Beginning in 1906, Motorradwerk Zschopau - MZ, has a long history of contributions to motorcycling and at the end of the 1920's, under the brand DKW, was the world's largest motorcycle producer. Two famous names in motorcycling engineering are MZ's Walter Kaaden and fellow engineer and racer, Ernst Degner. Kaaden developed the 2 stroke expansion chamber and Degner moved to Japan in 1960, and using this expansion chamber took Suzuki to it's first world championship in 1961. In the years following Yamaha won world championships using the same technology. In the mid 80's the German reunification spelled the end of MZ's government funding and MuZ was resurrected by the Malaysian based Hong Leong group. The first successes were the Yamaha 660 powered Baghira and Skorpion. In 1999 the company regained the MZ marque as well as a $30M investment to develop the parallel twin 1000 S. Stoney Creek Powersports will launch 3 MZ 1000's onto the Australian market.