The vehicle presented here is a heavy motorcycle developed strictly for the purposes of the uniformed forces (military and police) and state administration (postal service). It was manufactured between 1934-1939. The design of the CWS M111 motorcycle was developed at the Centralne Warsztaty Samochodowe in Warsaw, part of the Państwowe Zakłady Inżynierii. The chief designer was inż. Zygmunt Okołów and the sidecar was designed by inż. Stanisław Panczakiewicz.
The design is typical of the 1930s, with the front wheel suspended on coil springs and friction dampers. The rear wheel is mounted on a rigid link. The driveline employs a two-cylinder four-stroke engine in a V arrangement, connected to a three-speed gearbox transmitting the torque to the rear wheel using a geared transaxle. The motorcycle’s design was clearly inspired by the machines of the American manufacturers Harley-Davidson and Indiana. The vehicle had an unorthodox control system comprising a throttle control on the left of the handlebar and a foot-operated clutch. This solution allowed the vehicle to be started without the need to mount it, which made it significantly easier to overcome obstacles in the terrain. From the very beginning the motorcycle was designed to run with a sidecar, which was added as standard. Solo driving required a lot of skill on the part of the rider as the machine has a tendency to veer to the left.
From 1935, the CWS M111 was offered to the civilian market under the commercial name “Sokół 1000”. Some 3,400 units had been built by the time World War II broke out, and the price was 4,200 zlotys (the same as a small car), which, in the 1930s, equalled 43 monthly salaries of a qualified worker. The CWS M111 still remains the largest motorcycle designed in Poland.