Us imports of TS 250

[droy]

Hi folks

I ve been a Skorpion rider for 17 years and have 3 sitting in the garage. big mz fan and even visited the factory last fall.

I have an opertunity to pick up a yellow 1974 TS 250 for $500. Really low miles under 1000, looks complete, running with new tires and all the parts are there. Bit of rust on Crome and forks but not bad.

I plan to keep it original and use it to run around town.

Doing some research it looks like 1974 saw the import of a lot of these. Does anyone know the history of who and why 1974 saw the import of the TS250 into the states? Looking at some old pictures it looks like all the states imported 250's had high bars. Going back to the factory owners pictures it looks like there were a low bar version (standard version)and a high delux version. Was it only delux version that were imported?

Thans for the info


Doug in new jersey

[DAVID THOMPSON]

if you see an old mz in the USA its almost always a 1974 250
and they did the high bars cause most usa riders think that's what they want
must have had a bunch as i saw one on cycle trader in 2002 still in the shipping crate

used to get a chuckle out of the BMW riders complaining about there seats
if there bike had the short Europe bar they would have been setting on the bike correct
and the seat would work for them
the first thing i did to my r69s was change the bars back to the short ones....
world of difference in the seat
dave

[droy]

Can anybody elso chime in?

[therealche]

I have always wondered who and where the MZs were "Americanised".(reflectors on the headlamp brackets, Lucas indicators and rear light,was there anything else?) Someone suggested they were converted at a Lucas plant in the UK but I can't find any information. I just like to add to my stock of useless MZ facts!

[droy]

Intresting. I'm also wondering about the handle bars. All US versions look to have the high bars. We're there low bars on the the uk or euro versions.

[Guesi]

Here in germany the TS were delivered with low or high handlebars.
So the customer could choose...
As far as I know the American MZs had other headlamps,indicators,stop lights and the small 12,5 Liter fuel tank.

And I do not think that the bikes were changed in an english factory.
I think they were delivered to the US and have been changed there. It would not make sense to bring the bikes from the GDR to GB and then ship them to the US.
This would have meant that they had to pay foreign currency to the british factory.
And the most important for MZ and the GDR government was to get foreign currency by selling the bikes to the "capitalistic countries".

GüSi
http://www.mzsimson.de

[therealche]

I tend to agree with you Guesi. I never understood why the U.S. market wanted to change perfectly good German for Lucas parts, I know which I would prefer!
Unless the U.S. didn't want to import bikes from the nasty communists so they imported them from the plucky Brits instead!
There was someone on ebay.com a while back trying to sell documents refering to the importation of MZ 175 ISDTs in 1968. Nice bits of history but not worth the $100 or so wanted for them.