Mz Skorpion Gets New Sting

MZ SKORPION GETS NEW STING

THANKS TO A MID-YEAR loan of nearly $65 million, courtesy of a German bank, the near-term future of Germany's MZ (which means Motorradwerke Zschopau, or Zschopau Motorcycle Factory, after the firm's hometown) seems assured.

First order of business is to get the MZ Skorpion, introduced a year ago at Britain’s Birmingham Motor Show, into production with its new Yamaha XTZ660 engine (see Roundup, Cycle World, November, 1993).

To do that, MZ retained British design consultants Seymour Powell, the firm that did the original show-stopping design, to redraw the bike with its real-world motor. That project, which involved adding a radiator and lengthening the seat, is now complete, and the result is even more stunning than the original. This is thanks largely to the gray color of the engine, which gives the bike a lighter visual feel than the prototype, with its allblack Rotax engine, possessed.

MZ plans to build the Skorpion with its Yama-engine tuned to produce a claimed 55 horsepower, which ought to provide spirited performance for a chassis that likely will weigh about 310 pounds dry. Dimensions are very sporting, with a 24-degree steering-head

angle, 3.7 inches of trail, and a 53.5-inch wheelbase. Suspension is via a Tech 2000 shock that works directly on the swingarm and is valved to provide a rising rate, and the same 39mm Showa fork used on the Yamaha TZR250. All this should result in agile handling. This is particularly important because the company is looking to Singles racing in Europe and Japan to help reestablish MZ’s brand image.

No price has been fixed for the Skorpion. Expect it to be less than 10,000 Deutsch marks ($16,000). Deliveries are expected to commence early in 1994 before an export version of the Skorpion spearheads MZ’s sales drives into new markets such as Japan and, perhaps, the U.S. -Alan Cathcart