1973 Jawa DT 500  Model 890  (Jawa 1)

After we decided to collect a few Vintage bikes, our first purchase was this machine now known as “Jawa 1”.

At the suggestion of Bill Cody (U.S.A. Jawa Distributor) I contacted Bob Allen, a restorer who resides in Washington, State. Bob had a very nice Jawa 890 2-valve for sale. The bike had been a Canadian import and had been in a dealers inventory (crated) for many years. When the dealership closed the crate went into storage.

The bike was finally uncrated and sold to Bob in the mid-‘90’s. We purchased this bike from Bob in early 1998. This bike has not been started except at the Jawa Factory prior to shipping. This is one of the later bikes in the series of the 890 models as the frame number is 101XX. As a side note, according to the Jawa Factory, total production of the 890 series of 2-valve machines was just over 13,000. However, they were not able to give me exact numbers as records were either not kept or lost.

This bike has been shown at Vintage Bike Shows several times and has taken trophies in both Competition Class and Un-restored Class. It is probably one of very few un-raced and un-started, still new, Jawa 2-valve machines in the world today.

What is odd about this bike is that it has a 22” rear wheel and no transmission. This machine also came equipped with a Bing Carburetor.