Motorcycle Java-250 - Czech miracle

2024 Author: Erin Ralphs | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-19 11:42

Czechoslovakia was already an industrialized country in the twenties and thirties, its factories produced a large number of vehicles and other equipment, both for civilian and military purposes. However, even earlier, in the era of the existence of Austria-Hungary, this country was the forge of the empire.

The availability of qualified personnel and experience in the production of complex mechanical devices have become the driving forces for the development of mechanical engineering. One of the firms created in the late twenties was called "Java". It had nothing to do with the exotic island, its owner simply decided to perpetuate his own surname Janechek in combination with the prototype model of the Wanderer motorcycle being produced, and so it turned out to be Jawa. The company did not develop its own developments in the first decade, releasing bikes designed by George Patchett, an engineer from England.

During the German occupation, employees of the Java plant worked for the Wehrmacht, sabotaging orders as best they could, and at the same time continued to design models of equipment intended for post-war life.

And here is the year 1946, the Paris exhibition, and triumph on it. Motorcycle Jawa -250, equipped with hydraulic shock absorbers,automatic clutch disengagement when shifting gears, a new frame design, a tool storage box and other innovations, attracts great interest from visitors. This model has become the base for the model series of this company with an engine capacity of 250 "cubes".

Java-250 was supplied in huge quantities to the USSR. This powerful motorcycle had an engine of 17 "horses" and was very reliable. It was produced until 1974, then it was replaced by the next - the 350th - a model with two cylinders, more adapted to our roads and climatic conditions.

Motorcycle Java-250 significantly outperformed its Soviet analogues - Urals, Kovrovtsy, Izhi - in its operational characteristics, but, like any other transport equipment, it required maintenance. after acquiring a new device, it was necessary to run it in a sparing mode on gasoline diluted with a special oil for the first couple of thousand kilometers, so that the pistons would work well on the cylinders.

A pleasant circumstance in a country of general scarcity was the availability of spare parts and additional components for what is today called "tuning". In the same "Sports Goods", where the Java-250 motorcycles were sold, there were also "bells and whistles" for them on the shelves - fog lights, transparent glasses mounted on the steering wheel, and steel arcs. For those who wished to get acquainted with the novelties of the manufacturer, as well as with the intricacies of maintaining these motorcycles, the Moto-Review magazines published in Czechoslovakia were sold at the Soyuzpechat kiosks. This literature costa lot - 2 rubles, but it scattered instantly, is it a joke to say, a million copies of bikes of this brand wandered along the roads of our country as of 1976.

Speaking of prices. After the monetary reform of 1961, the Java-250 cost 520 full-weight Soviet rubles, and before it, respectively, 5,200. The amount is solid, for comparison: Kovrovets "pulled" two hundred and fifty, and the average salary was less than a hundred. If we estimate the costs in comparable prices, then, of course, it was possible to buy such a motorcycle, but it took a long time to save money for it.

And yet, Java-250 is very beautiful. Smooth lines, chrome-plated surfaces of the exhaust pipes and sides of the gas tank, elegantly combined with a black or red color scheme, did not leave indifferent anyone whose eyes fell on this fast-moving car.

And today this motorcycle has its fans, fans who spend time and money to eventually proudly race it on the road, surprising and delighting everyone, even the owners of the most expensive and modern bikes.