No other brand had this kind of success in the 1970s! Not Honda. International Six Day Enduro ISDT – Multiple Gold Metal Winners. Grand Prix Road Racing – Multiple World Champions. Dominated The Sport!įlat-track and Short-track – Multiple World Champions. Observed Trials – Multiple World Champions. Bultaco had all of these back in the day. Reliability, Power, Light Weight, Handling, and Low Cost of Ownership. Clear Up Some Disinformation and Lies: First some truths: Bultaco was the best dirt bike ever made.
I even tried observed trials, but those trials guys are crazy! Trials is a dangerous sport! I never did travel to race nationals, as I was too busy with the store and school. I also competed in some flat-track, scrambles, and enduro events.
Over the next 10 years I raced at least 14 different bultaco motorcycles. Crazy Mitch could really tune my 125 Bultaco! Three years later, I was racing the 125, 250, and open expert classes. This 100cc bike was faster than a kitted Yamaha 250! This bike should have been illegal to own as it was a death machine! The next year, I raced a Bultaco 125 Sherpa-S and started winning races. I started racing Moto-cross when I was 13 on a very powerful, but poor handling Bridgestone 100 Racer. We knew if we sold 6 bikes a week, we would make $750 and could pay all the bills. My father would order like 20 motorcycles at a time to get a better deal. It was not like today, where you ordered just enough bikes to fill holes in the inventory. My father took care of the store up front. I worked on thousands of bikes in our shop, including many Bultacos. Poor Mitch was working 12 hours a day! Crazy Mitch was getting huge paychecks, but would blow it on women, weed, and bail bonds. There was good money in outdoor power equipment! The repair volume in our back shop more than doubled, so I started helping when I was only 12 years old. We also added some lines of lawnmowers and chainsaws. There was not much profit in selling motorcycles as you would be lucky to make $125 on a sale. They done everything to make sure we had bikes to sell, even years after Bridgestone stopped production. The Bridgestone importer, Rockford Motors was amazing. We also tried to get Kawasaki, but they wanted a big chunk of money up front. Mitch talked my father into taking on the Bultaco line. Crazy Mitch that worked in the back raced flat-track on a Bultaco.
Plus the Rockford Motors lines: Bridgestone, Chibi, Tora, Taka, MCB (Monark) and Zundapp. Over the years we sold Bultaco, AJS-Matchless, DKW-Sachs, Hodaka, Powell, Bonanza, Rupp, Steen, Cagiva, and Rickman (kits). Enjoy!īackground and History: I pretty much grew up in a motorcycle dealership in California.
If any additional credit is needed please feel free to send us an email. It is very informative and a great read, and I wanted to do my part in archiving this information for Bultaco enthusiasts to use for years to come. Whether or not it really worked was never substantiated-other than the fact that Bultacos had enormous pull and low-end torque.The following excerpt is from a Facebook group titled “ BulTaco Astro Racers, Builders, Enthusiast.” It goes into great detail from the perspective of an enthusiast who grew up with Bultaco motorcycles. The concept was a basic aspect of physics more inertia was transferred to the crank. The theory was that on the power stroke, the piston rod was pushing more straight down on the crank-as opposed to being at an angle. Cylinders were offset, positioned slightly forward above the crank. They employed an interesting design element in their engines that significantly influenced the nature of the machine’s power delivery.
In 1974 Bultacos were right foot shift, making the change to left side in 1975. Having great torque allowed the rider to rely on brute power to get them out of corners a gear high, thus requiring less shifting. Despite the limitations of suspension travel they managed to be relatively stable (for the period). In corners, their ability to either pivot in soft or hard soil, or to rail berms with equal aplomb, made them extremely accommodating for a range of riding styles. They had shapely, extremely thin fiberglass gas tanks-so thin that the head fins stuck out on either side. In the first round of the World Championship of motocross in 1973, an unknown Jim Pomeroy debuted with a spectacular victory over reigning champions.īultacos (or “Buls” as they were affectionately known) a beauty all their own. The best story of the Bultaco Pursang was starred by a barely 20-year-old pilot, at the controls of a near-production Mk6. Pictured before and after I completed a total restoration of this numbers matching Bultaco MK6 M101 175cc Pursang.