I think the best there is still Klement's idea of payment by installments. A little reminds this at the slogan invented much later: 'Five marks a week you need to save, you want to go in your own car.' with which the Nazis have cheated potential VW Beetle drivers. Here it is different: You pay part of the holdbacks in advance and the rest after receiving the product. Advantage: It is not more expensive than with cash.

Make no mistake about it. Would have had only local banks the final say, the company would have failed to expand and probably also its economic breakthrough. What ultimately helps to credit, is the pleasure of (sporting) cycling in Germany. Looking at the creation histories of the car industry there, the bicycle is noticed immediately as a foundation for setting up companies, e.g. at Opel and Sachs.

German banks thus see potential in the expansion of the Czech company, grant credits and the company Laurin & Klement, yet only about 20 employees is growing in new factories. With the euphoria in Germany, only approx. 100 km away, sales seem assured. Especially as the two founders not run out of ideas for new products: Touring bikes, sport bikes, combinations of both and even a tandem.

The name of the new product I'd almost forgotten now: Slavia. Of course, you can translate that with 'fame', but its real importance of this translation takes probably too short. So is the origin meant of the whole East, from Poland to most eastern Russia, from its north to Macedonia and Montenegro, it is united by one of four Indo-European languages. It aims directly on the soul of the people living in the East. Finally, the greatest football team in the Czech Republic is called 'Slavia Praha'.

Of course, it does not remain in production of bicycles. You can see above an engine. With nearly 250 cc, he creates 1.3 kW (1.75 HP) and therefore already good to drive a bicycle. But it can not simply be assigned to the bicycle, you have to integrate it. Or better said, one needs to build the frame around it. As you learn on the next page ... 06/12