Govecs Schwalbe


The Simson KR51 or widely known as the “Schwalbe” was an iconic scooter of East Germany during the communist era. It was produced between 1964 and 1986. Now, Govecs, a company that manufactures electric bikes, has decided to revive the bike with 100% electric propulsion. A prototype was already showed at last year’s EICMA and according to Govecs, the electric scooter goes into production in the second half of 2015.

There’s a hell lot of nostalgia around East-German bikes like MZ or Simson. From time to time, there are companies that try to revive them. In 2011, a company already announced the rebirth of the Schwalbe as an electric scooter but they failed miserably. Despite this, another German company, Govecs decided to revive the Simson KR51/1 or widely known as the “Schwalbe”.


The Schwalbe was a simple scooter with a weak engine and not-too-excellent build quality. The 50 cc two-stroke engine developed a peak performance of 2.1 hp which sounds hilarious nowadays. Despite the complete lack of power, the East Germans coupled a three-, and later a four-speed transmission to the tiny engine. Since the two-stroke “powerhouse” wasn’t delivering much power at all, you had to use the transmission pretty often. Officially, top speed was about 65 km/h but if you were a big guy like my father, 65 km/h was not more than a fading promise far-far away down the road. Anyway, since we are talking about the Eastern block, the land of Trabants, Volgas and MZ’s, Simson sold over a million units of this miracle.

The electric scooter that Govecs designed looks pretty much the same as the original Schwalbe. It’s a cute little scooter with large wheels and a whole lot of character. Behind the fairing, there’s an electric motor. Govecs decided to build two versions of the scooter, one with a 4 kW motor and a more powerful version with a 6 kW motor. The weaker one can enroll as a moped, the latter one belongs to the realm of A1. The version with the larger motor can reach a top speed of 100 km/h (62 mph). The Germans used a lithium-ion battery pack but there’s no word on capacity or range. There’s some unofficial rumor that suggest the bike has a decent range of 100-110 miles (170 km).



According to Govecs, the new Schwalbe will be available in the second half of 2015. The bike comes with two color options: beige and orange. German sources suggest the scooter will carry a price tag of € 4,699 for the moped version and € 5,799 for the motorcycle version.