In the 1950s there was an import ban on motor vehicles but it was possible to circumvent this by importing the necessary parts and building complete machines locally.
Egil Olsen worked as a young mechanic with B. A. Berg who had the NSU agency in Oslo. Olsen joined up with Odd Kolberg to assemble NSU motorcycles.
Beginning in 1957 NSU motorcycles were assembled in a large barn in Brandval, north of Kongsvinger. The main barn was around 1,000 square meters and this became the assembly hall for motorcycles; the stables were used for moped assembly, and the engines, which arrived partly assembled from NSU, were built in the former sausage factory.
Early on they built Lambretta scooters sourced from the Italian factory, and these were later replaced with NSU Prima scooters. Kreidler supplied parts for their mopeds, as did NSU for the Quickly. Others from NSU were the Superfox, Supermax, Superlux and Maxi.
Around 2000 Quickly machines were built in two years, and a newspaper clipping from February 1957 stated that a weekly production of 35-40 machines was expected.
At its peak, the workshops employed 40-50 workers, and the motorcycles were sold in many parts of Norway.
In 1960 the ban was lifted and imports began to flow. Brandval's production slowed dramatically as a result.
Sources: Norskproduserte Motorsykler, NSU Club Norway.
See also NSU History
