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Origins
Jawa, Czechoslovakia's great motorcycle maker, entered car production in 1934 with the 700: a licence-adapted version of DKW's front-wheel-drive Meisterklasse formula — two-stroke twin, plywood-framed lightweight body — built in Prague for a market where full-size cars remained luxuries. The little Jawa offered weather protection and four seats at motorcycle-adjacent cost, and around a thousand were built before the improved Minor succeeded it. Czech car history ties the thread forward: Jawa's automotive engineers and the Minor design fed into post-war Aero Minor production. The 700 remains a footnote with charm — evidence of the 1930s moment when Europe's motorcycle industries briefly believed the cheapest car should simply be a motorcycle with more of everything.
1934 Jawa 700 · Addvisor · CC BY-SA 4.0
