German Motorrad

Today in Motorcycle History

Pawa Motorcycles

Manufactured 1922-1924[1]

Three decades before Velocette's Noddy Bike made it's indelible mark, Kurt Passow's Pawa appeared, ever so briefly.

Built in Klein-Stöckheim, the Pawa was chain-driven with a 226cc two-stroke housed in a sheet-metal monocoque chassis with interchangeable wheels, according to one source. AOM, however, says the engine was a horizontally opposed four-stroke of 60x60 b/s, and that the same engine was used in a motor-dreirad. Certainly elements of this are born out by the text of a Vis advertisement of 1922 (See Wegro).

In 1924 with inflation running rampant the business failed. Passow sold the patents and manufacturing equipment to Friemann & Wolf, who redesigned it and built the Per.

Notes: 1. OAM gives dates of 1921-1926.

Sources: François-Marie Dumas, Axel Oskar Mathieu Archive (AOM), et al.


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