NSU was founded in 1873 near Heilbronn (Germany) in a town named Neckarsulm. The name NSU stands for Neckarsulm. In its early years, NSU produced knitting machines and soon, when the bicycle market started to boom, NSU joined the uncounted number of bike manufacturers. Developed from bicycles, the first motorbikes came around 1900.
Mopeds and motorbikes
NSU's first moped was the Motosulm, a 60cc front engine "Motorfahrrad", which, in the late 1920s, soon became famous for being the cheapest 2 wheeler with a motor on it. Later, in 1936, the NSU Quick followed, a 98cc lightweight motorbike with 2 gears and pedals. The NSU Quick soon became very popular as now the style was more like a motorbike. After WWII the Quick was the first bike NSU went in production again. 1953 the Quick was discontinued as room for production of a new range of mopeds was needed.
Albert Roder, the genius engineer of pre-war racing bikes, developed soon after the Second World War a range of newly designed motorbikes like NSU FOX LUX, MAX, and as a moped, the NSU Quickly.
Production of the NSU Quickly started in the second half of 1953 as a 33kg light moped — one of the first vehicles ever named a moped — soon introduced in the market after the 1953 IFMA exhibition. By German law it had to be bicycle like: 50cc, 40kph, large wheels, and a max weight of 33kgs. New was that the 2 - stroke engine followed the Loop Scavenging principle (Umkehrspülung), a patent from A. Schnuerle which was before only found on DKW engines. This principle in addition with a full aluminium cylinder made the Quickly almost as powerful as the former Quick which had double the cylinder volume of the NSU Quickly.
The production numbers of this small bike (1000 a day) made it possible for NSU to become the biggest motorbike manufacturer in the world by 1955. So it was no wonder that the NSU Quickly became, with 1.5 million units built, the worlds most successful two stroke moped ever.
The NSU Quickly Moped was built in several versions, with later models of the Quickly becoming heavier and heavier, with rear suspension, smaller wheels, and even a 3 gears box were presented. In the late 1960s, the time was over for the Quickly: NSU needed production capacity for their cars and built their last motorbike built in 1968.
The lightweight 50cc NSU Quickly engine in an original NSU assembly arm.