Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Page 33 October 16, 1973 chrome-moly frame, nylon fenders. The fact that Vehkonen really is racing a Montesa test bed in GP's; the fact that Ossa has kept their new bike back until it got the final seal of World Championship approval frankly shows some class. Nobody else in the world is offering this year's GP bikes to the public next year. Nobody. (Don't worry, you wouldn't want this year's GP bikes this year without the factory wrench to keep them running. And that's too expensive.) Prices and Policies This policy is not anything particularly new. Bullaco's TSS road racer in both air and water cooled versions was available to the privateer at a privateer's price. Montesa sold their super-successful 125 road racer to whoever ante'd it up and Ossa, after their Isle of Man TT win in the 250 class, offered a IT replica to the privateer racer. None were gre'at marketing successes but all were racing successes. The same is true in other aspects of motorcycle competition. The first Sherpa T was entered in the Grenoble Trial of 1964. Two years later, the names Sammy Miller and Bultaco Sherpa T had become linked in the minds of plonkers the world over. The Montesa Cota 247 followed in 1967 a natural reaction to Bultaco's new specialization when they saw that a street bike with trials tires was not the answer. By 1969, in the hands of some very capable Englishmen, Man tesa had a bike good enough to win the Scottish Six Days Trial as a team for four years in a row. European Champion Miele: Andrews did the development testing and put his. name on -Ossa's trials machin.e and the reaction cycle had completed one more round. The in teresting, and basically importan t, thing is that none of the factories were using one-off specials for their own riders and selling something with the same colored gas tank to the - public. And they were offering competition machines to the motorcycle-buyer at prices he could afford. Most places today you can buy a Pursang or Stiletto 250 for less than its Japanese-built rival, particularly since the yen-dollar revaluation. The dollar price didn't drop quite so radically in Spain. Nowadays, a new Vehkonen Replica Montesa will au tprice an orien tal 250 MXer bu t then you're getting the bike Kalevi had last year. In 1974, you1l be buying the bike he's riding in GP's this year. Next year's BuItacas and Ossa's will, if anything goes according to current plans, be improved substantially and priced in the $1200 range for a 250 motocrosser. That's beginning to look like a good price for a new racer from across the ocean as the dollar can tinues to plummet in the world money market. A "sell what you race" policy means you're not going to see too many more three-figure prices on competition machines from Spain; at least, in the 250 class and up. And it doesn't cost •that much less to make a first class competition 125, right,John Penton? There's not much of an increased profit margin cranked into a price increase F.O.B. factory Barcelona, either. You come away from days of discussion and observation with the real feeling that the owners and managers of all three factories are more in terested in making good motorcycles to the limit of their native ability rather than in making all. the money they can on each sale.. That's one reason they don't offer several dozen models for export with the scatter-gun marketing theory that one of them is bound to please almost everybody. They have concentrated on a few.export models and really tried, though not always with perfect success, to make them "right". But they get a lot closer every time they try. Bultaco is building a new factory nex t year and there was some talk of expanding production. Senor BuIto doesn't want to.expand production. He is insisting on keeping output at the current level (They can sell everything they build.) and taking advan tage of the new facility to improve quality control and make his racing machines better. l\1ontesa is also building, but mainly to separate moped production from r·acer production. Montesa has a new 360 engine that is an impressive piece of engineering and power plan t by any standards. It runs well, has a broad powerband and enough horses to blow off most anything in the international motocross class. Upon repeated prodding as to why they didn't put it in the slightly modified VR frame and go into production, they replied, "Well, it's not quite ready yet and it must be right." "Couldn't you take a chance?" 1 think as 1 sit hungrily eyeing the staggered ripple-fin cylinder, short rigid crank with virtually no lower end volume and the new small rotor Motoplat hanging off the end, all sitting in front of a wall chart showing horsepower curves with different pipes. (The same is true of their new 125 MXer.) 1£ Ossa gets their new' 250 MX into the hands of Yankee Motors this year, it too will be a revelation. In stock form, it is one pound above the minimum FlM weight limit for 250cc motocress machines. The engine has been hyped just a taste to make sure it can run with the "specials" without sacrificing the famous Ossa torque curve. Yet, with all the conditional ifs, ands, or buts in the previous paragraphs, the Spanish factories have always ,been in the forefront of technical innovation and pu tting the new goodies on bikes they sell - after they think the new goodies are sufficiently proven. Bultaco was the first to offer a near

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