DKW is an historic car and motorcycle brand that originates back to 1916 when the Dane Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen founded a factory in Saxony in Germany to produce steam fittings. In 1916 he tried to make a steam driven car, called DKW (Damp Kraft Wagen). This was not sucessfull, but in 1919 he made a Two-stroke cycle toy engine, called Des Knaben Wunsch (Childrens' wish). He also put this engine in a slightly modified verision into a bike and called this Das Kleine Wunder (the small wonder), and that was the real behinning of the car and motorcycle brand DKW. In 1932 DKW merged with Audi, Horch and Wanderer to form the Auto Union. All brands continued until World War II. Auto Union much later became a part of VAG. DKW cars were made from 1928 until 1966. They always used Two-stroke cycle engines and from 1931 the company was a pioneer in front-wheel drive. Most cars made before World War II had two cylinders but a 1939 prototype got the first three-cylinder engine. This prototype was produced after the war both as an IFA (later the Wartburg) in Zschopau, East GermanyFor the historical eastern German provinces, see Eastern Germany East Germany officially the German Democratic Republic GDR , German Deutsche Demokratische Republik DDR , was a Communist Party-led state that existed from 1949 to 1990 in the former Soviet, and in DKW-form in Düsseldorf, later in IngolstadtIngolstadt is located along the banks of the Danube River in the Federal State of Bavaria, Germany. As of July 31, 2001 it had 119,293 residents registered, making it the sixth largest city in Bavaria. The headquarters of the German automobile manufacture as the 3=6.
The post-war cars had some sporting potential and formed the basis for many rally victories in the 50ies and beginning of 60ies.
Before World War II the company had some success with forced induction racing bikes.
During the 1920s, DKW was the world largest motorcycle manufacturer. After the war the company made the above mentioned RT125, 175, 250 and 350 models.
The last DKW was the F102, which was the direct forerunner of the first post-war Audi, the model 60. The main difference was that the Audi used a conventional four-stroke engine.
The motorcycle branch of the company produced very famous models such as the RT125 pre- and post World War II. As reparations the design drawings of the RT125 were given to Harley Davidson in the USA and BSASeveral meanings of the initialism BSA are: Basic Skills Agency Birmingham Small Arms Company ( motorcycles etc. Blackwell Science Asia Body surface area Boston Society of Architects Botanical Society of America Bovine serum albumin Boy Scouts of America in the UK. The HD version was known as the Hummer, while the BSA became the Bantam. IFA and later MZMZ is an abbreviation which may stand for several things: Mozambique, an african country, MuZ, a German motorcycle manufacturer Magnetic azimuth, a positional measurement Mark Zbikowski, a Microsoft programmer whose ASCII initials appear in the first two models continued in production until the 1990s when economics finally brought production of the two stroke to an end. Other manufacturers also copied the DKW design, officially or otherwise. This can be ssen in the similarity of many small two stroke motorcycles from the 1950s, including a product of Yamaha.
Audi
Automobile manufacturers
Motorcycle manufacturers
