CHICKEN

I was never to sure about motorbikes in the days of my youth, remember being out of control of a trials bike when I was about 15 and scared myself half to death, call me a chicken if you like but this fine machine is a Bantam, a bit of history follows.

Despite the Bantam being considered the archetypal 'truly British' lightweight motorcycle outselling all others, it was in fact based on a German design. The Bantam was based on the DKW RT 125, a design that was received as war reparations, with the Bantam as a mirror image so the gear change was on the right side as with other British motorcycles of the period. The same design went into production in at least two, and perhaps four, other countries. Harley-Davidson started producing their Model 125 in late 1947 (several months before BSA) and the occupiers of East Germany, the U.S.S.R. began building theMockba (Moskva) M1A)  model even earlier, c.1946. In East Germany the machine was made at the original DKW factory by IFA, which later became MZ and Japan also produced copies.