Express IG was the third part of the conglomerate Zweirad Union. The company had originally been founded as a bicycle manufacturer in 1886 in Neumarkt, near Nuremberg. By the turn of the century Express was manufacturing powered bicycles and light-weight motorcycles. The company ventured at times into automobile and arms production. The factory was badly damaged during the Second World War but returned to motorcycle and moped production in 1948. In the early 1950s, sales of Express' mopeds were booming, but the downturn in motorcycle sales at the end of 1955 hit the company hard. By 1957 the company had defaulted on its creditors and was facing bankruptcy. Negotiations were held with Victoria of Nuremberg and Auto-Union of Ingolstadt, but these came to nothing. With no solution in sight, the supervising board fired the managing director and transferred the company's shares to Victoria. At the same time, Mercedes Benz decided to sell the DKW motorcycle division and a deal was done to merge Victoria, DKW and Express into a new entity, Zweirad Union. Express' Neumarkt factory was sold off and all production moved to Victoria in Nuremberg.
Express' mopeds and lightweight motorcycles remained in production until 1959, but over time production was rationalised and Express simply became a badge name for Victoria and DKW mopeds.
The motorcycles / mopeds in this brochure are all basically rebadged Victoria and DKW products, such as the DKW Hummel and Blechbanene.
For more about Express IG, see here (in German): https://www.express-ig.de/
Zweirad Union - Victoria Mopeds: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2022/06/zweirad-union-victoria-mopeds.html
Zweirad Union DKW Moped Range: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2022/04/1965-zweirad-union-dkw-hummel-range.html
Zweirad Union Manual and History: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2017/07/1965-zweirad-union-moped-manual.html
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