW motorcycle arm began losing money throughout 1957. In 1958, when Mercedes-Benz took a controlling stake in Auto-Union AG, one of their first actions was to divest themselves of the DKW motorcycle division.

In a repeat of the foundation of Auto-Union in 1932, DKW's motorcycle division joined with two other struggling motorcycle companies, Victoria and Express, to establish the Zweirad-Union, or Two-Wheel (or motorcycle) Union in English. Each of the three companies retained their own brand name and model range, but they pooled their development and factory resources. The new company was headquartered in Nuremberg. There were two exceptions to the merger- the DKW RT175 motorcycle continued to be built at DKW's Ingolstadt factory for a short time, and the DKW Hobby scooter was sold to the French arms manufacturer, Manurhin, which built the scooter under the name Manurhin SM75 into the early 1960s.

As the market for big motorcycles had dried up, Zweirad-Union focused on lightweight motorcycles and mopeds, like the DKW Hummel, which had been a popular seller since 1955. Victoria and Express also concentrated on mopeds and lightweight motorcycles but although they both built their own engines, had by this time generally moved to proprietary engines from manufacturers such as JLO, Sachs and JAP. The Zweirad-Union gave them access to DKW's trusty two-stroke engine, sometimes rebadged, sometimes not. There was a great deal of confusion amongst Zweirad-Union's range as each company continued to sell its own products under their original brand name, while some bikes were cross-branded and rebadged. Some bikes were even sold under the Zweirad-Union brand. Therefore, a single machine might be available under four different names.

Advertising was bright and cheerful and targeted at the youth market, but sales were never particularly strong. Zweirad-Union nevertheless managed to dominate the lightweight motorcycle market in Germany.

In 1963, former Auto-Union managing director, William Werner, became chairman of the Zweirad-Union supervisory board after retiring from Auto-Union the year before. With typical force of personality, he set about a major overhaul of the company's range. Express and Victoria models progressively disappeared, in favour of the DKW and ZU brand names. Prior to his appointment as managing director at Auto-Union in 1957, William Werner had been board member and managing director at the Dutch lightweight motorcycle and moped company, Berini. It would be too much to assume that the similarity between Berini and Zweirad-Union machines was entirely coincidental at this time. https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2022/02/berini-motorcycles.html In 1967, Zweirad-Uion was bought out by another small motorcycle company, Hercules. The Hercules name then came to dominate, but the DKW name continued to be used in the export market, specifically in Britain and Australia where the name had market recognition. Motorcycles exported to the US were branded Hercules.

West Germany's largest two-stroke engine manufacturer, Fichtel and Sachs, had bought into Hercules in 1963, so the take over by Hercules ultimately spelt the end of the road for the long-running DKW two-stroke engine. From 1967 Sachs engines powered Zweirad-Union machines. Hercules continued manufacturing motorcycles right through into the 1980s until Sachs retired the brand. Sachs continue to manufacture engines today and have recently released a new range of motorcycles and scooters. http://www.zf.com/brands/content/en/sachs/homepage_sachs/homepage.jsp

This Zweirad Union user manual dates from 1965 when DKW, Victoria and Express were still brands. The manual is very generic and basically covers all their various models.