UT MOTORCYCLES 1922- 1959
To find any information on U T motorcycles is very scarce, They were one of the most important of the lesser known post war German marques.The 1920’s gave U T the opportunity to launch motorcycles with a variety of engines including Bekamo,Blackburne and J A P units.The latter two were large capacity OHV singles.At the same time the factory gained considerable amounts of publicity by taking part in road racing events.
In the post war years the first machines which used the Ilo two-strokes singles were the KTN’s with 123cc and 175cc capacities. A major sales push in 1953 was accompanied by the new KTV175(I presume the V stood for VIER …four speed gearbox !the KTN ‘s had a 3 speed box) it had both front and rear suspension. A larger version, the KTV200 was also announced.In addition three new machines appeared with swing-arm suspension(the KTV’s had Jursch plunger suspension) these were the TS200,TS250 and the TS252 (a twin cylinder model)
In 1955 came the TS175F( the F standing for Fitchel & Sachs engine) and theTS175I(standing for Ilo engine)and the earls front fork 250 twin VS252, finally in 1956 emerged the VS100 using a Sachs engine. The end of motorcycle production was on the horizon and 1958 and 1959 were spent selling off remaining stocks.The last remaining bikes,models unknown were sent to a mission in Tanganyika in 1962
One other snippet of information i have found is that UT was the first post war German bikes to have telescopic front forks which were of UT design in 1950.
Every 5 years there is a Treffen(meet) in Moringen for owners and fans of the ‘U T’ make in 2015 there were 40 machines on display which is probably about a third of the known examples to survive. Their rarity makes them a very desirable bike in Germany, so in 2020 another treffen will take place. I might be there?
