Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125830
October 16,1973 Page 30 Pachl AD old DaDle with a Dew face By Geoffrey Wood This has been a banner year on the international trials and motocross scene. An 'American has won a motocross grand prix, the first world championship round ever held in America was staged in California, several new Japanese bikes have entered the trials and MX arena and the sport is booming in America as never before. There have been several things overlooked in this mad shuffle, however, and one of them has been the entrance of the Austrian Puch into both the trials and motocross championships. Puch does not have the fantastic sums of money to put behind their new contenders as do the Japanese factories, yet they are doing respectably weU in their first year of serious international competition~ Puch is actually a very old company, having been founded in 1891 when Johann 'Puch set up a small shop to' produce bicycles. This was expanded to motorized bicycles in 1903, when the first Puch appeared with a single-c.ylinder, inlet-over-exhaust engine that developed 2',4 HP. In 1905 Johann produced his first twin, and for the next ten years the tiny company produced many motorcycles for use on the roads. After World War 1 a brilliant engineer named G. Marcellino was brought in to head up the company after Johann had died in 1914, and this man. made Puch a major producer of motorbikes within just a few short years. MarceUino's first design was a two-stroke split-single in which both pistons used a common combustion chamber. Both pistons worked from a common split connecting rod, but the transfer ports were located in the rear cylinder and the exhaust port was located in the fron t cylinder. The idea was to obtain a cleaner running engine with less loss of the incoming fuel charge out the exhaust port, since those were the days before loop scavenging had been invented and a raised edge on the piston crown was used to preven t the loss of the fuel charge.. Another peculiarity was the crankshaft being mounted in lin" with the frame, which required a right-angle transmission to get the power to the rear chain. A two-speed gearbox was placed in the rear hub, and internal expanding brakes were used for the first time. Puch became interested in grand prix racing in 1925, and they fielded a unique two-stroke with a piston supercharger that won the 17 5cc class in the Austrian Grand Prix, In 1926 a three-speed racer made its debut, and then in 1927 a 250cc class model was introduced. Puch really went after the Sweden's Uno Palm campaigned a Puch in this year's GP series. championship in 1930 with their new 250cc split-single, which had a piston compressor and water cooling. A three-speed rear hub gearbox was shifted by hand, with the 14 horsepower at 4400 RPM providing respectable performance then. In-1931 a foot-shifted jfearbox made its debut, along with a faster model which developed 18 horsepower and ran 83 MPH. Elvito Toricheli won several grand prix events, inClUding the German GP over the favored DKWs. After this Puch dropped out of the racing game to concentrate on improving their production models. Puch also manufacturers heavy duty military equipment. This chassis is fur a 4-wheel drive personnel carrier. i J I f t I I I t ~ J ,.