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CZ story

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CZ

In 1948 ČZ Motorcycles merged with its main rival, Jawa
Motorcycle development and production as well as competition victories in 1950s and 1960s enabled the ČZ brand to be among the world’s most successful makers of competition and street motorcycles. After World War II, ČZ was the second largest motorcycle manufacturer in Europe. It was during this period that the company experienced its greatest racing successes.

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ČZ proved to be much more successful with motocross and became well known for its powerful two-stroke off-road motorcycles. They were the first company to use expansion chambers in their exhaust pipes. During the 1960s, they would become the dominant force in off-road competition, winning seven Grand Prix Motocross World Championships and dominating the International Six Day Trial.

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By the 1970s, with the advent of inexpensive Japanese motorcycles, ČZ lost an increasing share of the motorcycle market. Ironically, many of the innovations successfully pioneered by ČZ, were copied by the Japanese factories. In 1993 the motorcycle branch of ČZ was bought by the Italian motorcycle manufacturer Cagiva, who intended to use the Czech factories to build their own brand of motorcycles as well as new ČZ and Jawa models. The venture failed in 1997 due to Cagiva's financial difficulties and the ČZ motorcycle brand went out of production. The company changed and started focusing on manufacturing car components - gearboxes and turbofans, besides its traditional production of chains, tools, moulds, castings and machine tools.

Here at VMX Unlimited we stock many of the parts required to keep these legendary MX bikes alive, with a comprehensive range of NOS and reproduction parts from around the world, If the part you need isn’t listed in our on-line store, contact us we may be able to help and source it for you.