Opportunity for a China manufacturer

Sad news today that storied German motorcycle manufacturer MZ will close at the end of 2008.

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/Ne...8MZ-shut-down/

MZ builds what is arguably the world's best 125cc motorcycle, the RT125. Here is a pretty good summary of that bike from Wikipedia (scroll down to "Current Models"):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MZ_Moto...nd_Zweiradwerk

The present owners of MZ would surely be willing to recover some of their losses by selling off the tooling and/or design rights for this 125cc model. It would certainly make a unique and very well engineered design for a Chinese manufacturer to pick up and produce for both the domestic market (half of all Chinese bikes are 125cc displacement) and export at a far more favorable manufacturing cost than the German factory was able to deliver.

tcs