FEATURE
P82
PERE TARRAGÓ
The finished product… a Bultaco Metralla.
rough wooden crates the originals were originally shipped in.
Pere Tarragó, 61, is one of
those fortunate men who's made
his hobby his livelihood – a fact
that allows him to shrug off the
long eight to 10-hour days he
spends seated at his workbench
hand-crafting the more than 500
individual components that make
up one of his creations. Then he
assembles them into a complete
model that is visually identical to
the original motorcycle.
Formerly an electronics engineer, he previously owned an audio equipment store in downtown
Barcelona – the fact he was a
Bang & Olufsen dealer gives you
an idea of the level he worked at
– before selling it in 2007. It was
then that he switched careers to
become a full time model builder, in between exploring Europe
together with his wife on the
Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail
Classic that shares his garage
with a Moto Beta 250 dirt bike.
"I'd been making models ever
since I was a kid – first with Meccano, then small scale copies
first of cars, then ships, aircraft,
and finally motorcycles," says
Tarragó. "I made my first twowheeled model in 1995, which
was the 1972 Bultaco Metralla in
1:6 scale, but to do so I had to
make each link of the chain by
hand, which was very time-consuming, and rather boring. Still,
it was displayed at the big Auto
Retro show here in Barcelona,
and the response was quite
overwhelming. Many people
asked me to make one for them,
too, without, of course, knowing
a price. But then a company in
Japan started selling chains in
1:5 scale – so of course I had to
completely remake the Bultaco
in a smaller scale to suit that.
"I considered the larger one as
a prototype, and indeed I learned
a lot from making it, which still
stands me in good stead today.
So next I built a Montesa Brio in
1996, and three years later an
Ossa 150, followed by an MV
Agusta 175 Squalo, which was
my first four-stroke. By now I'd
