German Motorrad

Today in Motorcycle History

Universelle Motorcycles

Universelle Logo

Manufactured from 1925 to 1930.

Carl Otto Landgrebe designed motorcycles which were built in a new division of the Universelle-Werke -Cigarettenmaschinen-Fabrik, Dresden, Zwickauerstraße 48/54, using a 183cc IOE engine, later 197cc and 347cc engines, and also built three wheel utility vehicles.

A 1925 brochure lists models ZIA, ZI and ZII, along with a three-wheeler, model ZIIIB.

Both motorcycles and three-wheelers were sold under the "Uni" brand by „Uni“-Rad-Verkaufs-Gesellschaft m.b.H., Dresden, Waisenhausstraße 3, until 1930.

A good number of three-wheelers were supplied to the Reichspost. The marque was popular both in Saxony and in the Sudeten areas of Czechoslovakia, where much of the population was of German heritage. Many vehicles survived there due to the scarcity of reliable motorised transport after the war with the country under Soviet domination.

Sources: Tragatsch p288, contemporary literature, Axel Oskar Mathieu Archive, Automobilia 85-45.


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