That is interesting Greg. My 199B is 14773B and it was the first one and only one over here in Australia for a long time. It was privately imported from England in about 1982 I think. A mates one is 13441B so it is much earlier than mine. So going by your numbers mine is a very late one. Graham.

Yes mine was imported from the USA [mid 90's] along with a second one which has just been purchased by a Queensland collector/rider

A pal bought a Bultaco back in very early Seventies and the numbers did not match. The local dealer said this was something to do with avoiding purchase tax which did not apply if the bike was sold in kit form, which it wasn't. The introduction of value added tax closed that loophole.

Anything could have happened near the end with Bultaco. It is my understanding from those that have worked at the factory that before 1980 all bikes that were assembled left the factory with matching numbers. In Franco era Spain the government was extremely stringent in this regard. They kept dibs on all exports to be sure the government got its share. If you now have a non matching numbers bike built before 1980 then it was changed after it left Spain. This I am absolutely sure of. When the 199B was being produced I do believe all record keeping was lost. By then Franco was long gone and the economic policies had changed. The 198 series bike were separate numbers altogether. They didn't combine production values. some years back I recorded every Bultaco serial number I came across. Be it eBay or other websites just to see if for example say 167 and 168 pursangs shared a production run. They didn't. I found identical numbers for both models. Also worth noting is serial number batches were sent to certain parts of the world. For example I know that model 75 Matadors with serial numbers between 2000 and 2200 were sent to western Canada. I know that model 167 pursangs in the 1500 range were sent to eastern u.s. And so on. Further research has also proven that the British importers regularly swapped engines in frames. I hear way more frequently of non matching numbers in England than here in North America. Maybe there were displacement laws at the time..... I don't know. But it seems that was the case. This new info regarding numbers in the 14920 range is fascinating. Id be interested see where this research goes

Steve

Thank you for your post steven75, very interesting.

 

Some of you as pschrauber or sherpa325 are posting that last 199B´s were around 14653B or 14778B.

 

But as I wrote before we have already recorded 19914920B in Barcelona, and this particular bike has a Spanish road registration number since new and it is registered in the archives of the "Dirección General de Tráfico" since then (http://www.dgt.es/es/). The owner also has the original Characteristics Certificate of that bike provided by Bultaco and needed to road register any vehicle here.

 

This archives are public and any person can access to the history of a registered vehicle. Also here in Spain a registration number is linked to a frame and it is not possible to change it never ever!!!

 

But that bike is not the only one that is a later numbers to those pschrauber or sherpa325 regard as the last, as we also have for example 14894B in the UK, 14813B in Andorra or 14912B in Bilbao...

The thread continues to grow, along with the list of frame numbers, which is fascinating to a Bultaco enthusiast such as myself.

 

I can back up 100% what my good friend 'Greeves' was saying about the 'Dirreccion General de Trafico', I have one from a machine that I now own. I had to exhibit that very document to the UK authorities, being the HMRC and the DVLA before the machine could be re-registered in the UK as it had been registered, from new, with the Barcelona road traffic authorities in October 1981.

 

This helped when I was able to present the DVLA with a dating certificate from my good friends at InMotion/Bultaco UK. To whom I am again grateful to once again!

 

This is a 340 model 199B which I now own and all formalities are fully complete.

 

It goes to prove once again that road registered machines have a slightly higher value than those that have not been registered. I would estimate that this adds over £200 to the value of a Bultaco Sherpa. valid documents are now very high on my tick box list!

 

The quest continues then for the highest frame/chassis number on a Bultaco Sherpa T mod.199B!

 

Big John

Not any help as to total numbers produced, I know, but here's a quote in a letter from the great "Legs":-

 

"The bike you have is one of the last six speed Sherpa's imported into the country.

Imported on 18th April 1983.

The bike was sold to Ernie Page Motorcycles in Edinburgh.

By your description it sounds like a Vesty replica."

 

The bike referred to is about 30 numbers below this one in Greeves post :-

"Second document is astonishing:

Bultaco No.: 199.14.688-B, Imported to Germany: 30.06.1983, (through Switzerland (bike was former registered in CH)), through custom of Freiburg, first road registering in Germany: 30.06.1983."

Not any help as to total numbers produced, I know, but here's a quote in a letter from the great "Legs":-

 

"The bike you have is one of the last six speed Sherpa's imported into the country.

Imported on 18th April 1983.

The bike was sold to Ernie Page Motorcycles in Edinburgh.

By your description it sounds like a Vesty replica."

 

The bike referred to is about 30 numbers below this one in Greeves post :-

"Second document is astonishing:

Bultaco No.: 199.14.688-B, Imported to Germany: 30.06.1983, (through Switzerland (bike was former registered in CH)), through custom of Freiburg, first road registering in Germany: 30.06.1983."

 

I'm in regular contact with Ernie Page. Ernie had a Bultaco agency through Comerfords and rode his own 340 in Lanarkshire MCC trials around 1983/84 as I was their treasurer at that time and rode my 199A 325, which I still have. I'm not sure if he still has his 340. I'll ask next time I speak with him.

 

Big John

 

The thread continues to grow, along with the list of frame numbers, which is fascinating to a Bultaco enthusiast such as myself.

 

I can back up 100% what my good friend 'Greeves' was saying about the 'Dirreccion General de Trafico', I have one from a machine that I now own. I had to exhibit that very document to the UK authorities, being the HMRC and the DVLA before the machine could be re-registered in the UK as it had been registered, from new, with the Barcelona road traffic authorities in October 1981.

 

This helped when I was able to present the DVLA with a dating certificate from my good friends at InMotion/Bultaco UK. To whom I am again grateful to once again!

 

This is a 340 model 199B which I now own and all formalities are fully complete.

 

It goes to prove once again that road registered machines have a slightly higher value than those that have not been registered. I would estimate that this adds over £200 to the value of a Bultaco Sherpa. valid documents are now very high on my tick box list!

 

The quest continues then for the highest frame/chassis number on a Bultaco Sherpa T mod.199B!

 

Big John

 

Just as an aside I feel the real value of registration is that it enables identification of historic or significant bikes.  Now that so few bikes are registered, let alone that some supported riders seem to use several bikes in a season, we have largely lost the ability to say that a bike is ex so and so or the one that somebody won the Scottish on etc.

 

I feel this is a loss to posterity but probably most folk no longer place the same value on history/provenance with modern bikes?

 

You may well be right about the value.  I know someone who had a BSA that had been owned by someone notable (whose name I can’t now recall) but he sold the registration number thus reducing the machine, in my opinion, to just another old BSA.

I have been checking an original Bultaco parts book special for official dealers, and in that book you can read that the first six speed Bultaco was frame number   JB-19912885B.

 

pschrauber, you talk about JB-19912876B being the first B model. Maybe those 9 bikes 12876B to 12884B could be prototypes for competition using the 326,2 cc engines 5 speed or maybe even 350cc with the older 5 speed gear box?

 

The first one we have recorded at the moment is JB-19912920B in Palma de Mallorca, also another early one JB19912941B in Córdoba in southern Spain.

 

The later ones still JB-19914912B in Bilbao and JB19914920B in Barcelona.

john is certainly correct in that 'numbers correct' vehicles carry a premium, more so since the airing of the many US tv shows where vehicles are bought and sold. However they should also be regarded as only one part of the whole. His complete history to his bike is clear and documented with others though it is less clear witness the recent topic on these pages on royal enfield registration numbers where 3 registration numbers covered virtually every works/development bike they built and the incredibly interesting article recently regarding sammy millers bultaco that was or wasnt where many believed..

 

 

Interesting topic.

Just out of interest how accurate are the akront date stamps on the rims?

This must give an indication of when they left the factory irrespective of frame numbers.

Accurate but can be six months old or more when put on bikes.

Just as an aside I feel the real value of registration is that it enables identification of historic or significant bikes.  Now that so few bikes are registered, let alone that some supported riders seem to use several bikes in a season, we have largely lost the ability to say that a bike is ex so and so or the one that somebody won the Scottish on etc.

 

I feel this is a loss to posterity but probably most folk no longer place the same value on history/provenance with modern bikes?

 

You may well be right about the value.  I know someone who had a BSA that had been owned by someone notable (whose name I can’t now recall) but he sold the registration number thus reducing the machine, in my opinion, to just another old BSA.

2stroke4stroke,

 

The BSA to which you refer was an ex-Bryan Povey BSA C15T, from which the original registration was sold off from the machine. I remember it well, a friend and former Scottish Trials Champion owned the bike, I begged him not to split the number from the machine, to which he asked if I wanted to buy the bike, but I didn't want it as the bike wasn't in a very good order at that time. The plate is now a 'cherished number' and the bikes history totally destroyed at the stroke of a pen!

 

Big John 

Accurate but can be six months old or more when put on bikes.

So when did the last 199B leave the factory. Or should I say when did the doors shut for good.

I'm in regular contact with Ernie Page. Ernie had a Bultaco agency through Comerfords and rode his own 340 in Lanarkshire MCC trials around 1983/84 as I was their treasurer at that time and rode my 199A 325, which I still have. I'm not sure if he still has his 340. I'll ask next time I speak with him.

 

Big John

 

 

Thanks for that,

There was a suggestion that Mike Bell may have ridden it in the 1983 Scottish but that trail fizzled out.

 

Bulltaco.