Classic Motorcycles & GP, AMA, FIM Racers: Buzz Bombs & Two Stroke Wars

We're in the best place; a Motorcycle Racing blog. This article surveys about 25 years of Grand Prix racing history from1961 to 1986. It also talks about the extraordinary role of a genius engineer and team manager, Walter Kaaden, ex-Hitler Youth member from the GDR, who gave the racing world incredibly powerful 2-stroke engines.

The 2010 book "Stealing Speed" by author and ex-racer Mat Oxley is an excellent source point for this article. The facts e.g. results of Kaaden's R and D work are fairly well known. What is not known is the 'how' of the scandal. Do read this exciting book about how Ernst Degner, MZ's star GP racer, stole and sold Kaaden's secrets.

Engineer Kaaden (L) and racer Degner (R)

Its also the dramatic story of East Germany's young World Championship GP racer and top mechanic, Ernst Degner, in short form, via short quotes from Mat Oxley's outstanding book.

Membership was required

As a talented engineer Kaaden worked for Prof. Herbert Wagner on the Hs293 Rocket Assisted Bomb, one of Germany's most advanced weapons of WW2.

Oxley says; "It wasn't as if he had a choice."

After WWII Walter Kaaden found employment at resurrected DKW, soon to be called MZ, in East Germany [GDR]. MZ became a communist state controlled manufacturing enterprise building motorcycles for a transport starved east block country..


Kaaden's Expansion Chambers

Along with his power-improving expansion chamber Kaaden developed racing innovations; case reed carburetors and disc valves. Fuel is inducted into the loop scavanged crankcase making a 2-stroke engine more efficient.

Kaaden's highly effective two stroke development work was top secret and was kept under wraps. The reasons were simple; MZ's engines were now producing an astounding 200 bhp per liter. With Kaaden and Degner on board the state had a winner.

Kaaden's secret exhaust 'pulse' chamber

Case Reed Induction

Suffice to say, GP racer and future World Champion, Ernst Degner got loose from East Germany's clutches.

After Degner's defection Suzuki used Kaaden's engine secrets and became the dominant force in GP motorcycle racing for decades.

The remainder of this survey article is about subsequent events; how arch-rival Kawasaki copied Suzuki's engine hardware and became a serious threat on GP racetracks worldwide.

Thus began the high performance two-stroke war fought on every major racetrack and on city streets until ever-tightening emissions standards spelled the end of 2-strokes.

The bike that started it all: DKW 125-3 aka the MZ125. Copied by BSA as the Bantam, copied by Harley, by the Russians et. al. This was Kaaden's bread & butter machine.

By 1961 Kaaden had a winner with his air-cooled 125 cc racer developing an unheard of 25 h.p. MZ crew members made sure no-one got too close to the buzzing 2-stroke machines "with a powerband like a light switch."