seit 1981
since 1981

R100RT
1995

BK350
2002

CJ750
2003

R25/3
2004

A580
2005

KI120
2005

R51/3
2006

The CONDOR was advertised in the BMW Einzylinder Forum. I found the bike interesting, because it fit nicely within the concept of opposed twin with shaft drive of the other bikes in the garage, but the bike was located too far away, to be seriously considered to buy and I still had enough work to do on the R25. But even after two or three months, I could not get the bike out of my mind.

So it happened that over a weekend, Isabel and I drove down to a small town near Frankfurt a/M to pick up the parts of the bike. Back home the parts where stored away in the hindmost corner of my cellar. There was no space in the workshop for it anyway as long as the R25 was still sitting there.

After the R25 was done and on the road, I moved the CONDOR parts to the workshop and made a survey of what I had bought, what parts were missing, and in which condition were the rest. For me it was clear that the bike had to be repainted. But to find the proper color was not so easy. Nearly every part of the bike had a different shade of the original color. I decided to take the color of a part that was hidden from the sun. From a color comparison table I choose RAL 7021 as the new color. This color is very close to the original one.
The next question was how to get spare parts for an A580-I. In Germany (as far as I know) there is no dealer for CONDOR parts. In Switzerland there are at least 3 or 4 CONDOR specialists who still sell original parts for these bikes. Two of them were known to me by address and telephone number. Both of them were very friendly and helpful, and after a few weeks I had all the parts that were missing or had to be replaced.

While I was working on the CONDOR I got to know Reto Burkhalter from Switzerland. He was deep into CONDORs, and had access to the order books of the factory. He copied a very rare document for me: The page of the order book where the serial number of my machine was listed. Again many thanks for that Reto.

A second fellow from Switzerland who owned a CONDOR A580, I knew already, without realizing it, from the Chang Jiang community. Sigmund Schmuckli was his name, and he helped me quite a lot when it came to finding some parts the plater had lost. He brought the missing parts over when he visited Hamburg in 2006. Together we completed the bike and started it for the first time after the restoration. You were really a big help for me Sigi, thank you again!

The A580-I is really something special. To claim that the Swiss just copied from BMW and Zündapp is surely wrong. There are a lot of things, big or small, on a A 580 you will not find on a BMW or Zündapp. On the other hand there is no doubt that there are some similarities.

The assembling of the bike proved to be more complicated than I expected. The reasons were all the small things that CONDOR did were a little different than I expected to be like on the other bikes. I had to look in the repair or maintenance manual much more often than I did previously.

Starting with the three stands, main, side and front wheel, over to the roll-bar, the two rifle mounts, a towrope underneath the pillion seat, spare cables for throttle and clutch, spare lamps, fuses and even main and idle jet. Repair kit and most of all two brushes and a sponge for cleaning the bike. The care and maintenance of the bike they took very seriously for sure. On each and every place you will find red signs and marked grease nipples to keep everything in shape and order. The reason for this might be found in the fact that the A 580-I was exclusively built for the Army.

There was an A 580 model for civil use, but this bike looked completely different. The exhaust was different, the gearbox had only 4 gears and the tank had a different shape and logo too. The A580-I was definitely not only a grey painted civilian version!

The engine is special having the hydraulic valve lifters that need no adjusting and the cylinder head are the same for left and right cylinder. The carburetor is a butterfly valve model that similar to what was commonly found on car engines of that time. The gearbox has a cross country setting, that means 8 gears to choose from. Not common in Germany is that the brake pedal is on the left side, and the gear shifter on the right. The order of the gears is different too. Neutral is up, and all gears shift down. The lever for the clutch is covered inside a special compartment of the gearbox, to keep out dust and dirt.

It is really fun to ride the CONDOR, only the sound reminds me more of a garden tractor than a 600cc motorcycle of the early fifties. The handling of the bike is excellent even thought it weighs 190 kg. (418 pounds for you Americans)