Mz 600 Skorpion
MZ 600 SKORPION
CW RIDING IMPRESSION
A SUPER, SIMPLE SINGLE
IF IT WAS BUILT IN ITALY WE might have expected the first production versions to appear sometime around Christmas, a bit late for the summer selling season. But the born-again MuZ factory, which builds bikes bearing the famed MZ badge, is Teutonic, rather than Latin, so it’s no surprise that the first production versions of the Skorpion, fitted with Yamaha’s liquid-cooled five-valve XTZ660 Single, rolled out of the all-new factory at Hohndorf exactly as scheduled on March 24.
When German accountant-tumed-entrepreneur Petr-Karel Korous decided to purchase the remains of the old MZ company back in July ’92, he was smart enough to realize that his reborn MuZ company-standing for Motorrad und Zweiradwerk GmbH, or The Motorcycle and Bicycle Factory Ltd.-needed a flagship product that would be both attention-grabbing and cost-effective, in keeping with MuZ’s slogan, “Simply Great Motorcycles.” After a whirlwind series of meetings with a dozen companies from all over Europe, he settled on the British design partnership of Seymour Powell, briefed the firm’s designers on his needs, and set them to work. Five months later the Skorpion prototype, powered by a Rotax Single, made its debut. A change of powerplant last summer to the five-valve Yamaha engine was dictated by MuZ’s key priority: maximizing the costperformance ratio. More power, cleaner emissions, less noise and a longer potential life span were all key factors in changing to the XTZ660. So was the fact that Yamaha was eager to cut a deal with MuZ.
The Skorpion doesn’t disappoint, either the unfaired Tour model or the Sport version. But what did surprise me when I sampled both models at Calafat-a racetrack near Barcelona-was
how much the Tour model has cap tured the essence of single-cylinder motorcycling in the `90s. This bike manages to combine practicality and charisma without sacrificing the basic appeal of a sweet street Single. It’s a bike its owners will find excuses to ride. It is lean, nimble and easy-steering, with an outstanding riding position thanks to flat, narrow bars that are both sporting and practical. The Skorpion Tour is an everyday bike with a very high feel-good factor.
That’s not to say that the Sport version fails to live up to expectations. It’s just that the Tour has such charm that it frankly gives you the best of both worlds. Since the two models are essentially the same bike wearing different clothes-chassis, suspension, brakes and state-of-tune are identical-all you really get for your 10 percent price premium by choosing the Sport (retailing for the equivalent of about $6200 in Germany, including local taxes) over the Tour (about $5650, ditto) is a sportier riding stance with dropped bars and slightly rearset footpegs, plus a different headlamp, a less comfortable passenger seat and a snazzy nose fairing.
Designer Richard Seymour and his assistant Adam White opted for an ultra-distinctive chassis design. This, with two large-diameter (50 x 1.5mm gauge) cold-drawn seamless steel tubes bent and waisted to sleeve into a rear cast-alloy engine mount that incorporates the swingarm pivot, helps give the Skorpion its strong identity. On the prototype, the tubes were glued into the castings, but since this aerospace technique remains largely unproven in motorcycle applica tions, the tubes on production Skorpions are screwed into the castings, then pinned into place.
The Skorpion’s layout is conventional. The 40mm Paioli fork sits at a head angle of 26.5 degrees, the wheelbase is 55.9 inches, and there’s 4.2 inches of trail. That’s quite a lot by sportbike standards, but perhaps is one reason for the Skorpion’s excellent stability around faster turns. The boxsection swingarm has a rising-rate linkage, with the shock supplied by Bilstein, a German company known for highquality automotive suspensions. The 3-inch-wide front wheel and 4-inch-wide rear on the bikes I rode were fitted with 110/70 and 150/60 Metzeler rubber.
Thanks to the efforts of MuZ’s engineers, and also to those of its suspension suppliers, ride quality is extremely high—this bike really eats up road shock. The performance of that single 12.4-inch front disc and its four-piston caliper, both made by Grimeca, also is very high. I was very impressed by the smooth, powerful action of the front brake and the fact that even in a spirited dice with a fellow reporter, the single disc not only didn’t fade, but had a very sensitive feel.
Think that you couldn’t go fast enough on the single-cylindered Skorpion to challenge the bike’s excellent suspension, brakes and rubber? Try the bike, and you’ll think again. The Yamaha engine is unchanged from its XTZ660 Euro dualpurpose format. It’s a dry-sump design with gear-driven counterbalancer that removes all but the slightest vibration. Even when pressed close to its 6800-rpm redline, the 660cc engine doesn’t become strained, and it delivers very healthy acceleration from 3500 rpm upwards. With maximum torque of 41 foot-pounds available at 5250 rpm-only 1000 revs lower than the home of the engine’s peak 47-horsepower output-the result is an engine package well suited to the nature of the motorcycle. Though the five-speed gearbox has too low a bottom gear to be ideal for street-only use, the wide spread of power prevents this from being more than a minor irritant. Even so, 90 miles per hour came up quite readily down the relatively short Calafat main straight, though any speed beyond that is very grudgingly delivered, even if you mold yourself to the fuel tank. This may only just be a genuine 100 mph motorcycle, if anybody really cares. You want to go that fast, buy a CBR900RR. The Skorpion calls for a different concept of motorcycling than sheer speed.
Really, it’s impossible to fault the dynamics of either of the Skorpions. They offer more fun per dollar, or deutschmark, than any other street Single I’ve ever sampled, and in a civilized, refined manner that shames many bigger, costlier bikes. Build quality on the two models I rode was very high, resulting in a very taut, together feel to both bikes. And the handling is really something: You won’t be able to get around tight turns any quicker than on the Skorpion. I was amazed at the cornering speed the bike would allow you to maintain, in turn allowing you to make the most of the momentum the lusty Single delivers. And even on a racetrack, ground clearance is more than adequate. Only the slightly lower exhaust on the Tour scraped consistently.
MuZ projects a total production of 3500 Skorpions in 1994, and has orders for 3000 of these already from its 280 dealers. But with sales due to start in the USA and Japan later this year, it’s unlikely there’ll be any left over. This is a bike that has success stamped all over it. It’s a modem version of the sort of bike we used to build very well in Britain more than 25 years ago, but which we forgot how to make. Now, with the help of Yamaha, a German manufacturer is producing a Euro-Single that reminds the world that Simple is Best, as long as you do it right. Teutonic to the last, MuZ has done just that: This pair of Skorpions are indeed “Simply Great Motorcycles.” -Alan Cathcart
