Over 1 000 000 of Jawa 50 Pionyr motorcycles were manufactured. Jawa, the company, and his founder, Frantisek Janecek, formerly produced grenades. Afterwards he began manufacturing motorcycles.
F. Janecek invented the first automatic clutch. It was embedded in a model Jawa 350/360 Automatic. He patented the invention. The Japanese (Honda) stole the design. It had been found out and they had to pay a licence fee for each motorcycle produced to Jawa.
F. Janecek studied multiple universities and went abroad to the western countries. In the Netherlands he assigned a task to supervise building a factory for electrodynamic machines in Maarsen. He got acquainted with a Dutch woman, Johanna Carolina Strick van Linschoten. They got married.
He also worked as an interpreter of the Dutch language in the Czech lands.
After 1990 the Jawa company’s production declined due to a loss of the Eastern USSR markets. The majority of the export was sold there.
Nowadays Jawa motorcycles are produced in a licence in India by Mahindra.
Don’t have to have Lamborghini to be hero
A few years ago I went to a party to a small village near Zlin. I was driving Škoda 120, an old czech car. While I was passing a group of youngsters, I heard: “Hey man, you’ve got a cool car.”
I came to a conclusion it is enough to own and old rusty pipe. As long as it’s the only one on Earth, you’ll be the centre of attention.
I guess the value isn’t as important as its rarity.
