DKW NZ 350

This weekend I visited the Bremen Classic Motorshow and ran into the exibition of a 1939 NZ 250 with only 3Km on the speedometer.
The story behind the pictures is that the original owner bought the bike new in November 1939 and to avoid confiscation, the owner hid his new bike in the attic..were it stayed until 1971 when its present owner bought it. In 1939 the bikes were delivered from the factory without tires, as you needed an official allocation for rubber tires. That's why the rims are covered with cloth! The original owner had a allocation for two tires and tubes and hid them together with the bike. I had to share the following pictures with you...(The quality of the pictures is not very good, I only had my mobile phone at hand.

Very nice bike!!!

Interesting to see how the wires are clamped from the factory.

Is the wire attached to the oberer gelenkhebel with some kind of cloth tape or is it a metal tie?
Also interesting where the 4 wires comes in the front of the fuel tank, is there also some kind of metal clamp?


// Frank

These are metal clamps, made from soft aluminium. They are still available new today. It seems that the have some kind of clear protective laquer on them, that turned brown after all these years.

T.

Thanks Thomas!

That explains the colour. I have those straps, but the colour confused me, now its crystal clear.

One interesting thing is also the "Knecht" decal on the mesh air filter, I once saw a filter on ebay with the decal still remaining. It seems that the decals has disappeared on most of the filters during the years, most probably when the filters have been washed in gas or other solvents.

Are those decals avilable as repros somewhere?

// Frank

Hello Thomas,

I was also having a good look at the NZ 250 in Bremen with some other DKW-friends. One thing that puzzeled us was that the gold lining on the tank seemed to have been put on by tape and not handpainted. The width was also different frrom the lines on the front fork and mudguards.

Very nice!!!!!!! Who is the owner of this NZ?

I tried to find out, but I could not remember on which stand it was exhibitet. It was a motorcyle club, displaying quite a few bikes.