During the production of the last Italian Maxi's, Piaggio decided to sell off the Maxi Motor (engine) as a licenced product to Motor Manet in Slovakia, in 1997. Manet bought the entire engine production line from Piaggio and moved it to Slovakia, where they also merged with the Jawa/Babetta moped production. 

Manet developed it's own little low-priced moped called the Manet Korado, and fitted it with the Maxi Motor. The first Manets were a real disaster, comparable to the quality of the Turkish Maxwells. Also, the first engines they produced were of poor quality. But, they learned quickly and started to improve on their quality. In Holland Piaggio tried to sell the Manet Korado under the name Puch Z-One, but it was overpriced and could not be sold under the quality name of Puch for long. That was stopped in 2000, and now you can buy it as the Manet Korado, totally separated from Piaggio.           

Meanwhile, Piaggio stopped the entire production of all Puch models, including the Maxi in 1998. The mouldings were destroyed and the Maxi died.... after almost 30 years of production!! In 2001 they bought the Spanish moped company Derbi, to do the same as they did to Puch.

Soon after, Manet got the rights for the Maxi Motor and in 2000 they also got the Super Maxi cilinder back into production (which failed with Maxwell, remember?) More power, more models and better quality was being produced and so the Maxi Motor is surviving with Manet and the Maxi Plus model is still being produced today from India! Puch Maxi is still on the road and going strong!!