The Regional Museum in Vysoké Mýto opens an exhibition dedicated to a one-foot Czechoslovak phenomenon. It maps the production and history of the Jawa 50 Pionýr. And it has a somewhat provocative title “Pinďour and his time”. Little Java was called all kinds of things, but most often “pincek” or “fichtl”.
“We know that it may have shocked some, but we took the exhibition a bit lightly, we also want to laugh and remember the time when we drove around the village in Little Java,” says the director of the Regional Museum in Vysoké Mýt Jiří Junek about the exhibition called Pinďour and his time.
Jawa 50/555 Pioneer | Video: Blahoslav Baťa, Eva Srpová
Little Java was called all kinds of things – Pionýr, Pincek, Fichtl. But somewhere also “pinďour”. “Here in East Bohemia, that’s what we called him most often, we just got married and went after girls,” says Junek with a laugh. “They say they weren’t called that in Prague. I guess we were more rude here.”
The exhibition maps the history and development of the well-known Jawa 50 motorcycle called Pionýr. The museum managed to acquire a total of 32 motorbikes, both from several collectors, from museum collections and also from local residents. Some of them pulled their machines, often very rare ones, directly from the ground.
“For example, this is how we acquired one beautiful original two-tone 555. A truly exceptional one is an export 555 with a long seat, in black lacquer with gold lines. We are very happy that we have four first models, i.e. “Stump” in all four colors in which was produced, i.e. burgundy, ivory, blue and green,” explains Jiří Junek.
Of course, there are also types 05, 20 and 21 and 23 Mustang. Army 20 and 23 Mustangs in typically green paint were lent from the military museum in Lešany to Vysoké Mýt, and the perfectly preserved original 50/21 in ivory is also worth paying attention to.
“We haven’t even opened yet, but people are calling us and offering more and more machines. We’re very happy for that, but we’re not inflatable, we can’t accept everything,” describes Junek. It turns out that Pionýr was a phenomenon, a legend of several generations. After all, it was produced in Považské strojírny from 1955 until 1982, and 1.6 million pieces were produced. The typical sound and blue smoke was the color of the Czechoslovak countryside.
The exhibition will be officially opened on Sunday, May 14, and will last until October 22. And visitors who come to Sunday’s grand opening on Little Java will receive a non-alcoholic beer as a gift.
