Last fall the historic Czech motorcycle brand Jawa showed off three ambitious new vintage-inspired motorcycles in something of a revival for the company. Kicked off by the company’s purchase by Indian utility and implement company Mahindra, Jawa has been expanding its reach across India since. It now incorporates over 100 dealerships across 77 different cities and the two-wheel loving populace is buying these bikes by the truck load. According to Rideapart, Jawa production is backlogged until at least Q4 of 2019.
The original Jawa produced bikes in India due to a huge demand from that market, much like Royal Enfield did. And similar to Royal Enfield, it is the Indian subcontinent that has revived the brand with a heaping dose of nostalgia. Mahindra purchased the rights to Jawa production back in 2016, and has since developed a new 293cc watercooled DOHC fuel injected thumper motor to power its Jawa line.
That line currently includes two of the three bikes launched last November; the $2,150 chrome-heavy Jawa, and the more sleek $2,280 Jawa Forty-Two. The third bike, a bobber-style throwback called the Perak, was due to launch earlier this year with a price of $2,625, but production is so backlogged that the bike has been pushed out until at least September.
While orders outpacing production is a good problem to have for a revamped motorcycle brand, this is next level demand. Jawa announced the bikes for production in November and the pre-orders just rolled in and didn’t stop coming. The first bikes just began rolling off the production line last month, and pre-orders are already stacked through November of this year.
Jawa has claimed before that it expects to deliver 90,000 bikes in India this year, which is an ambitious goal, but if demand is already this high, and they can meet it, then they’re on track for a huge first year “back” in the motorcycle world.
There is not currently a plan for Jawa bikes to come to the U.S. market, but with a bike looking that cool for that low price point, expansion to other markets seems inevitable. Interestingly, the original non-India Jawa still makes two bikes in Prague for the Euro market, but they aren’t nearly as successful as these new cheap-as-chips Mahindra-owned jobs.