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Simson Eskort

One of 30 built for the Ministry of Interior (police) of the DDR.

 

"The beginnings of the production of bikes in the vehicle and hunting arms factory in Suhl go back to the end of the 19th century.

In the year 1865, the brothers Simson established a company in Suhl that was mainly producing bladed weapons and handguns. With the production of pneumatic-tyred bicycles from 1896 on they had successfully entered unknown territory.

The success then continued by the production of a car with water-cooling and a four-stroke engine which was leaving the factory from 1908 on.

The first small motorcycle was designed in 1936 and finally produced in series- the motorbike BSW 98 (98 ccm). After 1945 the production was very slow to start again by manufacturing prams (baby carriages) and bicycles.

At the end of 1948, the so called SMA (Soviet Military Administration) commanded the factory to design a motorbike conforming to the following specifications; a cubic capacity of 250 ccm, a four-stroke engine and cardan shaft drive. The AWO 425 was already presented in July 1949. From 1950-1960 124 000 AWO 425T had been produced and until 1961 also 85 000 of the model AWO 425S.

The production of small motorcycles started in 1955 with the moped SR 1, which had been exported to more than 35 countries.

In 1961 the production of the AWO motorbikes was necessarily stopped in favour of the small motorcycles. During 1955-1990, more than 5 million motorcycles of different types had been produced in Suhl. After several near-insolvencies the company Simson finally had to file for bankruptcy in June 2002."

 

DDR-Motorrad-Museum, East German Motorcycle Museum, Berlin, 2011

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