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OK so I figured it was time I indulged (tortured) my love of ancient metal. I have a long history with beautiful, old cars (yes OK Ketzal... pieces of crap). I have not as yet buried myself in the motorcycle version of this affliction. That particular problem has now changed, I trawled the interweb auction sites until I found something suitably unusual and cool looking... It's a JAWA... yup the motorcycle... not the Starwars Species

PROJECT BIKE INITIAL ENTRY: 20 March 2009

Enter the mighty JAWA, this is a Czech company but they manufactured bikes locally here in NZ so the bike I managed to track down is a 1965 New Zealand built model. I have to thank Bike Trans for the hassle free transport to get it from halfway down the country to my garage. It is I believe called a Type 350 but I have yet to do too much homework. It is a 125cc single that, according to the stamps makes a WHOPPING 9... yup you got it NINE horsepower. That, if you can believe it is 2 less than my scooter... which is also a 125.

The plan at this point is vague, I want to retain the style as that is what attracted me to this machine in the first place, so you will keep seeing the chrome tank... in fact lots of chrome. Everything else is still up in the air... I have yet to decide on color... I am leaning toward a dark red frame with black and chrome everywhere else. However with regard to other details I am still contemplative, I would like very much to replace the aging switchgear with something a bit more modern, along with this I would like to add turn signals for safety and a powerful headlamp the trick will be adding these while retaining the character of the bike. I am also considering a different, slightly more powerful engine. The problem being that the standard unit really is beautiful, so it may be a matter of using one of the larger JAWA units... we shall see.

Anyway, enjoy the pics of how it looked when it arrived, the next step is to strip it down, see what needs doing and start prepping for paint/powdercoating/chrome.