PRAGUE’S HIDDEN GEM
Prague’s National Technical Museum hosts a unique and bizarre motorcycle collection
The Czech Republic’s quirky National Technical Museum
WHILE TOURISTS FLOCK to the grand squares of Prague, enticed by the elegant landmarks of the city, it’s worth taking a 20-minute walk to the far side of the Vltava river to visit The National Technical Museum (NTM) which boasts a great collection of motorcycles.
The NTM in a typically austere-looking former Eastern Bloc building, but inside it boasts a stunning collection of more than 70,000 exhibits, offering an overview of automobile, bicycle, aviation and shipping transportation. It also houses one of Europe’s most unique collections of motorcycles, reflecting how the country was once a major bike manufacturing nation.
The forerunner of the Czechoslovakian industry was Laurin & Klement – a car, motorcycle and bicycle manufacturer founded in 1895. The company was acquired by Skoda in 1925 and rebranded as Skoda
Auto, focusing on car production, but Laurin & Klement later became a prominent supporter of the NTM with Václav Klement establishing the basis of this collection in 1935.
Klement inspired other manufacturers to follow in his path. Over the years, some 150 different motorcycle brands were produced in what was then Czechoslovakia, the most noteworthy being Jawa and CZ which were successful in building competition motorcycles for off-road, speedway and road racing, as well producing a range of utility motorcycles.
Paradoxically, one of the most productive periods of motorcycle innovation in the country was undertaken secretly during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. The Germans inadvertently funded development of future motorcycle prototypes, in the
mistaken belief their money was going to the war effort.
Gifts to this museum also came from manufacturers such as Josef Walter (Walter type D motor tricycle and later Walter type B) and Jaroslav Janatka (Itar 750 motorcycle manufactured in the 1920s) and František Rott (Satan motorcycle). Thanks to other donations, the motorcycle collection continued to expand. Post-world War II, six prototype Jawa motorcycles (branded ‘Zbrojovka Ing. F. Janeček’ – the name of the former arms factory where they were built) were donated by the manufacturer. František Janeček was the founder of Jawa Motorcycles and turned the company into a household name by selling tens of thousand of the company’s distinctively robust and inexpensive machines.
Two other important manufacturers in the collection are CZ and the Hendee Manufacturing Company which produced the Indian. CZ (Ceská zbrojovka) was a major Czech competitor of Jawa’s and was among the world’s most successful makers of competition and street motorcycles in the 1950s and 1960s. Indian sold bikes in Czechoslovakia until the early 1930s, when the Great Depression meant very few people could afford bikes like the Indian Four model 402 four-cylinder machine and sales suffered badly.
Not all motorcycles have found their way to the museum from former manufacturers. Individuals have also contributed, probably hoping their prized possession would live on for ever, like the Slavia CCD, an early machine built around the 1900s, or a pair of pace motorcycles probably belonging to an early 20th century biking enthusiast.
Machines of Czech origin dominate – including Jelinek, Perun, Walter, Itar, CAS, Satan, Praga and Böhmerland – but there are representatives from other countries in the collection of around 160 bikes. In recent times, a number of competition motorcycles have been added such as a Jawa 350 Type 673 V4 two-stroke road racer, a CZ 420 Type 860 V4 four-stroke road racer and a Jawa 500 Type 891 two-valve, single-cylinder ice racer.
Outstanding exhibits include: the outrageously-hued 1937 Cechie Böhmerland 350 Volksmodell, the Dálník 250 prototype manufactured by Jan Anderie (a twowheeled vehicle with a bonnet, which aimed to provide the comfort of an automobile with the operating costs of a motorbike). Then there’s the Ing. František Pudildesigned CZ 350 Type 510 of 1978, the sole survivor of only two prototypes, plus an array CZS along with an assortment of Jawa motorcycles dating from the ’30s to the ’80s, such as the 1939 Jawa 350 dohc and the 1984 Jawa 500 824 ‘Boxer’ twin. ntm.cz/en
‘A STUNNING COLLECTION OF MORE THAN 70,000 EXHIBITS’