26 replies to this topic

[gasgas249uk]

I dont know about you .......and im a bit embarressed to say it .......but when ive been rebuilding and restoring my wierd Spanish things ive often thought about the old factories where they were made.I would have loved to have had a good look around them.

You know some guys go over to Normandy and research a lost relative , well im considering going over to Europe and tracking down the old factories and photing them.

Perhaps the bike builders are still going , perhaps the buildings are now making ice cream , perhaps theyve been demolished.

Some of you guys no doubt may have been involved in these factories and it would be amazing to see photos of them.

Id love to see the old Fantic ,JCM ,Alfer , factory and the early GasGas place.They are all of interest , old and new.

Anyway - how about a thread listing Google Maps locations and photos of the bike factories , redundant - closed down , or not.

To start it all off ive managed to track down the Old Mecatecno factory - which i believe is still the same building it was back in the late 80's
Here's the link - click or copy and paste it.


http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sour...mp;t=h&z=19


Id also love to see exactly where the Valmalenco 1980 Italian World round was held in the steep hillside ive seen videos of.

[htrdoug]

Fantic factory
then

now

Edited by htrdoug, 01 March 2010 - 02:30 PM.

[Lee Harris]

The barzago factory has since been knocked down and there is nothing there

shame sob

[wayne_weedon]

Not aircooled monoshock, but I saved a few of the Bultaco factory for years I found on an old hard drive.

Edited by wayne_weedon, 27 February 2012 - 03:37 PM.

[B40RT]

Why were you at the factory Wayne ?

[wayne_weedon]

B40RT, on Mar 1 2010, 07:09 PM, said:

Why were you at the factory Wayne ?

I wasn't Ross. I've had these pictures for years, I think I saved them from a now long defunct website.

They are fairly interesting though and were worth keeping.

Wayne....

[Baldilocks]

JCM factory was at a place called Vesoul in eastern France

can t remember exactly where but I went in a merc van once and its a long way from Newcastle !

We went through Reims i think but this was August 1986 so I may be wrong.

The factory was just a large workshop on the back of the Trail 70 shop, the shop may still be there

[seth29]

Hi there we had a holiday in France this year and we got to the J.C.M factory in Vesoul its well worth a look I have a J.C.M 323 and needed some parts so got to meet Joel corry. what a nice person. The museum is well worth a look http://www.trail70.f...age=1127457149. He is so in to J.C.M you would not believe it, he will help no end wich is good to see. we are going back next year to do the 2 day trial.
you have to look how far in front the jcm was, air suspension,fuel under the seat, air intake from the head stock,1st trials mono.we can go on.

[gasgas249uk]

Im off to Spain in the next fortnight to pick up a few bikes ive heard about which tickle my fancy .Whilst im down there im treating myself and the lucky wife to a tour of the retro Trials world down there. Mainly the Eastern coast of Spain. I know .....im to generous.

What i need are addresses of factories so i can go and smell the history, revela in the past glory and inevitable dissapointment. Ill take photos for myself and anyone interested. Ive just always wanted to go down there and have a mooch around .Sure , many of the factories have gone but there are a few that are still standing and i want to get them captured before they do dissapear.

Can you help at all with road names, addresses , grid refs etc.

Im not expecting much but some of you must know something an have memories of the dealer parties etc and know of the locations

Cheers

[MartinM]

Dony know about Factories...but if you are in the area, these people are well worth a visit Bellavista

Have a nice trip

Martin

Edited by MartinM, 06 January 2011 - 09:53 AM.

[Kramit]

gasgas249uk, on 05 January 2011 - 10:19 PM, said:

Im off to Spain in the next fortnight to pick up a few bikes ive heard about which tickle my fancy .Whilst im down there im treating myself and the lucky wife to a tour of the retro Trials world down there. Mainly the Eastern coast of Spain. I know .....im to generous.

What i need are addresses of factories so i can go and smell the history, revela in the past glory and inevitable dissapointment. Ill take photos for myself and anyone interested. Ive just always wanted to go down there and have a mooch around .Sure , many of the factories have gone but there are a few that are still standing and i want to get them captured before they do dissapear.

Can you help at all with road names, addresses , grid refs etc.

Im not expecting much but some of you must know something an have memories of the dealer parties etc and know of the locations

Cheers

Just flag down the oldest Taxi driver you can find and ask him to lead you too your desired factory location.

[gasgas249uk]

Courtesy of Mr GasGas USA Jim Snell this the Google map of the Merlin factory that later Morphed into GasGas

http://maps.google.c...5,0.000431&z=21

He visited the factory on many occasions and can be seen visiting the closed factory recently on this video

[gasgas249uk]

Carrer de Francesc Vila, 6, 08173 St Cugat del Vallès, Spain
http://m.google.co.uk/u/m/z1ETPv

Fans of retro 80's Spanish bikes will remember Alfer.

This link leads to the Alfer factory in Barcelona. If you do streetview the Alfer name is still above the door.
These guys made the tx300 trials bike. Very very rare. It was released at about the same time the Aprilia climber came out. The climber was watercooled and the Alfer wasn't , so not a good start. It had a Spanish villers engine.

The company made murmurings of a watercooled bike , but the prototype never went into production.

This company is still technically going but its more of a hobby , the original Ossa world champion owner got out.

They are currently working on an electric enduro bike

I'll blag a tour round next month when I'm down and post some photos if I'm lucky

Nice find though

[gasgas249uk]

Following a recent visit to Barcelona i located the Mecatecno factory. It was open as being painted. Two very local old timers confirmed it to be the factory . Here are the pictures. Apparently back in the day it was arranged on different floors .

Here also is the old Gas Gas Factory in Fornells de la Selva , the origional one , the launch place of modern trials. This was the Merlin factory started and run by Ignacio Bulto. When the company folded in 1988 GasGas moved straight in. Merlin used Cagiva engines and about 150 of the 125 Cagiva engines were left by Merlin as part of the take over. These were used in early GasGas's

Heres a pic of the front door. If you look carefully you can see the outline of the Merlin logo on the top of the "Gas Gas"

Heres the bike and gear wash room on the ground floor

This are some of the bike assembly rooms on the ground floor


As you can see , its almost empty and quite spooky

I predominently visited this place because of my interest in Merlins. I wasnt expecting anything to be lying around from the Merlin days.............
Looking up through the ceiling

Then up the stairs to the vast room with vaulted veiling
What the Hell! From what i was told this was a storage room with small ovens to heat casings prior to dropping the bearings in




Part of the floor raised up and down to the ground floor

Parts boxes still there - empty



A set of Telesco Merlin nomada forks

The GasGas sales lady's office

There was an small internal door leading from GasGas to hebo and here was this - no doubt a Gas Gas warning/joke


Ive got some other pics of this visit and some of the GasGas factory in operation. Ill have to dig them out

[Eddie_Lejeune]

thanks for posting these, they are very interesting.