This event, held on January 14 and 15, was the first classic two wheeler show I ever visited. And I enjoyed it very much, it was an eyeopener. I learned about moped and motorcycle brands I had never heard of before, some of them even came from my own country.
My knowledge about motorized two wheelers is (very) superficial. But I know there are plenty of Curbside Classic bike adepts, so please chime in and share your stories, pictures and information in your comment(s).
The marvellous moped above is a Batavus G50 Whippet with an ILO engine, a model introduced in 1962. Now let’s continue the ride…
1974 Triumph T120RV Bonneville.
1984 Hercules XE 5.
1977 Kreidler Florett RM.
1985 Peimo 80. Klaus Peisker from the DDR (the former state of East Germany) built two of these 80 cc racers.
A 50 cc Garelli Gran Turismo.
1971 Kreidler Florett K53.
A 1958 49 cc moped by Moto Parilla from Milan.
1963 Gerosa Sprint.
Zündapp from Germany, in its days the Mercedes-Benz among the light motorcycles and mopeds.
1963 Sparta Sport Speciaal (ILO engine).
1964 Magneet Sport 27 De Luxe (Sachs engine).
1978 Puch Maxi S.
Royal Nord was a Belgian manufacturer of mopeds and motorcycles.
This 50 cc Kreidler racer can do 210 km/h (131 mph).
1957 Kreidler Florett Eiertank (Egg tank).
1961 Royal Nord Super Vedette.
The famous and venerable front wheel drive Solex.
Moto Guzzi Hispania Dingo 49 cc.
1961 Express Carino with a Victoria engine.
1964 BM Jaguarino. BM was founded by the Italian motorcycle racer Mario Bonvicini.
An NSU Quickly.
Another splendid Royal Nord moped.
125 cc Moto Guzzi Stornello.
1980 Ducati 500 Sport.
1984 Ducati 600 SL Pantah.
1982 Benelli 900 Sei.
1971 Laverda 750 S.
1958 Moto Morini 175 Tresette.
From 1955 to 1957 Sparta built this Twin model with a 250 cc ILO engine.
1939 Sparta with a 122 cc Villiers engine.
1978 50 cc Sparta NGK racer.
1955 Sparta with a Steib sidecar and a 250 cc Victoria engine.
Sparta Sport 3V with a 50 cc Sachs engine, this model was built from 1969 to 1981.
1963 Sparta GG50 Sport Speciaal, engine by ILO.
From the fifties, a Sparta damesfiets, a bicycle for ladies. This kind of bicycle, and it must be black, is still very popular and is generally known as an Omafiets. That’s a Granny Bike, yet most riders are young girls. A simple and durable all-weather bicycle.
1992 Alan Record Cross with a Campagnolo Chorus 9 speed and Shamal wheels.
Some more classic racing bicycles; Jowan (Belgium), Gazelle (the Netherlands), Alan and Colnago (both from Italy).
RAP Stokvis Crown.
Peugeot 103.
Ducati 900 Super Sport.
1971 Kreidler Van Veen 50 cc racer. Maximum power output 21.2 hp @ 18,000 rpm.
Malaguti 50 cc Sport.
DKW did not only build two-stroke cars and light commercial vehicles.
1955 Zündapp KS601, 597 cc.
1936 Zündapp DK200, 198 cc.
1982 Zündapp KS 80 Super.
1938 Zündapp K500, 498 cc.
1929 Zündapp Z200, 198 cc.
1921 Levis, 211 cc.
1970 Kreidler Florett K53.
1944 BSA M20, 496 cc.
1961 Chiorda Sport.
1939 Eysink (Villiers engine).
1914 Indian Big Twin.
The most brutal bike of the show, in my opinion, this Norton F1 from the early nineties with a 588 cc rotary engine.
And we end the show with this Matchless motorcycle from London, UK.
wow that was awesome. bit of a small bike fan myself – just like i’m a fan of small cars. i have a friend with a 0 mile 50cc zundapp from 1970 i’m trying my best to convince him to sell to me. my wife and i have two mopeds – early 2000’s tomos’. they are fun, but you hardly see anyone riding peds anymore. i don’t care. i still like them a lot.
Wow! What a great show… very cool. So many bikes I never knew about.
Wow, Johannes! This is visual overload. More than I can handle at a time.
I love the bikes of the shot glass class (50cc). I am mostly familiar with the German brands you showed: Hercules, Kreidler, Zundapp, DKW, NSU.
The DKW Hummel (Bumblebee) engine shrouding is obviously styled after the Graham automobile’s grille.
The Velo Solex was the lowest priced motorized vehicle you could purchase in my youth time (60s/70s). DM 399.00 if I recall correctly.
My dad had a NSU Quickly with a 2 seat bench. then he had a Hercules MK IV which I enjoyed a lot: http://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-or-moal-1968-hercules-mk-iv-moped-of-a-lifetime/
And then you provided some real surprises. I did not know that Moto Guzzi was in the moped business.
I wasn’t aware of Royal Nord. They made beautiful mopeds!
I am pleased to see a Garelli. The famous “Neckermann” mail order house sold those in Germany. They also sold MZ and Jawa CZ bikes.
I certainly remember Neckermann, serious business here too.
Moto Guzzi must have had a Spanish branch of some sort, if you search for the Dingo it always says “Moto Guzzi Hispania”. I also took a picture of the Dingo’s “ISA-Guzzi” engine.
That’s true. I found an online community of Moto Guzzi Hispania with an article on the history. From what I could understand the Spanish government regulated a vehicle “ciclomotor” with stipulations that are equal to mopeds: must have pedals that work like a bicycle and may have an engine not exceeding 50cc and be limited to a top speed of no more than 40 kmh. Minimum age was 16 and it did not require a driver’s license, liability insurance and purchase was exempt of the luxury tax.
At first Moto Guzzi used an existing 65cc engine and reduced bore and travel to get it to 49cc. Speed was “automatically” limited by the low output. This first model was then replaced by the Dingo 49 in 1966.
http://www.guzzireal.com/viewtopic.php?f=388&t=212
The Sparta Sport Speciaal somehow reminds me of Pee Wee Herman’s beloved bicycle.
I know, I was wondering if all those wide whites were a new trend, I’ve never seen an actual motorcycle with tires like that.
The Ducati Pantah gave me a grin. A co-worker had one, he was constantly trying to sell me on the idea of owning a Ducati. I was riding a $900 used Honda motorcycle at the time, and never took him up on it. Let’s see, spend ten times as much for a really cool bike that has a punishing ride, is semi-reliable and hard to get parts for? No thanks.
Actually, the Pantah was the first Ducati that started playing with the Japanese bikes in reliability. We’re talking a rather solid motor, hurt only by the usual Italian indifferent build quality.
I owned a 906 Paso from essentially the same generation as that Pantah (pre-92) and always found it to be a very reliable ride – as long as services were done on time (not 1000 miles later), and as for ridership experience there’s no Japanese bike of the 80’s or 90’s that can touch a Ducati. There was just something different and completely superior about a Duck compared to a Japanese bike.
Yes, but my co-workers other suggestion was an SD900 Darmah, which was the only Ducati in my price range. (this was in the early 90’s)
Not an example of beauty or ease of maintenance, I think the belt driven ones worked out much better 🙂
About 10 years ago I had a young colleague, a serious biker. He had a Suzuki back then, I can’t remember the model and/or displacement. It was a “belly slider”, the widely used nickname here for that type of fast bikes.
But what he REALLY wanted back then, and so did his biker friends, was a Ducati. A few years ago he sent me an email with a picture of him, smiling, next to his bike….a Ducati.
Thanks for a very nice presentation. Despite a love affair with bikes, I never heard of, much less saw, most of these bikes. I would have loved to see the Norton rotary. I never knew they experimented with rotary engines.
I was surprised there were no Bultacos. In the early 70’s, my roommate and I both competed in amateur events with well used (OK – pretty beat) Bultacos. They were a great Spanish bike that had varients popular in different off-road categories. Mine was a Matador, a great in trail bike. My roommates was a Sherpa T, a great trials bike.
Both or us worked fairly low paying jobs and were paying college tuition. Any motorcycle was a ridiculous luxury. In a thought process that really can’t be duplicated by anyone over 25, we were both convinced having a motorcycle was as essential as oxygen. We shared a lot of Kraft macaroni & cheese dinners ($0.20/box at the time) to feed our motorcycle habit.
The Norton rotary was originally a BSA back in 1971. Given the tumultuous circumstances of the 70’s (BSA/Triumph, bankruptcy, Norton/Villiers/Triumph, bankcuptcy again, a chronically underfunded Norton surviving as a company just slightly larger than “three guys in a shed”) it was surprising that Norton got the rotary in production.
Assuming you can call 100 air cooled models, and then not that many more water cooled models “production”.
Thanks for this. I love looking at small motorbikes. My first motor vehicle was a 1971 Benelli Mini-Enduro (remarkably similar to a Yamaha that went by the same name), purchased from none other than a J.C. Penney’s Auto Center. Yes, kids, there was a time when Sears, Penny’s and Wards were cool.
Nice essay.A similar outdoor show of this type occurs in Spencer Mass concurrent with the Brimfield antique fair every October.It unfortunate the US market doesn’t have this mix of sub 100 cc bikes still available-they were inexpensive fun transportation when I was growing up.
Ring ding overload! In a good way 🙂
I love light motorcycles and mopeds. My first bike was a Bridgestone 90, which I need to write up sometime. And I helped a friend legalize a Peugeot 103 just like the one you shot. I had to add a brake light to get it licensed in Iowa; used a 6v dry cell battery in the saddle bag to power it.
Thanks for a very colorful morning.
Kreidlers Rock! Lessee, 21hp from a 50cc… that would be more than 400hp from a literbike, if it could be scaled up…kinda blows my mind. And to think Puch somehow managed to build my ’78 Maxi N with a 2 hp 50cc motor- the performance version of the 1.5 hp stocker!
What an amazing collection of 2 wheelers, and only one Honda in sight, barely seen behind the 1980 Ducati 500 Sport. I’m very sorry I was not at that show.
I deliberately skipped all the “usual (Japanese) suspects”, of course there were plenty of them at the show. I’d say they already got and get enough world-wide-web-attention.
And here’s the sign next to the Kreidler Van Veen (6 speed transmission, built in 1971).
Here is a brief video of 2 Kreidler at speed. The sound of the engine can be mind numbing and was the butt of many jokes. All 50cc 2 cycle engines sounded very similar to that. Truth to be told they are the one major demerit of these machines.
https://youtu.be/G6b45TzKIok
Great combination of the Kreidlers and the scenery !
Fascinating stuff – I was unaware of probably 90% of these makes.
That Batavus at the beginning reminds me of a shrunken Ariel Arrow.
Fascinating article, as I’ve got to see a lot of motorcycles that I’ve known existed but would never see in the US because, at 50cc, they would be considered children’t toys over here.
By comparison, I’ve had newbies come into the Honda/Yamaha/Can-Am shop where I work and turn down the thought of buying a CBR60RR because that’s a “girls bike” opting for the CBR1000RR instead. Never mind that the 600 puts out 120hp and does 0-60 in less than 4 seconds.
That lineup of Ducatis really hit home, as we had a few of them come thru Ducati Richmond when I worked there. Including one brand new ’81 600 Pantah that we took out of the crate and built for the owner – in 2001.
The number of 49/50 cc mopeds was overwhelming. It’s a seriously big hobby world. Note that these were often daily drivers back then, not only for the 16+ boys and girls, but also to ride to work in later life.
Most of the bikes and mopeds were for sale. I’ll post the Pantah’s price tag when I get home this evening, just to give you an impression.
This is even better, the website -in English- of the classic motorcycle dealer, with their whole stock (“Bikes”). The € 5,750 Pantah included:
http://www.earlymotors.com/
Also fascinating to see a Chiorda motorcycle. To me, Chiorda is a bicycle brand, last seen during the Bike Boom of the early 70’s.
For reasons lost to history, the NSU Quickly’s smaller-engined sibling NSU Slowly failed to sell.
Sachs magnett talvez de 1958 motor 47cc 3v de punho qual sera história dela?
Imformacoes sobre sachs magnett 47cc 3v punho