Return for Hungarian marque

[Bob]

After a gap of more than 30 years, the Hungarian "Pannónia" brand is being relaunched. The first Pannonia was made in 1954, but the factory closed in 1975 after a proposed deal between them and Yamaha fell through.

A 20 man team is designing the new range, the first of which will be the TL 2007 – a four-stroke, v-twin 234-cc bike putting out 18.5-horsepower with a five-gear transmission. The bike will be ‘similar’ to the company’s former T 5C machine.

TL stands for ‘teleszkóp’ (telescope) and ‘lengővilla’ (fork).

The company has capacity to manufacture 100 to 300 motorcycles a year.

[SPman]

Bikers of the world have been waiting, with bated breath ............

[Mr. Peanut]

Woohoo! I'm half Hungarian.

Sounds cool :)

[Bob]

I like the fact that a number of these old makes are returning to the world.

OK, they're not all going to turn into success stories like Triumph (not everyone has a Mr Bloor behind them, determined to make it work and prepared to put a lot of time, money and effort into it). But it brings some variety back into biking - which has to be a good thing.

I hope they will find their own way, rather than trying to make clones of some little Japanese bike. From reading my own words, it looks like they're making something that takes from their past - and as a guess, a smaller bike will fit the bill there nicely.

I think MZ are a good example of "going your own way" - for years they made strange, cheap little bikes, where nobody minded if bits fell off or whatever as they were sold for pennies. Nowadays, they've had to change direction and gone for "quirky and different" - and it seems to be working. They're never going to threaten BMW, but their stuff gets good things said about it now - and reviews I see often end with "If you want something different, for the money this is worth a look".

[Forest]

Woohoo! I'm half Hungarian.

Sounds cool :)

Szia fel-magyar :)

Beszelsz magyarul? Uj-zealandi vagyok, de tanulok magyarul (baratnom magyar).

[Mr. Peanut]

Szia fel-magyar :)

Beszelsz magyarul? Uj-zealandi vagyok, de tanulok magyarul (baratnom magyar).

I can't speak it, though I suppose I should learn! :innocent:

[Henk]

Nothing wrong with MZs I ride one to work every day, and it's one of the old ones 500 rotax motor. Slow, ill handling but lots of fun because of it.