Montesa
Montesa (Spanish wild, untamed ) is a Spanish motorcycle manufacturer . The brand has been part of the Japanese Honda group since 1985 .
history
1940s
In 1939, the Spanish entrepreneur Pere Permanyer Puigjaner began manufacturing gas generators for automobiles in a workshop in Barcelona . Due to the demand, the company called PPP soon had to move to larger factory premises. Permanyer had been friends with Josep Antoni Soler i Urgell since his military service. Through him he met Francesc Xavier Bultó in 1944 and the trio decided to manufacture motorcycles in the PPP premises in Barcelona. As early as February 1945, the first unnamed prototype was completed and handed over to the Royal Motorcycle Club of Catalonia for testing.
In June 1945 the first motorcycles under the name Montesa were shown at the motorcycle fair in Barcelona. It was the basic version of type A-4 with 98 cm³ displacement and three-speed manual transmission, a so-called "Lady" model and a version with rear suspension. In the same year, 21 of the 8,500 Pesetas motorcycle were sold.
The company's founders were interested in trial sports from an early age . To prove the reliability of their motorcycles, five machines drove to Caldes de Boí in the Pyrenees . In the same year, Montesa motorcycles took part for the first time in a race, the "Primer Premio Motociclista de Montjuic", and were able to win four times in the 100 cm³ class. In the summer of 1946 Montesa was able to win the Barcelona Grand Prix and the Spanish motorcycle road championship in the classes up to 100 and up to 125 cm³ with a 125 cm³ model . The racing motorcycle went on sale at the end of 1946 as the "B-46" model. In 1947 the company was transformed into Permanyer SA de Industrias Mecánicas with a capital of 810,000 Pesetas, in 1948 a capital increase to 2,310,000 Pesetas took place. The company's monthly turnover was around 500,000 pesetas. In the same year, the models of the Montesa brand celebrated their first international racing successes.
There are no longer any original factory machines , only the racing machines built in-house in the 1950s and 1960s based on the "Brio 90/91" or "Brio 110" models from the British importer Jim Bound (4-speed Sprint models and 6 -Grand-Prix models). These two 6-speed machines (based on the “Brio 110”) were driven in international races by Peter Fairbridge (England) and Leif Smeden (Sweden). The components of the factory machines were later installed in other production racers. Montesa “factory machines” at the end of the 1960s were copies of the Villa brand or factory modified “Impala” versions.
The 1950s
Due to increased demand, production was relocated to larger premises in the Calle de Pamplona in Barcelona in 1951 in order to secure the production of the new "D-51" model. In 1953 the most successful model "Brio 90" followed and for the first time Montesa presented its models at the Geneva Motor Show . Further international successes followed in 1954, including a. at the Grand Prix in São Paulo and at the Isle of Man TT . With the "Sprint" presented at the end of 1954, further sporting successes could be achieved. In 1955, the “Brio” was the first Montesa model to have a handbrake; Permanyer had bought the patent from a Dutch inventor.
Due to state-decreed cost savings in 1958, Permanyer was forced to discontinue sporting activities in favor of series production. Here About provoking a disagreement with Bultó, who then sold his shares and with some leading employees of the company with Bultaco established his own motorcycle production and a little later the "Bultaco Tralla 101" brought to market. Although Montesa stumbled due to the departure of one of the company's leading figures, it was able to recover and in 1959 delivered the first motorcycles to Japan . In 1963 the company moved to the new factory premises in Esplugues de Llobregat . At the time, the company had 460 employees and produced around 11,000 motorcycles a year.
The 1960s and 1970s
One of Montesa's most spectacular marketing campaigns was “Operation Impala”, during which three prototypes of the Montesa Impala crossed the African continent once from Cape Town in the south to Tunis in the north in 1962 . The three machines covered around 20,000 kilometers in 100 days.
In 1963, Montesa began exporting its models to the United States . The importer Kim Kimball was soon forced to set up a sales company called "Montesa Motors Inc." due to the great demand, which was soon represented with around 350 dealers in all US states . But Montesa was also active again in motorsport, in 1964 Montesa again took part in international motocross races. The entry into the moped market followed in 1965 .
The following years were crowned by further sporting successes, motorcycles of the Cota model series were able to achieve various championship titles up to the 1980s, such as B. 1979 to 1981 the US Trial Championships and 1969 and 1980 the European and World Championships.
Cooperation with Honda
In 1985 it was taken over by Honda. The Spanish factories also manufacture motorcycles as Honda motorcycles, e.g. B. the models Honda XL 650V Transalp (travel enduro), Honda Montesa CRM 75 (competition machine with street legal / enduro ), Honda Varadero 125 and 1000 (travel enduro), as well as the tourer Honda NT 650V Deauville . Currently the manufacturer is known as Montesa-Honda at Honda Racing HRC.
literature
- Mick Walker: European Racing Motorcycles . Redline, 2000, ISBN 978-0-9531311-3-6 , pp. 169 ff .
- Encyclopedia of the motorcycle . Brands - models - technology. Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1999, ISBN 3-86047-142-2 , p. 334-335 (Italian: Enciclopedia della moto . Novara .).
Web links
- Official company website. Montesa-Honda SA, accessed May 20, 2009 (Spanish).
- Montesa company history. webermichl.at, accessed on May 20, 2009 .
- Illustrated model variety from Montesa. ramisaction.com, accessed September 7, 2011 (Spanish).