made in Slovakia
Select which section:
History
Welcome. Jawa Motors (pronounced ‘YAH-vah’) is a Slovakian producer of motorcycles that also produced mopeds. Founded in 1929 by František Janeček, the company name is a combination of the first letters of the founder’s name and the first two letters of their motorcycle product, the Wanderer.
Povážské Strojárne is the company that made Babetta (Jawa) mopeds. In 1983 they had 3500 employees making mopeds, and 10,000 employees making mainly large ball bearings for cranes and weapons.
Jawa Tranzimo 40 automatic moped engine
ZVL is the parent company, with 64,000 employees in 1983, that produced bearings, weapons, and military aircraft engines, and other machinery products.
Babetta was a line of mopeds made in Slovakia (formerly C.S.S.R or Czechoslovakia). Babetta is a girls name from a popular 1960’s Czech song. The domestic models were called Babetta, while most export versions were called Jawa. Before 1986 the production was at Povážské Strojárne (PS) (Povaska machinery company) near the city of Povážské Bystrica in north-central Slovakia. After 1985 production moved to the town of Kolárovó (Gúta in Hungarian), in southern Slovakia near the Hungarian border. As a result of that move, quality issues plagued many of those mid-to-late 1980’s Jawa mopeds. Later in the 1990’s back at Povážské Strojárne, production restarted with the Puch Korado, made by Manet, with a Puch remake engine. The full Jawa Babetta history is told by Edgar Uher, the German importer of Babetta mopeds in the 1990’s, with the help of long time Babetta engineer Jan Sujansky, who lives in Povážské Bystrica and also worked at Kolárovó for many years: http://www.jawamoped.com/html/history.html
American Jawa Ltd. was the US importer, located at 185 Express St, Plainview, New York 18803, and 18408 Laurel Park Rd, Compton, California 90224.
Motokov was the Czechoslovakian importer/exporter of automotive products. They were the sole exporter of Jawa mopeds.
Motokov Canada Inc. was the Canada importer, located at 7600 Trans-Canada Hwy, St. Laurent, Quebec H4T1A5.
1970-72 Babetta 28
one speed, 19″ rims
no rear suspension
thyristor ignition
1973-75 Babetta 206
one speed, 16″ rims
no rear suspension
thyristor ignition
1975-82 Babetta 207
one speed, 16″ rims
full suspension
thyristor ignition
These are European models, with smaller lights, no horn, no brake light.
There was the Transistor 40 (40 km/h = 25 mph), and Transistor 25 (25 km/h = 16 mph).