The Pennsylvania State University

The Graduate School

School of Humanities

A HISTORY OF MAICO MOTORCYCLES

AND

AMERICAN SPORT MOTORCYCLE CULTURE,

1955-1983

A Dissertation in

American Studies

by

David Wayne Russell

Copyright 2015 David Wayne Russell

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

May 2015

The dissertation of David W. Russell was reviewed and approved* by the following:

Charles D. Kupfer Associate Professor of American Studies and History Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee

Anne A. Verplanck Associate Professor of American Studies and Heritage Studies

Simon J. Bronner Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Folklore Director, Doctoral Program in American Studies Coordinator, American Studies Program

Seth Wolpert Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering

*Signatures are on file in the Graduate School

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ABSTRACT

Within American motorcycling, sport riders—the skilled enthusiasts who compete on motorcycles in a variety of venues—are often overlooked. This dissertation explains the practices and characteristics of a unique group of these American sport riders who embraced off- road motorcycle competition in the 1960s and 1970s. It reveals a cultural entity vastly different from the more flamboyant “biker” and “outlaw” groups, investigated by scholars over the past few decades. These enthusiasts relied on a close-knit group of fellow riders and dealers, and usually maintained and modified their bikes themselves. This group continued an American racing subculture far removed from that of the on-road motorcyclists. The freedom to try new things, expressed in early 1970s world culture, further propelled off-road riding and racing, contributing to the “motorcycle boom” and the 1973 high point of motorcycle sales in the United States. One of the several high-quality racing motorcycles available to these sport riders was the German Maico. Maico developed a particularly exceptional motorcycle that attracted many of the most committed riders in the United States in the 1950s through 1981. While several other motorcycle brands attracted similar followings, and could perhaps provide an equally good material culture object from which to assess the men who rode them, Maico’s status as the finest of the brands and its very unique rise and fall, lend the story special appeal and make Maico a optimal touchstone for the culture. The young men who embraced this culture came from varied backgrounds, but were largely working class and, despite long hair and their devotion to motorcycles, conservative in outlook. These socio-economic markers will each be analyzed. Many of the young men structured their lives in order to be able to race. Maico, in turn, sponsored these racers on a limited basis and used images of their successes to promote their motorcycles. Some period photographs of young men on Maicos have become iconic, and these will be analyzed. The successes and ultimate failure of the Maico Company are important in themselves, revealing a complex transnational relationship with the United States that at times flourished, but on other occasions hastened the company’s downfall. As Maico management displaced their American distributers in the mid-1970s and roiled with family infighting at home, the company’s fortunes declined. Examination also reveals a unique and sometimes contentious relationship among American consumers and the German manufacturer. The peculiarities of Maico motorcycles, combined with internal struggles and competition from around the world, further pressured Maico. In 1983, two years after introducing the off-road motorcycle considered by many to be the single best ever made, Maico collapsed. Maico devotees left the field as better motorcycles were available and as age, injuries, and life events pressured them. Many discovered after joining professional life late, that their adventure had been purchased at a cost. Yet the memories of exhilaration, freedom, and joy remain, and these memories prod men today to collect, restore, and ride Maico motorcycles. This work chronicles the object’s origins in Germany and especially its use in the United States. My methodology comprises four approaches, including: examining the motorcycle/artifact through the lens of material culture; ethnography of individuals and examination of the group’s practices (largely derived from oral histories); the rhetorical and visual analysis of personal letters, advertisements, and articles; and photographic analysis. Texts by prominent motorcycling writers and American Studies scholars are used to support my thesis.

iii

This work is hoped to be of use to those examining American leisure activities and middle/working-class life in the period surrounding the 1970s, as well as anyone desiring insights into American motorcycle racing and off-road riding culture of the late 1900s.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of illustrations...... vii List of Abbreviations and Spelling………...... xiv Preface...... xv Acknowledgements and Photographic Credits...... xl Dedication...... xliii

Chapter 1: BEGINNINGS 1.1 Definitions, Historiography, and the Maico as Material Culture...... 1 1.2 The Motorcycle and Man: A Social History...... 27 1.3 The German Side: A History of Maico Fahrzeugfabrik...... 48 1.4 Early Maicos in the United States...... 70

Chapter 2: ANALYSIS OF THE OBJECT 2.1 Form and Function: Engineering Analysis...... 93 2.2 Like Nothing Before: The 501...... 122 2.3 Small Maicos: The 125s...... 143

Chapter 3: MODIFYING THE OBJECT 3.1 Change is Good: Personalization, Modification, and Performance Upgrades...... 165

Chapter 4: THE MOTORCYCLE BUSINESS IN AMERICA 4.1 Eastern Maico and Dennie Moore, Part 1...... 208 4.2 Eastern Maico and Dennie Moore, Part 2...... 230 4.3 The Shop Owner: Gig Hamilton...... 254 4.4 A Season of Invention: Greg Smith...... 277

Chapter 5: RACING: HOPE, IMAGE, REALITY 5.1 The Success Years: Ake Jonsson...... 300 5.2 Motocross Looked Like This: Tim Hart...... 330 5.3 The Factory Rider: Denny Swartz...... 357 5.4 Racer and Race: Brian Thompson...... 378 5.5 Innocents Abroad: The American Motocross Team in Europe...... 401

Chapter 6: A BIG BUSINESS 6.1 Living a Dream: Selvaraj Narayana...... 427 6.2 Management...... 446 6.3 We Trust God Will Help Maico...... 472

Chapter 7: FINAL HISTORY, CONCLUSIONS, EPILOGUE 7.1 Maico’s End...... 485 7.2 Conclusions...... 505 7.3 Epilogue: Maico Preservation and Restoration...... 522

Bibliography...... 542

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Appendix A: Identification and Dating of Maico Motorcycles...... 551

Appendix B: Maico Distribution in North America...... 570

Appendix C: Trans-AMA & InterAm Results...... 572

Appendix D: Engine and Frame Numbers by Year...... 578

vi

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1 The author’s handwritten plea for a Maico 501, 1986. xxv

2 Ad, Hemming’s Motor News, 1986. xxvi

3 Discarded racing engine, from the remains of the Eastern Maico warehouse. 22

4 Yonkers, New York motorcycle club, 1938. 34

5 Marlon Brando as The Wild One’s Johnny Stabler. . . . 38

6 American scrambles racing, circa 1970. . . . 41

7 The 1981 Maico 490, the basis for all modern off-road motorcycles. . . . 46

8 Early Maico logo. 48

9 1956 English-language brochure. 51

10 1956 Maico 500 car. 51

11 The Maico works, Pfeffingen, Germany, circa 1960s. 53

12 Tim Hart on a 250 Maico, circa 1971, California. 58

13 Maico advertisement from 1974. 62

14 Remnant of the Maico factory at Pfeffingen, as seen in 2007. 67

15 1956 Scrambler model. . . . 72

16 Circa 1958 promotional handout . . . 77

17 McCabe on his well-used Maico; Sante Fe Speedway, Chicago, Illinois, 1965. 81

18 1963 enduro model. Note leading-axle forks and double-loop frame. 84

19 1968 square-barrel 250. . . . 87

20 Maico four-speed engine . . . 90

21 Tool kit as supplied . . . 92

vii

22 Maico small warning decal. . . . 92

23 1974 ½ Maico in a period advertisement. . . . 94

24 1974 MC400/MC440 engine (typical, left side). . . . 100

25 Circa 1974 frame. This frame is a 1973 item . . . 105

26 Maico rear end. . . . 108

27 Maico front end. . . . 110

28 Frank Cooper (standing) and C.H. Wheat in 1973: the fathers of the 501. . . . 124

29 Rick Sieman, in his “From the Saddle” column picture . . . 125

30 The 501 was rarely promoted by Maico. . . . 128

31 Pennsylvanian Mike Bird, from a 1968 AMA District-Six brochure. . . . 130

32 1974 ½ 501, showing large alloy gas tank . . . 133

33 1974 advertisement, run by Maico East in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. . . . 141

34 Craig Shambaugh (right) with former world motocross champion Roger . . . 145

35 Eric Bley road-racing his RS125. 146

36 Charles Schank on his MC125; Michigan, 1968. . . . 147

37 Maico 125 engine. . . . 149

38 Eric Bley’s RS125. . . . 150

39 Craig Shambaugh’s modified MC125. . . . 151

40 1974 Maico advertisement, featuring MC125. . . . 153

41 1977 AW125. Note external carburetor mounting. . . . 158

42 Charles Schank finishing the brutal Jack Pine enduro . . . 162

43 Mike’s Racing Center advertisement . . . 177

44 Mid-1970s advertisements . . . 179

viii

45 1973 frame modified by Eastern Maico to LTR specifications. . . . 185

46 Prototype aluminum-bodied shocks. . . . 187

47 Fork damper units, showing alloy end caps . . . 188

48 Wheelsmith-modified fork slider (bottom) and damper (middle) . . . 188

49, 50 Aftermarket fuel tanks. . . . 192

51 Unidentified extra-capacity tank (left) . . . 193

52 Alloy chain guides; ASR item (top) and early Wheelsmith (bottom). . . . 195

53 Alloy brake pedals; ASR item on top and early Wheelsmith, below. . . . 196

54 Two examples of homemade modification: a nail welded to the rear . . . 196

55, 56 Figures 55 (left) and 56, showing two experimental factory 450 cylinders . . . 200

57 “Radial” Maico cylinder head, handmade from stock square-barrel head . . . 201

58 1973 advertisement for Cooper motorcycles . . . 206

59 Dennie Moore racing his 125 Maico, circa 1969. . . . 208

60 Dennie Moore’s first racetrack. . . . 211

61 Former Eastern Maico headquarters building, Reedsville, Pennsylvania. 216

62 American Sport Racer flier, circa 1972, featuring Ake Jonsson. . . . 224

63 Advertisement run by American Motocross Team captain Bryan Kenney . . . 227

64 Eastern Maico advertisement, circa 1972 . . . 228

65 Statement of Origin for a 125 Maico . . . 228

66 The Bondurant tank, built to replace the defective factory tanks. . . . 234

67 Maico advertisement of 1973 . . . 238

68 Californian Gary Chaplin and Eve Priest on their motocross-themed wedding . . . 240

69 Additional 1973 results . . . 241

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70 Dennie Moore’s old parking space at the former Eastern Maico Distributors . . . 252

71 Hamilton and the ’37 Harley . . . 256

72 Gig Hamilton with daughter Shelly, herself a rider from the age of five . . . 258

73 Hamilton in the winner’s circle . . . 261

74 H&H Cycle Center . . . 266

75 Chuck Berry (left, atop Hamilton’s 450 Maico) and Hamilton . . . 272

76 Greg Smith at work in the Wheelsmith shop, circa 1971. 281

77 Early Wheelsmith Engineering print advertisement . . . 282

78 Now also a motorcycle dealer, the shop became Wheelsmith Motorcycles . . . 284

79 The problem with long travel: the swing-arm pivot point on this 1977 Maico . . . 286

80 Wheelsmith rear brake pedal (center) and footpeg (lower left). 289

81 Wheelsmith brake stay arm/chain guide . . . 291

82 Wheelsmith fork extension. . . . 293

83 “Wedge” cylinder/head design, as interpreted on a factory 1977 400cc engine. . . . 295

84 Wheelsmith-sponsored rider Jeff Jennings focuses intently on the first turn . . . 299

85 The man identified most with Maico’s “success years,” Ake Jonsson . . . 300

86 Ake Jonsson on homemade Husqvarna, circa 1961 . . . 303

87 Jonsson on his 250cc Husqvarna hybrid, with his homemade cylinder . . . 303

88 Jonsson signs with Maico . . . 307

89 Jonsson in 1969 . . . 307

90 Jonsson astride the breakdown plagued and slightly underpowered Maico 360 . . . 308

91 Radial top-end paired with old bottom-end . . . 309

92 Jonsson’s old round-case bottom-end. . . . 309

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93 Advertisement placed by German Maico . . . 313

94 Ake Jonsson and Maico as popular icons . . . 315

95, 96 Finn Heikki (“The Flying Fin”) Mikkola . . . Roger (“The Man”) DeCoster . . . 317

97 Jonsson’s teammate . . . Adolf Weil . . . 326

98 Jonsson in front of the Hotel Lamm . . . 327

99 Image #1: Dirt Cycle, December, 1972. 332

100 Lions Drag Strip . . . 334

101, 102 Two images from circa 1970 (left) and 1971(right): Tim Hart . . . 335

103 Hart in 1973, now in Yamaha colors . . . 338

104 Image #2: Unidentified motocross starting line . . . 339

105 Image #3: 1974 Yamaha advertisement featuring Mike Hartwig . . . 348

106 A tough career: Hart’s pay voucher . . . 356

107 Denny Swartz and Jim Wilhelm with their van . . . 358

108 Denny Swartz’s 1976 MC250. . . . 359

109 Wilhelm, Swartz, and the 1979 factory 440. . . . 361

110 U.S. Maico advertising Swartz’s Mid-Ohio success in 1979. . . . 363

111 Swartz comes to the forefront . . . 368

112 The Red Bud, Michigan national race on June 1, 1980 . . . 372

113 Brian “BT” Thompson, Unadilla Motocross Park, New York, 1981. . . . 379

114 Brian Thompson aboard his Yamaha Mini-Enduro . . . 382

115 “Team Chocolate” and some of its neighborhood fans, 1975. . . . 385

116 Thompson’s brother Brett (left), sidelined with a broken chain . . . 386

117 Thompson with the broken wrist he would not have treated . . . 388

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118 Thompson on the 490 Maico . . . 395

119 With girlfriend Debbie Richardson . . . 395

120 Unidentified fan watches Thompson work on the 490 . . . 396

121 (no caption) 400

122 Mud-spattered Bryan Kenney at the 1972 West German Grand Prix . . . 405

123 John Barclay wearing an American flag bib . . . 406

124 The American Motocross Team (left to right): Gunnar Lindstrom . . . 408

125 Opening ceremony, Motocross des Nations, Vannes, France, 1971. . . . 413

126 Taking the [American] girl from the country, but not the country from the girl . . . 416

127 The team (sans Lindstrom): #3 Barclay, #2 Higgins, #1 Kenney, 1971. 419

128 Barclay (left) and Higgins with Belgian multi-year world champion . . . 425

129 Adolf Weil, Selvaraj Narayana, Willi Bauer, and Reinhold Weiher . . . 428

130 1974 Maico advertisement (detail). 438

131 1972 AJS motorcycle. 438

132 Narayana as the face of Maico in America. . . . 442

133 Great times ahead: at the International Bicycle and Motorbike Exhibition . . . 449

134 The Maico factory at Pfeffingen, circa 1980. . . . 450

135 Wilhelm Maisch Sr. 451

136 Otto Maisch. 451

137 Adolf Weil (left) with Otto Maisch, circa 1975. . . . 452

138 An American “motorcycle man:” western distributor Frank Cooper . . . 457

139 A losing battle and wasted resources . . . 460

140 Maico assembly line at Pfeffingen, circa 1982. . . . 467

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141 When Maico was on top of the world: Export manager Hans Kresin (left) . . . 471

142 The envelope of the form letter to Calhoun Maico, transcribed here. 472

143 Cartoon appearing in Schwabisches Tagblatt, May 31, 1983. . . . 491

144 Motocross starting line; Pennsylvania, 1975. 521

145 Maico 400cc engine, unrestored. 522

146 Unmolested circa 1971 MC400 . . . 532

147 The previous MC400, as restored for vintage racing by Travis Agle. . . . 533

148 Circa 1969 MC250, as raced by Pennsylvania competitor “Trapper” Jon Reiter. 552

149 OEM large (left) and small fiberglass tanks. 553

150 OEM 1974 501cc (left) and OEM 1976 (right) tanks. 556

151 OEM 1978/1979 tank. 556

152 OEM 1970 through1974 fiberglass air boxes. 561

153 360cc engine. 563

154 Four-speed 440cc engine. 563

155 Five-speed 400cc (wedge) engine. 563

156 Circa 1972 125cc rotary-valve engine. 566

157 501cc engine (four-speed). 566

158 1983 250cc engine (gear primary transmission). 566

159 1974 ½ /1975 MC501 (Four-speed). 569

160 1975 MC250 (Five-speed “GP” model). 569

xiii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SPELLING

AACA Antique Automobile Club of America

AJS English motorcycle brand (derived from Albert John and Stevens)

AMA American Motorcyclists Association

AMCA Antique Motorcycle Club of America

CZ Ceska Zbrojovka, a Czechoslovakian motorcycle

F.I.M. Federation Internationale de Motorcyclisme (Federation of International

Motorcycling; global sanctioning body of motorcycle racing)

LTR Long-travel, rear (as in: LTR suspension)

NOS New, old-stock (as in: NOS parts)

OEM Original equipment, [used by the] manufacturer (as in: OEM parts)

R&D Research and Development

Magazine titles are spelled in upper and lower case, though, as in the case of Dirt Bike

Magazine and others, their titles may have appeared on magazine covers in all upper case.

Pfaffingen (Germany) normally spelled using an umlaut (unavailable with standard word processing) is spelled Pfeffingen.

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PREFACE

Most Americans would profess to some basic knowledge of the culture and history of motorcycling in this country. Some among them have likely encountered Hunter S. Thompson’s

Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga1, and may have at least attempted to absorb Robert

M. Persig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance2; surely the most-referenced text, ostensibly having something to do with motorcycles (even if few people ever actually read it).

And, when Americans think of a motorcyclist in visual terms, they likely picture black leather, a certain display of “attitude,” and a big, loud street bike. Most of us over the age of fifty have also seen two seminal “biker” movies: 1969’s Easy Rider, starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper on the road and “looking for America;” 3 and 1954’s The Wild One, showcasing the young

Marlon Brando in the first major movie about anti-social motorcyclists in the United States.4

From this short list of motorcycle popular culture and their own observations, Americans would probably attest to several basic beliefs about motorcycling in the United States. Several of these assumptions might include:

*Motorcycle people are tough guys—and occasionally girls—who sometimes get into trouble with authority, but are really just non-conformists; or,

*Motorcycle people are usually socially-deviant bums.

*Riding a motorcycle is about freedom, in various ways, and showing one’s individuality.

*Motorcycles are good because they are cheaper to operate than cars. This makes motorcycles the transportation for the working class.

1 Hunter S. Thompson, Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (New York: The Modern Library, 1999). 2 Robert M. Persig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (New York: HarperCollins, 1974). 3Easy Rider, dir. by Dennis Hopper (1969). 4 The Wild One, dir. Stanley Kramer (1954: Columbia TriStar, 1998 dvd). xv

*Motorcycles are dangerous. One must be crazy to ride one.

These and other beliefs about motorcycle culture in the United States tend to be based on a montage of popular media products and from what we see on our public streets. Often these beliefs are highly opinionated; some are simply incorrect. Further considering stereotypes, we discover a default visual image of the motorcyclist as a black-leather-clad street rider. More often than not, the motorcyclist in this image is male, and the motorcycle is of course an

American-made Harley-Davidson. In fairness, there is good reason for all these impressions: the primary vantage point for observation of motorcyclists is, of course, on the road; there is nothing wrong with thick leather (between you and the street); the majority of motorcycle road riders are quite obviously male; and Harley-Davidson now sells roughly half of all new street motorcycles purchased in the United States.5 Still, this composite image leaves out a vast and ever-present group of American riders. Since the motorcycle’s appearance as a mass-produced item in the

United States (the period 1902 to1903), motorcyclists have done much more than cruise down public streets. For many Americans, competition was the natural application of the motorcycle.

As a former professional racer interviewed for this dissertation said about Americans and motorized vehicles, “Whenever two vehicles with engines are involved, there’s gonna be a race.”6 It is these competitive “sport” motorcyclists, off the public roads and largely invisible, that we generally overlook in the motorcycle world.

The prediction of two or more engines necessitating a race appears to have truly been the case in the motorcycle’s early years in the United States, as competition is recorded virtually simultaneously with the first motorcycles. Indian motorcycles are on record as winning

5 For calendar year 2013, Harley-Davidson reported sales of 167,016 units in the United States. This accounted for 47 percent of all street motorcycles sold in America, and 51 percent of all “highway” (large, non-dual sport machines) motorcycles. Source: www.asphaltandrubber.com/news, accessed June 16, 2014. 6 Interview with Brian Thompson by David Russell, November 5, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). xvi organized competition events in 1903, the first year of substantial production. In just a few more years, the company was sponsoring its own racing team.7 Many Americans competed on motorcycles from their first exposure, and these ranks have always constituted an important part of the riding population. This performance-oriented component of American riders (which I will call “off-road,” “competition,” or “sport riders;” these terms will be discussed in chapter 1.1) was and remains much less observable than the visible community of riders sharing America’s highways with the rest of us. We do sometimes get a glance at them; on the highway as they haul their dirt bikes or road-racers to weekend meetings, on trailers or in the backs of pick-up trucks.

Perhaps we note them swilling a Gatorade at the gas station, recounting the day over muddy motorcycles; but that is the limit of the interaction most Americans have with sport motorcycle riders. Examining this group more closely, we find that it includes recreational and competitive riders who specialize in varied activities. The competition venues nowadays include natural- terrain (motocross, trials, endure, and hill-climbing), paved surfaces (drag racing and closed- circuit “road”-racing), and manicured gravel outdoor courses (mile and half-mile “dirt track” or

“flat track” racing). Non-competitive sport riding includes off-road riding, anywhere. Of fundamental importance is their engagement in some sort of competition, or in challenging their own physical abilities and limitations riding the motorcycle (as opposed to the act of riding a motorcycle on the road, which is the use of the machine as transportation). Thus, these two groups differ at a most basic level: one is competition and physically oriented, and the other is largely transportation oriented.

Considering the types of riding engaged in by these sport riders—and I will discuss specific details of these venues, later—an important assumption can be inferred about them and their relationship to transportation motorcyclists. This is, that although the sporting riders are not

7 Harry V. Sucher, The Iron Redskin (Somerset: Haynes Publishing Group, 1990), 27-37. xvii as visible or (sometimes) as luridly interesting as the on-road bikers, their skill levels and dedication to the act of riding must signify something real and substantial about their credibility as motorcyclists (given the fact that they take their machines to the limits of their own physical and mechanical abilities). The riding skill level of a sport rider is usually substantial; this may or may not be the case with the road rider.8 Yet it is the black-leather-and-dangling-cigarette biker who is considered the epitome of a motorcyclist. Furthermore, he (or she) is accepted as not only the symbol of motorcycling in the United States, but also a sort of barometer for the American condition; particularly emblematic of the angst and alienation of the individual within the greater society (which in turn is seeking to conform and depersonalize the biker). The biker is envisioned as a reflection of American attitudes, identity, and values. This implied proximity between the Harley-Davidson motorcycle (in particular) and America can be seen in titles such as Travels with Harley in Search of America by E. Michael Jones9, and Outlaw Machines:

Harley-Davidson and the Search for the American Soul, by Brock Yates10. The Harley-Davidson and Philosophy collection, meanwhile, suggests an even deeper meaning; promising an enlightening draught from the wellspring of Harley mystique and wisdom.11

The outlaws and Harley bikers do have a story that warrants examination, and their symbolic status is undeniably worth study. Yet theirs is not the only story. Sport riding in

America, largely passed over by scholars, deserves inquiry as well. In this dissertation I propose that the off-road and sporting riders are just as much, if not more, a bastion of American

8 This observation is based solely upon the relative demands of road riding versus the off-road riding. Off-road riding transcends normal road riding in that the rider must regularly control the motorcycle in the air, over a variety of natural terrain features, and with tires breaking contact with the riding surface. This statement is not meant to suggest that road rides cannot become highly skilled. 9 E. Michael Jones,Travels with Harley in Search of America (South Bend: Fidelity Press, 2011). 10 Brock Yates, Outlaw Machines: Harley-Davidson and the Search for the American Soul (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1999). 11 Bernard E. Rollin, Carolyn M. Gray, Kerri Mommer, and Cynthia Pineo, ed., Harley-Davidson and Philosophy (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, 2006). xviii masculinity and individualism as the on-road, black leather, transportation bikers. Sporting riders live by and espouse the values that Americans have traditionally considered their own. Even when masculinity and individualism were cast suspiciously at times following the 1950s, their acceptance within motorcycle racing subcultures never wavered, as I illustrate in succeeding chapters. While sporting riders share bonds with on-road biker culture—living close to physical danger and the joy of riding, at a minimum—they also differ in fundamental ways; most ways, actually. Examining them through the lens of one particularly elite motorcycle’s popularity in the

United States, at the highpoint of motorcycle interest in the country (primarily the 1970s decade and several years on either side), I will describe this group. I will show that the sporting riders tended to be male and to arise from working-class roots; that they were often apolitical, prized individual courage and personal responsibility, and held a generally conservative cultural outlook. I will also illustrate that sport motorcycle culture was and is a shared one, with commonly-held values and behaviors, and that the individualist nature of the competitor allowed him a true sense of “freedom” within this fraternity. This last characteristic, in particular, differs greatly from that of some road-riding communities, where often rigid adherence to requisite manners of dress and behavior is mandatory.

The motorcycle/object/artifact by which the both the individual and the community will be examined is the Maico competition motorcycle. The Maico reached its pinnacle of popularity in the late 1960s through the early 1970s, and was no longer produced after 1983.12 My analysis of the object follows commonly accepted processes of material culture inquiry. Several of these methods, along with my chosen hybrid approach, are described in chapter 1.1. Driven by the artifact’s dates of use, this dissertation focuses on the late 1960s through the early 1980s, but the

12 1983 was the last year of production by the “old” Maico company. Ownership of the name has changed hands several times, and a new motorcycle with MAICO labels on it can still be purchased from Germany. xix findings are relevant today. Looking back to these years and the “motorcycle boom” in sales around the world, the sporting and off-road aspect of motorcycling was particularly vibrant.13 To place this sales boom in perspective, purchases of new off-road motorcycles alone in 1970

(165,000 units) were more than four times greater than the total number of all motorcycles sold in the United States, fifteen years earlier in 1955.14 Of all new motorcycles sold in the United

States during these peak years, more than one in six was never built to be ridden on the road.

Furthermore, many more street-legal bikes had their lights and road equipment stripped off by owners; these saw little or no road use, likewise becoming off-road play-bikes or racing machines. The increased popularity of sport riding and racing was brought on by a combination of excellent machines, an (initial) unfettered access to riding areas, and a renewed general interest in motorcycles. Another instigator of off-road riding was the arrival and popularity of the new sport of motocross. Motocross—competition on a closed-circuit, rugged natural terrain course—had recently made its way from Europe to the United States, and was replacing the more sedate amateur scrambles racing and professional flat-track racing that had dominated American motorcycle sport for two decades. As Ed Youngblood notes, motocross and the availability of the new, lightweight two-stroke motorcycles significantly altered the nature of motorcycle sport in the United States: in 1965, the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) sanctioned fifteen motocross races; in 1975 it sanctioned 1,500, a one-hundred-fold increase.15 At the center of all this activity were the most serious racers, and their motorcycle of choice was often an expensive,

13 The year on record as having the most sales of motorcycles in the United States, ever, is 1973. Over 1.5 million units were sold that year, a number not reached since. Source: Motorcycle Industry Council, Media Relations letter dated February 13, 2009. 14 Ed Youngblood, “The Birth of the Dirt Bike,” International Journal of Motorcycle Studies, July, 2007, http://ijms.nova.edu/July2007/IJMS_Artcl.Youngblood.html. (essay not paginated) 15 Ibid. xx pure-bred, German, and sometimes unreliable and frustrating racing machine, with unique aesthetics. This motorcycle was the Maico.

As the premier tool used by the most dedicated racers of the time, I see the Maico motorcycle as an excellent touchstone for this little-studied American group. By analyzing the motorcycle as material culture and studying the relationship between this machine and the people who interacted with it, we will learn something new about this driven and individualistic fraternity, as well as within the greater society. This rugged, unusual old foreign motorcycle is the nexus of an equally rough, independent group of American sportsmen. And this group, despite youth, long hair, and a passion for fast motorcycles, differed significantly from the 1960s and 1970s typecasts into which observers have tended to place all American youth at this juncture. For this reason, it is worth our study.

Minimal research has been done on the subject of sport and off-road riding in its most popular years in the United States. And virtually nothing has been written about Maico motorcycles in even the popular press. This latter point is surprising, considering the brand’s history in American riding and racing, and technical importance in the continuum of motorcycle development.16 This dissertation fills both these gaps, as it extracts meaning from the motorcycle about its owners, and also helps construct a body of information about the motorcycle.

Throughout this examination I will work to create a strong description of these largely dismissed

American sport riders. For reasons likely related to the (sometimes) more titillating and sensational nature of other motorcycle cultures, what academic analysis has been done on 1970s

American motorcycling tends to address these sectors exclusively, and ignores all others. This dissertation will focus missing scholarly attention on the neglected culture of off-road

16 Maico’s contribution to motorcycle suspension design and overall frame geometry will be discussed in subsequent chapters. xxi motorcycle riding, as opposed to the other, more frequently studied groups. Looking back to a pivotal work in the small constellation of motorcycle literature (Thompson’s Hell’s Angels: A

Strange and Terrible Saga) we must accept that it is a book about a tiny faction of American motorcycling. While those who study motorcycle culture will draw conclusions between

Thompson’s work and the larger American culture, it is a link which should not be overemphasized. The several thousand active members of all anti-social outlaw clubs of the

1960s and 1970s may in fact say no more or less about the American condition than several thousand members of any other popular group of the time—whether it be the professional bowling circuit of the 1960s or fans of the rock group Kiss in the 1970s. There is a much more representative group of motorcyclists that no one has yet addressed. This work will help fill that vacuum in contextual analysis of motorcycling in the United States.

As a young boy growing up in this golden era (I was thirteen when I got my first motorcycle in 1972) I and others of my generation were there during the enormous surge in popularity of motorcycles and all the other seismic cultural metamorphoses of the era. It was a period of great change in so many areas, not just in motorcycling. Both the war in Viet Nam and the Nixon presidency were winding down, and the youth culture of the late 1960s was giving way to a more modern and even more confused 1970s. The “Me Decade” came into being, and

American culture reeled with change from every side, as a new urge to attain personal fulfillment and a sense of unlimited personal choice gave people different priorities than that of their parents’ generation.17 Many young men and women whose fathers willingly fought World War II and whose mothers raised nice future homemakers appeared to hold diametrically-opposed views of the future and their roles in it. We were still fighting the Cold War and accepted mutual nuclear annihilation as a real and foreseeable eventuality, as we embarked upon detante with the

17 David Frum, How We Got Here (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 351. xxii

Soviet Union. The 1970s were the heyday of hedonism, we learned, with the Sexual Revolution and the arrival of mainstream drug culture. Aesthetically, the drive to be different and new led to some questionable ends: 1970s popular art, design, and philosophy were, in some cases, perhaps best left in that era. The legal framework of racial segregation in the South was finished, but the follow-on hard work of integration and the attainment of actual equal rights across the nation was certainly not.18 The 1970s were particularly chaotic, and much of what came during the

1980s is seen by some as essentially a reaction to the previous decade’s excesses.

On another more microscopic level, the large Japanese motorcycle manufacturers were completing their domination of the former sales leaders at Norton-Villiers-Triumph in England and Harley-Davidson in the United States. Boutique manufactures, smaller and more flexible, flourished for the time being in Spain, Germany, Sweden, Austria, and Italy. Closer to home, in an age before computer entertainment, young suburban boys bought mini-bikes and small

Japanese “trail bikes.” As previously mentioned, the sales of these primarily off-road motorcycles, along with the more exotic European dirt bikes, had burgeoned to 165,000 (of over

1 million total motorcycles sold in the United States) for the year 1970.19 For these machines, young boys constructed trails and jumps and racetracks, eluding the local police as they made their way after school to the not-yet-NO-TRESPASSING gravel pit, farmland, or edge-of-the- neighborhood vacant lot, the next new suburban development over. When Dirt Bike Magazine careened onto the established motorcycle press landscape that same year, these boys quoted its articles with reverence, admiring from afar those mystical Husqvarnas, Bultacos, Maicos, and the other unobtainable Euro-motorcycles displayed in its pages. They took the lights and fenders off their Japanese trail bikes, put a knobby tire on the rear and a Bel-Ray Oil sticker on the tank, and

18 Kelly Boyer Sagert, The 1970s (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 20-24. 19 Ed Youngblood, “The Birth of the Dirt Bike,” International Journal of Motorcycle Studies, July, 2007, http://ijms.nova.edu/July2007/IJMS_Artcl.Youngblood.html. xxiii pretended they were the stars in the magazine. In Lower Paxton Junior High School near

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, we boys spent the last period of the day in Mrs. Turns’ stifling seventh-grade English classroom, daydreaming about exotic dirt bikes and drawing brilliant new engine designs on our yellow lined tablet paper, when we were supposed to be conjugating verbs. A few of us, with fathers either understanding and cool beyond all belief (in our own adolescent minds, at least), or absolutely irresponsible (in our mothers’ minds), got to actually race motocross or scrambles with the new Japanese YZs, RMs, KXs, CRs, or even hot little

European 125s. We played baseball, rode our motorcycles in the vacant lots, and thought incessantly about girls . . . and motorcycles.

Then we grew up, and left our bikes behind. For a while, at least.

*****

In 1986 I was a twenty-eight year old Marine captain in steamy Jacksonville, North

Carolina, preparing to leave the military and get on with life. I was stationed at Marine Corps Air

Station New River, across the brackish New River inlet from Camp Lejeune, whose thousands of

Marines we supported with our helicopters. Perhaps from too much time thinking about where I had been, or where I might be going next, an idea took hold. I had, over the past few years, enjoyed restoring an old 441cc BSA and a Triumph 750cc triple. Now, I wanted a unique dirt bike. I decided to search for a 501cc Maico. Around the time of its construction, I knew the 501

Maico to be the largest-capacity single-cylinder two-stroke production motorcycle engine ever built. I also knew 1974 to be a special time for dirt bikes, and the pivotal year for motorcycle suspension evolution. I set this year as the target for my as-yet-to-materialize Maico.

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From an old issue of Cycle Guide Magazine, I cut a picture of a 1974 501, produced a crude flier, and copied it. I posted a copy on every Squadron and Group headquarters bulletin board I could find: “Wanted: 1973-74 Maico 501cc Motorcycle.” I waited, without response.

Figure 1. The author’s handwritten plea for a Maico 501, 1986. (Photo: the author)

A year or so earlier I had met a part-time motorcycle dealer nick-named Mouse, who also worked as a welder for the Department of Defense, up Highway 17 at the Cherry Point Marine

Corps Air Station. I learned Mouse had been a small Maico dealer years back and he told me of being champion of the sadly now-defunct New River Motocross Track. (“Don’t let’em tell ya otherwise, either!” was his warning. Apparently the title remained disputed after all those years, though no doubt existed with Mouse.) Apart from Mouse, however, I saw precious little interest in dirt bikes, old or new, in the coastal Carolinas at the time. A dealer in Wilmington had a

xxv couple old CZs on his lot, but aside from that, the Carolina coast appeared devoid of old motorcycles. The Maico eluded me.

Figure 2. Ad, Hemming’s Motor News, 1986. (Source: Hemming’s Motor News and the author)

I had nearly given up on the 501, when in the late fall I happened to read the anemic

MOTORCYCLES FOR SALE section of Hemmings Motor News. Much to my surprise, I noted the listing of a “1975 501 MAICO” in South Point, Ohio. It apparently was not such a desirable item at the time, for it remained unsold for another month before I could travel from Jacksonville to my in-laws’ home up north in Washington, Pennsylvania, to retrieve it. Once there I borrowed a pick-up and made the six-hour drive down through West Virginia to the extreme southern tip of

Ohio, where sat South Point and my dream Maico.

Before finalizing the deal, I recall sitting at my mother-in-law’s kitchen table, haggling with the seller, who I would come to know as Jeff Willis, a restorer of some renown of early

American motorcycles. The $650 asking price seemed excessive, this being 1986 and a 1975

Maico at that time little more than a mildly-interesting, wildly out-dated old dirt bike. I thought such a machine should bring no more than $400. After coming very close to forgetting the entire affair on principle, I managed to get Willis to agree, over the phone, to a meet-in-the-middle price of $525—only if, I stressed, it ran.

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By nightfall the next day I was clanking through the arm-stretching manual four-speed transmission and pointing the heavy-duty old F-250 snow-plow truck back north from South

Point, Ohio. Towards southwestern Pennsylvania I went, now proudly displaying in the truck bed a well-used, flat-tired (and non-running) old German motorcycle. The yellow fiberglass tank with the “M” shield decals peeked at me in the rearview mirror. I was a Maico owner at long last. I wondered if the West Virginian pedestrians, plodding face-down through the snow and greying slush, had even the vaguest realization how exotic and transformative the machine in the back of this truck was. I did, I reminded myself, and it felt good.

The 501 sat for a decade before undergoing the restoration process, joined in its basement parking soon after by the slightly younger 250 Maico, a duct-tape-cocooned 247 Montesa, and the home-turf camaraderie of my faithful and better-dressed first bikes: a 1971 Kawasaki G3TR-

A and 1974 KX125. Although career changes and family obligations kept me from delving into the restoration for years, I did make frequent visits to the 501’s basement home to admire the machine’s functional beauty and construction, and to imagine its history in the coal hills of West

Virginia. I enjoyed gazing at its perplexing squared-off gas tank, marveling at how the flat panels joined together to achieve the form. I wondered why anyone would attempt such an unusual design in the first place, being surrounded then by the convention of rounded and more easily molded “jelly-bean” style of automotive bodywork. I absorbed its aesthetics; the beautiful ways in which the air-box echoed the lines of the rear frame loops; the sculpted shapes of the fenders, interspersing curvature with abrupt horizontal line; and the Prussian severity of the flying “M” tank emblems—all reminiscent of some medieval military coat-of-arms. And that engine, with its huge cooling fins bulging out and visible on either side of the narrow little yellow gas tank when looking down from the saddle; the traces of hammer marks on the head from some detached

xxvii

German factory worker; the contoured, crudely-finished cases holding the mysterious motor- innards which produced the legendary power. I had never heard the words “material culture,” and did not realize that what I was doing actually had a name. I was interpreting an object. I was analyzing it, studying it, and learning from it . . . though to others I was just staring at an old and broken motorcycle.

The gas tank on the Maico particularly fascinated me, and at first appeared to be a perfect example of “form following function.”20 The tank certainly was narrow, and its shape allowed a low center-of-gravity; both positive qualities for a motorcycle. Or, was the unusual form dictated by cost, wherein the squared gas tank and course engine castings were simply cheaper to manufacture, for reasons relating to materials or assembly time? Another possible reason for the shape could have been (as American Studies scholar Jeffrey Meikle suggests of the American motor car), that since its function was to be sold, the object’s appearance could in fact be

“following function” if the distinctive aesthetic design helped it sell.21 Were the Maico’s war-like looks only a marketing tool? In any case, I marveled at and enjoyed the Maico’s appearance.

Perhaps it is true that the wealthy collect fine art, while men of more modest means are left to admire their motor vehicles.

Years later I would again ride restored Maicos, the first time since trading-off my

Kawasaki to a high-school friend, one afternoon back in 1975. Running a few laps on his homemade motocross track around a Pennsylvania farmer’s corn field, I had experienced the long-travel, painfully-slow-revving but wondrous handling of his little Maico 125. Many years

20 Lous H. Sullivan, “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered,” Lippincott’s Magazine 57 (March, 1896), 403-9; and later published as “Form and Function Artistically Considered” in The Craftsman 8 (July, 1905), 453-8. 21 Jeffrey L. Meikle, Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925-1939 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979), 11-13. xxviii later, it was rewarding to ride a variety of Maicos, as well as other premier off-road motorcylces, a generation after we young boys dreamed of such an extravagance.

For the past thirty years I have restored and collected Maicos, and, more recently, have begun to learn the history of the irascible, ultimately self-destructive little company that made them. Given their reputation of producing the finest off-road motorcycles in the 1970s, beginning the modern long-travel-suspension era, and creating the 1981 MC490 (a motorcycle many would consider the single best motocross bike, for its time, ever made), I remain astounded at what little written information on Maico is available.22 Among younger motorcycle enthusiasts, the Maico is recognized only sporadically, and in a folkloric manner, relating to its alleged power and speed and old racers they know who had one, “back in the day.” This lends the Maico’s story a certain ongoing power, as it resides in the border between memory and myth. And the myth deserves a forthright explication.

Throughout my research I was impressed to discover unexpected connections among the many individuals I contacted. Recalling Michael Kammen, I found my own “mystic chord of memory” binding together the old Maico community, even today. This connecting web may not appear unusual when considering any other activity involving a group of intimate, like-minded characters. But when applied to an era and a culture spread across continents, I found it significant. For example, [parts maker] Greg Smith grew up with [racer] Tim Hart; who is lined up on the starting gate in a famous photo with [editor and racer] Gunnar Lindstrom; who of course knows fellow Swede [and champion racer] Ake Jonsson; who spent time with [engineer and Maico employee] Selvaraj Narayana; who remembers giving a particular motorcycle to

[sponsored rider] Denny Swartz, and who fixed [local racer] Brian Thompson’s transmission at

22 Rick Sieman, “What Killed Maico?” Reprinted as “Maico Stories” at VMX Unlimited, www.vmxunlimited.com/pages/Maico-Stories.html, Accessed March 8, 2014. Sieman affirms Maico’s elite status in the 1970s, as well as the superiority of the 1981 MC490. xxix

[importer] Dennie Moore’s; whose first or second dealer franchisee was Gig Hamilton; and so forth. This cross-continental familiarity amongst cultural members was surprising. I was entertained at every turn to find an uncanny, “Yes, I knew him!” connection with the other participants in this unique brotherhood, spread across time and space. In all cases, these men respected one another. This is not to say that they always agreed with each other, however, with respect to their past relationships or (most significantly) the events leading to and following

Maico’s failure.

Maico’s decent into bankruptcy in the years leading up to 1983 carried with it considerable financial hardship and personal tragedy for several of the contributors to this work, and some retain strong feelings and divergent points of view on this subject. Maico’s story is more complex and controversial than a simple nostalgic recollection. Not all the contributors agree about several key assertions made by one another, and their narratives do not all conveniently align. (One allegation is so strong that it was deleted at the speaker’s request, for fear of retaliation from a former Maico employee in Germany.) I have included these sometimes- disagreeing first person statements, along with my impressions, but the reader can make his or her own judgments. In comparison to the rich story of Maico’s successes, I believe that the latter years of Maico’s collapse are, while essential to understand, ultimately less important. Of course, for businessmen who lost money, the company’s failure remains bitter. In any case, had the

Maico company survived and not disappeared in the circumstances that it did, the mythic power of the machine would not be what it is, today.

This work places the Maico within the context of 1960s and 1970s culture in the United

States. For some, this will refresh old memories. For scholars of American society during the late twentieth century, it will hopefully convey something of the culture of racing and riding in the

xxx glory years of the dirt bike in America, and describe the men who rode and gathered it. And, for those to whom motorcycling remains foreign territory, this dissertation will explain how much it all meant to so many people, and hopefully complete a small bit of the historical narrative of this period in United States history. Once, there was Maico, and the word carried meaning.

Riding versus racing

Throughout this dissertation, I refer to the action of operating a dirt bike as both riding and racing. Racing is of course also riding, but is further used to communicate riding in a context of formal competition. The Maico was designed as primarily a racing motorcycle.23 While Maico off-road motorcycles could be simply ridden off-road and not formally raced, the machine was very much designed and marketed for the latter use. To ride and not compete with a Maico was entirely reasonable and not unheard of; but, considering the relative cost and the required maintenance and upkeep demands, this would be tantamount to purchasing a Porsche to deliver the mail. This “thoroughbred” quality is part of what helped to make the Maico an icon.

Foremost, it was a racing machine; the decals on the gas tank, the identification plate on the steering head, and the first pages of the owner’s manuals proclaimed as much. Maico’s self- identification as a racing-specific tool meant that it was intended to be the right bike for serious racers. Thus, the Maico enthusiasts interviewed and contributing to this book are all doing so from mostly a racing perspective; motocross, for the most part.

Motocross, the Maico’s primary application in the 1970s (although scrambles and flat- track saw significant Maico participation) is defined as an outdoor competition over a closed- circuit course of natural terrain features, usually less than two miles, and with the ultimate score being the resultant of numerical finishes in two heat races, or motos. Moving to this level of

23 Maicos were also used in enduro competition. Enduro, given its generally slower speeds over time routes, is usually referred to as “competition,” rather than “racing.” The same could be said for observed trials. xxxi commitment to organized racing indicates a person who differs in significant ways from those of us who, for example, were content to trail-ride or were unable or not interested in organized competition. Motocross racing was expensive (I estimated the costs to be about $70 a week in

1974) and competition past the high school years often implied a conscious choice of selecting racing over college (or other career choices). These young men made deliberate decisions, sometimes with considerable costs, in order to race.

Boys who loved to go fast

When considering these men (there were very few women; off-road motorsports in the latter part of the twentieth century was predominantly a male domain and continues to be a gendered environment), let us consider several statements of fact. First, motorcycle racing in the late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s was not an especially viable career path or profession from which these boys and men could realistically hope to extract a life-long living wage (given the very few paid professionals and their short racing careers). Granted, most of them dreamed of racing professionally at one time or another (much like a little-league baseball player imagines playing in the pros), and a many actually enjoyed some form of “sponsorship” by a local shop, which helped to enable their racing. While a minority, however, did contemplate the possibility of earning any sort of substantive living during their prime wage-earning years as a motorcycle racer, most did not. Hence most of these men were knowingly devoting a lengthy portion of their lives to passion they knew would probably not “pay off” in any way in the future, and would in fact cost them.

Next, motorcycle racing in nearly all its forms is still very much an activity embraced by a blue-collar to middle-class socio-economic group, with a common culture, background, and value system. The demands of racing caused participants to be diverted from some professions

xxxii requiring higher education, possibly from high school sports and other school activities, and also

(possibly) from traditional religious services. In the United States of the 1960s and 1970s, prevailing social norms meant that a large percentage of individuals generally attended religious services on Sunday: the day most motorcycle races were and are still held. With Saturday often being a “travel” day, even Saturday worshippers would have had problems. Thus, a boy beginning racing would, very generally speaking, be a young person given substantial personal freedom and not required to attend church by his family. Also, the family’s tolerance of the potential danger awaiting their child, entirely foreseeable in a competitive motorsport, is worth consideration; not every teenager is permitted to engage in a “dangerous” sport. Indeed there is a paradox apparent to the outsider: before most young people can even legally drive (age sixteen), these young teen racers were allowed to operate motor vehicles in a racing environment.

Anecdotally, motor racing (and other potentially dangerous activities such as hunting) appear to be more accepted in non-elite socio-economic familial conditions.

Finally, a boy and his family may have had to negotiate the negative connotations of the motorcycle image itself—even though riding a dirt bike shares nothing beyond two wheels and a motor with actual outlaw/socially-deviant biking culture—which had certainly permeated much opinion in the United States by the 1960s. Of course, for families already acclimated to motorcycling, this was no big deal. However, a young boy, new to motorcycle racing culture and from a non-motorcycling family, could expect concerned (but uninformed) adults to associate his riding with that of lawless men who wore black leather and appeared threatening. This was the dominant motorcycle image of motorcycling, although it had nothing to do with off-road riding or weekend racing.

xxxiii

As these young men grew older, and if they wanted to continue racing, they often sought work as mechanics (a profession with obvious advantages) to facilitate their sport. Racers also tended to be in the trades, since their prime racing years were exactly those when college and training for a profession would have occurred. Many serious racers then and now had families who operated motorcycle dealerships, with, again, clear benefits.24

They sacrificed and made these decisions because they loved the sport and could not allow themselves to not do it. They made a choice to pursue racing in spite of the costs, at least until injury, family responsibilities, or funding caught up with them. Motorcycle racing in general was (and is, even while being the cheapest and most popular of the motor-sports) expensive, modestly dangerous, and tended to keep one from other social activities. These men recognized there would be a cost, but pursued their passion none the less, while they could.

A number of the men whose stories are found in this dissertation did make the jump and successfully constructed careers in motorcycling. Others left motorcycling and followed different careers. Either way, for those of us who also loved motorcycles, we desire to know the rest of their stories. We, who sometimes wonder what would have happened if we also had stepped out and taken the chance that they did— but instead rode at the local racetracks, around little towns, and on strip mines across the United States—need to know how it worked out for them. They were us, before we drifted away.

In later decades, professional career racing would become feasible for a great many more young men. As sponsors attached themselves to the excitement of motorcycle racing, the sport became lucrative for young men in ways it never was for most riders in the 1970s. Denny Swartz illustrated this change when he tracked down the campsite of a young national AMA #31 racer

24 Among racers who also were a part of family dealerships mentioned in this dissertation are: Gig Hamilton, Dennie Moore, Bond Way, and the Sidle family. xxxiv

(the double-digit AMA #31 signifying the rider is at a minimum one of the top 100 pro-level motocross riders in the county at the time), decades after he himself carried that same number as a Maico factory-sponsored rider. Rather than an old cargo van like Swartz nursed around the

United States, a $500,000 RV rests at the new #31 rider’s campsite.25

While few of the rest of us achieved in motorcycling what these men did, whether they were highly paid for it or not, we at least knew enough to admire them for it. We felt that same passion, too. After all, they were like us; just faster.

This dissertation provides an in-depth artifact analysis of the Maico motorcycle and also illustrates the American off-road culture at its pinnacle. While I feel it is necessary to include technical and cultural details, I have tried to balance the technical with the subjective. This combination will hopefully offer the reader or scholar the best opportunity to view this overlooked motorcycling community. In the end, I hope this text is at once enjoyable, informative, and stimulating to readers. For some, I hope that it causes us to look beyond that rough old motorcycle moldering in the shed or basement, and perhaps understand more of the complex and changing period in United States history in which it once operated. Perhaps that old motorcycle carries a message for us. Or, for others, a window might be found into the nature of that father, brother, or boy-down-the-street, who we all admired in some way, because they raced motorcycles. Optimistically, this dissertation will fill some of the void which presently exists in the history of this unique motorcycle, of the competition culture in the United States with which it intertwined, and of its role in rehabilitating the German image in post-World War II American consciousness. It begins with a careful look at an old motorcycle. As James Deetz noted of the opportunity for discovery that an old object affords us:

25Interview with Denny Swartz by David Russell, January 16, 2009, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). xxxv

“If we could in some way find a way to understand

the significance of artifacts as they were thought of and used by Americans in the past,

we might gain new insight into the history of our nation.

[Things] carry messages from their makers and users.

It is the archaeologist’s task to decode these messages,

and apply them to our understanding of the human experience.” 26

Guide to the dissertation

The dissertation is divided into seven chapters, with related subchapters under each chapter. Chapter 1, Beginnings, starts with a review in subchapter 1.1 of the historiography of studies on motorcycling in America and emphasizes the lack of scholarly attention given to non- outlaw, competitive motorcyclists. This subchapter also introduces and describes a principal examination method used in this dissertation: that is, to treat the Maico motorcycle as material culture and through it create a picture of the dedicated group of riders who associated with it.

Subchapter 1.2 provides a brief history of the motorcycle in the United States, from its birth in approximately 1901 as a leisure instrument of the wealthy, into succeeding decades where it became identified with hoodlums and marginalized people, through the machine’s current resurgence as an image creator for a much older and wealthier class of rider.

Chapter 2, Analysis of the Object, begins with subchapter 2.1 and a thorough engineering examination of the common 400cc Maico motorcycle, in order to establish basic understandings of the machine, its parts, and its use as a competitive tool. In subchapters 2.2 and 2.3, two unique variations of the Maico motorcycle are examined, the 501cc and 125cc engine displacement

26 Deetz, In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life (New York: Anchor Books, 1996), 4. xxxvi sizes, and the meanings inherent in the development and ownership of these “extreme” Maicos are presented.

Chapter 3, Modifying the Object, introduces the subject of owner modification of motorcycles and its meaning. Inherent in the changes owners made to their motorcycles are expressions of speed, individuality, and self-identification. These modifications could be aesthetically-oriented or performance-oriented, and involved concepts such as David Potter’s definition of what constituted an American, David Pye’s theories of the “workmanship of risk,” and the meanings invoked by the use of aluminum-alloy parts. 27

Chapter 4, The Motorcycle Business in America, begins with two subchapters detailing the history of Dennie Moore’s Eastern Maico Distributors business in Reedsville, Pennsylvania.

Moore was a motorcycle racer who imported Maico motorcycles during the important 1968-1973 years to the United States, and his experiences navigating international cultural boundaries and motorcycling subcultures helps locate the American racer within greater outlying rings of identity. Subchapter 4.3 examines the life of a small Pennsylvania motorcycle dealer, Gig

Hamilton. Subchapter 4.4 examines the business and motivations of the leading provider of aftermarket performance accessories for Maico, Californian Greg Smith of Wheelsmith

Engineering.

Chapter 5, Racing: Hope, Image, Reality, focuses on the off-road motorcycle competitor.

Subchapter 5.1 chronicles the career of Swedish racing phenomenon Ake Jonsson, a champion synonymous with Maico. Jonsson is the man who brought the small company the closest to an international title—which Maico never did win—and also the individual who was the visual face of Maico racing dominance in the United States from 1970-1973. Subchapter 5.2 examines

California rider and icon, Tim Hart, through the dissection of three pervasive period images and

27 David Pye, The Nature and Art of Workmanship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 9. xxxvii invoking theories of meaning in American photographs by scholar Alan Trachtenberg.28

Subchapter 5.3 chronicles the career of semi-sponsored “privateer” Ohio rider Denny Swartz, who detoured from routine American career choices to pursue dreams of professional motocross racing, won the last national motocross event (to be won on a Maico) on a prototype 490 Maico against the best riders in the world, and then abruptly left racing to buy his family farm.

Subchapter 5.4 examines the life of an African-American racer and Maico enthusiast, Brian

Thompson. Thompson provides a view in and around the overwhelmingly white sports subculture, through the lens of a racial minority who was able to compete with them on their own terms. Finally, subchapter 5.5, Innocents Abroad, examines some of the earliest years of

Americans campaigning on the European motocross circuit in the 1970s. Besides the American racers (Bryan Kenney, John Barclay, and Barry Higgins), this subchapter incorporates the experiences of two other unique Americans. One is Swedish ex-patriot Gunnar Lindstrom, who was then in the process of moving to the United States, but qualified as an American rider by virtue of his work visa and was enlisted to help the neophyte Americans. The other was

Tennessean Jeanne Lokey, girlfriend of Barry Higgins, who toured Europe in the summer of

1971 and provides a rare feminine viewpoint on the male-dominated motocross circuit and its semi-hidden female participants. Lokey presents a comparison of gender roles within competitive motorcycling in the United States and Europe at the time.

Chapter 6, A Big Business, discusses the highest levels of the Maico operation, by examining the narratives of elite members of Maico management. Subchapter 6.1 examines the motorcycle culture from the perspective of an Indian assembly worker at Maico who would become a company senior executive, Selvaraj Narayana. Narayana toured the United States

28 Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs: Images as History (New York: The Noonday Press, 1990), xiii-xvii. xxxviii extensively to support the Maico racing teams, and I refer to him as the ‘glue’ which held Maico together during Maico’s latter years. Subchapter 6.2 examines the German Maico company in detail. The information in this subchapter is drawn in large part from the oral history of Wilhelm

Maisch, Jr., son of one of the company founders and head of engineering during the company’s most important later years. Through the insights of Maisch and other observers, I construct a description of the company’s operating practices, its strengths and weaknesses, and also its critical and sometimes adversarial relationship to American buyers. The chapter concludes with the analysis in subchapter 6.3 of a curious 1984 letter sent to United States dealers, supposedly written by Maico president Otto Maisch, one year after the company entered bankruptcy.

Chapter 7, Final History, Conclusions, and Epilogue, describes the collapse of the Maico company and reviews what we can learn from Maico in the United States. Subchapter 7.1,

Maico’s End, unravels the complex mix of factors which caused Maico to implode only two years after introducing the extremely well-received 1981 490cc model. The long-held folklore of

Maisch family sabotage is also thoroughly discussed here. In subchapter 7.2, Conclusions, I return to address my basic thesis arguments: Who were the off-road competitive motorcyclists who gathered around the Maico motorcycle; how did they differed from American biker culture; the meanings of the Maico motorcycle to them; why the Maico bears the unusual aesthetics it does; and why a company at the height of fame in 1981 could dissolve into bankruptcy only two years later. Finally, subchapter 7.3 (Epilogue) discusses the evolution of the concept of the

“antique” in the United States, and the considerations the collector faces when debating whether to restore or preserve a historical technological object such as the antique motorcycle.

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Acknowledgements

I am enormously indebted to each person who made this dissertation possible through their recollections of American off-road and competitive motorcycling in past years, and of the

Maico motorcycle. Those who contributed written data to this project include: Travis Agle, Mark

Firkin, Gunnar Lindstrom, Jim McCabe, and Rick Sieman. For allowing me to interview them and obtain their oral histories, I thank: John Barclay, Eric Bley, Barry Higgins, Bryan Kenney,

Dennie Moore, Selvaraj Narayana, Gig Hamiliton, Brian Thompson, Tim Hart, Denny Swartz,

Greg Smith, Craig Shambaugh, Dick Sidle, Rick Sieman (again), Charles Schank, Ake Jonsson,

Jeanne Lokey, Wilhelm Maisch Jr., Gunnar Lindstrom (again), and Paul Wawrynovic. I must recognize each of them for their profound contributions to motorcycling, whether in years past, currently, or still to come. Particularly rewarding was the experience of soliciting knowledge and personal experiences from individuals that generations of motorcyclists—including me—have watched since childhood. I found that their friendliness and unending helpfulness was at least equal to their enormous achievements in the sport.

For planting the seed for this journey, I must credit restorer Joe Adomaitis, whose conversation with me about a minor Maico question at a vintage motorcycle meet in Nesco, New

Jersey years ago led to the “ . . . someone really should write a book about Maico” moment . . . which was the birth of this endeavor. Professors Mark Shaffer and Dr. Simon Bronner of Penn

State University, Harrisburg, whose work and influence on me in the areas of historical archaeology and folk and material culture, respectively, greatly influenced this work’s format.

Karyn Russell, Brian Thompson, John Caldwell, Curt Lowery, Gig Hamilton, Greg Lutz, and

Travis Agle were of critical help in editing and reviewing my writing for accuracy, giving constant feedback and sometimes unearthing or remembering details that few of even the most

xl dedicated Maico enthusiasts or motorcycle historians retain. Bill Eyler and Dennie Moore provided motorcycles and parts for photography.

Elke Rabeneck’s critical help in the translation of German-language documents is immensely appreciated and was essential in unearthing the facts surrounding Maico’s end. Will

Stoner, formerly of the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), helped immensely by obtaining contact information for my sources. Former AMA president and writer/historian Ed

Youngblood provided advice in all aspects of the early production of this dissertation, and I greatly value his guidance and contributions to American motorcycling and its history far more than I can say in this space. Tim Parker, formerly of Osprey Publishing, was always available for guidance and to disperse the benefits of a career spent producing some of the finest historical motorcycle books. Gina Motter dropped everything to edit the initial texts, and I greatly appreciate her labor. Lastly, I thank my dissertation committee of Dr. Charles Kupfer (chair), Dr.

Simon Bronner, Dr. Anne Verplanck, and Dr. Seth Wolpert; all on the faculty at Penn State

University-Harrisburg. I must especially thank Anne for her many hours spent helping me refine my text, and Charlie for his constant encouragement.

Photographic and visual credits

Lee Sutton granted his kind permission for the use of a number of his period photographs.

Thanks to Dirt Bike Magazine and Cycle News for their permission to republish period photos and spreads. RacerX Illustrated Publisher Davey Coombs allowed me unrestricted access to the vast Dick Miller Collection of off-road motorcycle photography in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Maico historian Peter Vagt of Germany furnished images of the Maico factory and of the elder

Maisch brothers. Jim McCabe’s collection of pre-1970 Maico literature enabled that aspect of the dissertation pertaining to the earliest Maicos in America. I am deeply appreciative of the

xli hundreds of personal photographs of the era provided by both those individuals interviewed as well as other riders, many of these having never been published. The photo collection sent to me by Ake and Tomas Jonsson of Sweden was extraordinarily rich in material. Scott Nicholas connected me with photographer Carl Hess and his vast collection of work, documenting AMA

District-Six scrambles and motocross racing in the very early 1970s. Motorcycle, advertising, and component reference photography was done by Karyn Russell, Nessie Russell, and the author.

xlii

This work is dedicated to my wife Karyn; my children Christian, William, and Agnes; and my parents Patricia and William Russell, who all recognized that there are times when otherwise practical and conservative people must venture beyond the safe constraints of such behavior, into something outwardly irrational, and perhaps even self-serving and dangerous. It is also dedicated to the generations of American motorcycle riders and racers who have done the same. And, ultimately, it is offered to God, from whom I believe all creativity originates, and to whom a good work is due.

xliii

Chapter 1: BEGINNINGS

1.1 DEFINITIONS, HISTORIOGRAPHY, AND THE MAICO AS MATERIAL CULTURE

This dissertation is a social history of a technology. By this I mean that it examines an item of technology, in this case the German-made Maico motorcycle, and explores the links between the object and that segment of humankind who interacted with it. These people both affected this motorcycle, and were affected by it. As historian Carroll Pursell stated, this approach to history emphasizes the “social role of technology—the way in which it interacts with other aspects of American life . . .”1 We will see that the product of a small German company became tightly entwined with a passionate group of competitive American motorcycle riders, and that this piece of technology can be interpreted as material culture, in order to provide us insights into the lives and values of this group. Other sources of information will assist in this investigation—oral histories, literature, and photographs, to name a few—but the technological device uniting the group will serve as my central point of inquiry. Through the careful examination of these sources we will see that the members of this American group shared values and communal behaviors, differed significantly from other motorcyclists, and, while resisting some societal influences, were still products of the rapidly changing times in which they lived.

Defining motorcycle riding: activity or sport?

A key difference between the men and women addressed in this text and motorcycle riders as a whole concerns their use of the motorcycle. Motorcycles are rightfully considered a transportation device; they certainly move a person, physically, from one place to another. But this larger description naturally divides into smaller subsets, differentiated by the machine’s use

1 Carroll Pursell, The Machine in America: A Social History of Technology (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), xi. 1 and the groups’ feelings about the role of the motorcycle within their culture. In the United

States we routinely observe several such differing motorcycle groups. Prevalent on American roads are the “bikers,” the black-leather-clad, somewhat conformist, sometimes posturing group, emanating a certain rebellious attitude. There are also basic commuters, riding practical motorcycles as an efficient or enjoyable means of going from one place to another. In past years there have appeared the “crotch-rocket” or “rocket-bike” riders, the most recent incarnation of young men on fast motorcycles. These riders lie low on the bikes, road-racer style, with feet far back on loud motorcycles which are sometimes every bit as fast as the 200mph road-race machines they are modelled upon. Aside from these principal groups, there are many smaller subgroups, united by a specific identity, brand or type of motorcycle, and preferred riding.

Americans encounter Cruisers, “Dykes on bikes,” chopper riders, BMW riders, vintage Japanese

(or British or Spanish) riders, “rat” riders, veterans’ clubs, the Christian Motorcycle Club, “one- per-center” gangmembers—but all these can be discussed another time. The final principal group of motorcyclists, I argue, is not highly visible on our public roads at all. If they are seen, it is in the context of hauling or towing their motorcycles to the racetracks, off-road vehicle recreational areas, or other places where they can legally ride. This group is what I call the “motorcycle sport rider.” By motorcycle sport rider I am describing both those motorcycle riders who engage in a variety of organized motorcycle competitions, and also those who recreationally use motorcycles in off-road environments. While these riders are using their motorcycles as transportation in the most literal sense, they are much more concerned with enlisting the motorcycle as a tool in some manner of competition or struggle against time, terrain, other physical obstacles, each other, or a combination of these things. Racing motorcyclists ride in organized competitions, including road-racing on paved tracks and a variety of events on unpaved terrain, to include motocross,

2 enduro, cross-country, and trials. While recreational off-road riders may not be engaged in actual organized competition, they are, like their organized racing contemporaries, engaged in an individual physical challenge, pitting themselves, their motorcycles, and their individual riding abilities against natural obstacles. These obstacles may be hills, streams, mud, vegetation, the desert, rocks, or other natural barriers to man and machine. In this light, we can view the lone off-road rider in the same way as we might view the mountain climber, sky diver, or individual long distance swimmer; and, of course, the racing motorcyclist. Sport is their interest; not transportation, sightseeing, cost savings, or posturing; and these riders are sport riders.

Locating the differences between these sport riders and other transportation-centered riders is critical to the identification of the former group’s unique motives and values, and, I argue, their culture. The division between sport and non-sport riders can be a blurred one, and moving beyond the obvious fact that both groups are on motorcycles is a more nuanced distinction that many observers may not bother to make. To objectify the comparison, we should consider American society’s understanding of what constitutes “sport.” Dictionary definitions of sport include “an active pastime: recreation;” and, a “specific diversion, usually involving physical exercise and having a set form and body or rules.”2 From this definition, how do we categorize the American tradition of cheerleading, for example—is it a sport, a game, or just an activity? In the case of cheerleading, though a very physical act, school districts in the United

States have usually termed it as an activity, due primarily to the lack of competition.3 Card playing and chess, on the other hand, involve competition, but lack the physicality expected of a sport; thus we consider these pursuits to be games (albeit a highly challenging and intellectual one, in the case of the latter). I use similar criteria when considering on-road motorcycle riding to

2 Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary, Boston, MA: The Riverside Publishing Company, 1984. 3 “Competitive cheerleading,” pitting one squad against others in the execution of acrobatics and other criteria, is conversely recognized as a sport due to the presence of competition. 3 be an activity; it is essentially transportation: getting the rider from one place to another, be it quickly, cheaply, stylishly, or enjoyably. We should see that sport and transportation motorcycle riding differ fundamentally. I take special care to note that this theory is not meant to ignore or demean the rigors of street riding. Environmental conditions, traffic, and the physics of controlling a statically unstable motorcycle do require preparation and skill on the part of riders.

A recent category of street motorcycle and rider further complicates the distinction; this is the

“sport bike” (also called “crotch rocket”). This is a street-legal, high-performance motorcycle possessing capabilities that seasoned road-racers would have difficulty harnessing on a race track, much less the highway, as expert road-racers have attested.4 Riding this type of motorcycle

(or any motorcycle) to greater road speeds and experiencing the limits of cornering capabilities, legally or illegally, certainly involves risk and physicality, such as are required by other individual sports. Riding a sport bike fast, on the road, is probably best described as an illegal, very dangerous equivalent to road-racing. I leave, however, further study and classification of this type of riding to others.

Since I assert that the sport riders are a subculture of the greater motorcycling culture, it is important to establish precisely what these terms denote. First, I refer to a commonly accepted definition of culture, that being “the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions and other products of human work and thought typical of a population or community at a given time.”5 Referring to the greater American “motorcycling culture,” one can readily observe these aforementioned traits, at least as they are applied to the more visible on- road segment. This group, for example, practices “the wave” to other riders as they pass on the

4 Interview with Craig Shambaugh by David Russell, September 11, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 5 Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary, Boston, MA: The Riverside Publishing Company, 1984. 4 road6, dresses similarly, adorns its motorcycles with certain standardized symbols (such as

American POW flags, if the motorcycle is a Harley-Davidson), admires excellence in the art of custom paintwork, shares the common challenge of riding on the road, and communicates using a common lexicon of motorcycle-relevant words.

My use of the term subculture is again literal and refers to a “cultural subgroup differentiated by status, ethnic background, residence, religion or other factors that functionally unify the group and act collectively on each member.”7 The primary difference between sport riders and non-sport riders, I have said, is the purpose for which they use the motorcycle. They also differ in other, secondary ways which further differentiate the two groups from one another.

(Categorizing the motorcycle rider in a single group, or single type of rider, is fairly uncomplicated. While many motorcyclists engage in more than one riding activity, they tend to self-identify themselves with one principal group. For example, off-road riders may also ride on the road, and a Vietnam Veterans of America rider may also be a Harley-Davidson owner. That rider will probably, however, self-describe himself in only one category. Also, the skill sets for various types of motorcycle riding are not necessarily transferable: arguably, an off-road rider/racer can adequately handle a street bike, but a strictly on-road rider’s abilities may not translate well to purely off-road conditions. This specialization of riding skills tends to strengthen the tendency to identify with one group.) I will describe the values, mores, and practices of the sport community specifically, and in much greater detail, in the course of this work.

Historiography

6 “The wave” is the practice of waving of a free hand at a passing motorcyclist and receiving one in turn, presumably signifying solidarity between riders. 7 Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary, Boston, MA: The Riverside Publishing Company, 1984. 5

The historiography of motorcycle culture in America is limited. Beyond the two works which are probably the most recognized, Hunter Thompson’s Hell’s Angels: A Strange and

Terrible Saga and Robert Persig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, even enthusiasts might be at a loss to name another important work on the subject. The post-World War II

American popular idea among non-riders that motorcycles were only for hoodlums may have resulted in writers’ and scholars’ earlier abbreviated interest in motorcycling, and now with their current fascination with that more ostentatious aspect of the larger culture.

Thompson’s book, written between 1964 and 1966 and chronicling his adventures while embedded with several chartered California chapters of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club, is certainly one of the more daring participant/observer ethnographies to date. The book is written in the exuberant pop style that would come to be labeled as “gonzo journalism.” Thompson’s writing is not academic (and perhaps not even trustworthy) but it did reasonably inform and educate generations about this very specific segment within motorcycling culture, picking up the story of motorcycle hoodlums and rapists where the gentler innuendo of The Wild One (1954) left off. Thompson was answering 1960s questions originating with the festering mythology of the 1950s Wild One biker. While it is a truth, his story is a very narrow truth, and one we should be careful about applying too widely.

Hell’s Angels does educate readers on several key facets of motorcycle culture.

Thompson was also the first observer to point out that the Angels and their ilk are not “counter- culturals” at all; they are, rather, extreme reactionaries.8 Despite early impressions on the part of the radical Left, the Angels’ long hair, unusual dress, and disdain for authority were not a link to

1960s radicalism, as many would soon see, and as I chronicle later in this dissertation. Thompson also, in a nod to previous theories of the frontier in both American history and American Studies,

8 Hunter S. Thompson, Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (New York: The Modern Library, 1999), 237. 6 locates the outlaw biker in that American frontier movement, though certainly not embracing him. The outlaw biker is, Thompson tells us, “American white trash;” and the bondservant

“sleazy rearguard camp followers of the original western movement.”9 While he builds relationships with his outlaw subjects, Thompson does not waiver in his antipathy towards them.

If, as we shall see, Barbara Joans loves her subjects in Bike Lust too much (and other ethnographers, such as James Spradley and Brenda Mann in The Cocktail Waitress are generally supportive but professionally detached to theirs), then Thompson genuinely learns to loathe the marginalized young men he studies to produce Hell’s Angels.

Unfortunately, Thompson does not investigate the motivations, feelings, and origins of the many American dirt bike riders or racers of the era. Even though the author was later sent by

Sports Illustrated to report on the 1970 Mint 400 off-road motorcycle race (the departure point for what became Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), that assignment disintegrated, swept away by

Thompson’s well-documented substance abuse, and we are left with no insight on his part of dirt bike and sport/racing culture. 10 Thompson’s description of the Hell’s Angels may be the text of record for Americans interested in motorcycle culture of the era, but it does not attempt to cover the off-road, everyday riding, and racing scenes, and therefore tells only one small part of the story of motorcycle culture in the United States. Off-road bikers have never had a dedicated bard of their own. Perhaps if Thompson, who admittedly loved anything fast, lethal, and loud, had been more exposed to off-road riding, that culture would not be so overlooked, and might have benefited greatly from the author’s influence.11 But, he did not, and we are left without scholarly

9 Ibid, 146-148 10 Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (New York: Random House, 1972). 11 Thompson did, however, love fast motorcycles, and his “Song of the Sausage Creature,” a feature commissioned by Cycle World on the Ducati 900SS, suggests what his description of fast dirt bikes might have been. The article can be found in: The Art of the Motorcycle, ed. Mathew Drutt (New York: The Guggenheim Museum, 1998). 7 analysis of the vibrant sporting motorcycle subculture that was very different from Thompson’s studied world of gangs, goatees, leather vests, and Harleys.

Robert Persig’s 1974 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the second, along with Hell’s Angels, in the pair of the most-often-cited literary references to American motorcycling.12 Persig was a college professor interested in eastern philosophy, and the motorcycle trip which forms the basis of the narrative, a long-distance tour with his son, Chris, and friends, the Sutherlands, forms the armature to which Persig attaches his theories about quality and reason. The book is largely a discussion of the struggle and coexistence of the

Romantic: the creative and imaginative, championed by John Sutherland; and the Classical, the practical guy who can fix his broken-down motorcycle along a deserted highway, espoused by

Persig. The book’s title reflects Persig’s belief in the importance of possessing at least a minimal understanding of one’s mechanical partner, and knowing how to sustain it, which he endeavors to pass along to his son in the course of their adventure.

While Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is, at its core, not a book primarily about motorcycles or riding, it did much to imbue the act of motorcycle riding with something deeper than transportation. Persig’s writing linked motorcycling with a higher consciousness, and with ideas of knowing and experience which transcended cheap locomotion. The modern concept of riding’s mythic “freedom” has much to do with Persig’s title; the book has become iconic, even if most enthusiasts referencing the book find it difficult reading, surprised to find a very different text than that which they originally imagined. The book further cemented into the

American psyche the concept of the long-distance, right-of-passage motorcycle “road trip,” suggested earlier by the 1969 film Easy Rider, as a fundamental aspect of the American coming- of-age experience.

12 Robert M. Persig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (New York: HarperCollins, 1974). 8

The significance of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, for inquiry into the history and culture of actual motorcycling, mostly stops there. And, as advanced street motorcycling technology grows further removed from the days of actually working on one’s own machine, Zen may become less of a literary icon; as the very man-machine interface it extols, disappears with computer-controlled processes and maintenance requirements far beyond the abilities of the regular rider. The modern motorcyclist no longer is paired with a likely unreliable mechanical partner which will demand his mechanical involvement at some critical point.

Instead, he has paid to be astride a modern marvel, whose reliability is virtually guaranteed. In the unlikely event the machine does fail, the rider’s cellphone call to a professional mechanic will comprise his response. There is little occasion for Persig’s philosophical meanderings—at least those applied to actual repair—on today’s near-perfect motorcycles.

Anthropologist Barbara Joans’s Bike Lust: Harleys, Women, & American Society is a more recent ethnography of the largely non-outlaw and benign Harley/biker culture, highly visible to Americans.13 Joans is an anthropologist who graduated from passenger to biker, and wrote as a participant/observer within Harley-Davidson motorcycle culture. Harley owners and devotees, a very large part of the American riding public (and the seemingly self-appointed heirs of American biker culture), provide a fertile ground for Joans’s study of gender roles, the prevailing challenges of race within biker culture, and the real elements and attractions of the

“lifestyle.” Her principal focus in on the role of women in this unique society, and Joans may be the first serious observer to have identified and described the various roles women assume in this male-dominated culture. Joans provides an excellent definition and analysis of these female actors (who are categorized as biker chicks, lady passengers, lady bikers, women riders, and

13 Barbara Joans, Bike Lust: Women, Harleys, and American Society (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2001), 132. 9 women bikers). Joans also identifies biker culture as a folk culture and a “culture with its folklore,” and proposes a reason for the attraction for those many Americans who eagerly seek out biker culture. They do this, Joans understands, with a purpose: they “look to biker tradition to provide . . . values, behaviors, and symbols” for use in achieving a fundamental sense of belonging and worth in an increasingly ungrounded and diffuse American society.14 Bikers, notes Joans, enthusiastically embrace this culture to provide for themselves the identity and authenticity which may be otherwise missing in their lives. The culture grants them not only camaraderie and identity, but also a lineage (the various stages of Harley-Davidson history), shared community values, and heroes (founders William Harley and William, Walter, and Arthur

Davidson; along with famous outlaws and racers). In less affirming terms, the observer may also note that biker culture is at the same time a restricted comportment; pressuring members to behave and dress in ways that may overtly express “freedom” (at least in that they are confrontational to popular or traditional culture), but, when considered by itself, is confining and predictable.

What Joans does not do is to address any motorcycle culture beyond that of the Harley biker. Her analyses of the plaintive emotional need for belonging, emanating from the outwardly tough biker, in fact provides a counterpoint to the oppositional, individualistic, and competitive nature of the off-road sport rider. Joans’s posturing bikers are something of a reverse image of the motorcycle competitor, who might pass her parade of leather-clad actors in a pick-up truck with a race bike in the back, going in the opposite direction and with very different motivations.

Joans’ subjects do, like Thompson’s more hardened examples, create a typecast and a reference point from which other motorcycle groups can be described, in their sheer cultural distance from this datum.

14 Ibid, 17. 10

Motorcycle, by Steven E. Alford and Suzanne Ferriss, provides a fresh, new, broad, and balanced discussion of motorcycling.15 Alford and Ferriss, also the creators and editors of the online International Journal of Motorcycle Studies as well as educators actively involved in teaching motorcycle studies, bring a current view to the history, culture, and present state of motorcycling. Alford and Ferriss were among the first scholars to note the changing socioeconomic demographic of the motorcyclist: far from being the young rebel of earlier generations, today’s motorcyclist is older, wealthier, and better educated than the average

American—and (as we recall Joans’ characters) more interested in looking like a rebel than actually rebelling. The authors also call attention to Suzanne McDonald-Walker’s theory of the

“gentrification of the rebel” among contemporary bikers; the “cartoon-like” image and

“commodification” of both symbols of deviance and parodied deviant behaviors.16 Again, this popular reference point helps in the study of those riders who are different, describing everything the others choose to separate themselves from.

Motorcycle stands as a one-stop scholarly text on the past and present of world-wide motorcycle culture, incorporating references to many other important works. Admirably, Alford and Ferriss do not ignore motorcycle competition and off-road riding, either. Motorcycle includes references to dirt riding in the United States, early dirt bike creator John Penton, and the importance of the 1971 Bruce Brown/Steve McQueen On Any Sunday documentary.17 What is lacking in the excellent, comprehensive Motorcycle is a deeper consideration of aspects of motorcycle culture that the reader might desire, but this is the limit of 240 pages of text.

English-language analyses of sport/off-road culture in America to date comprise only a handful of major works: Danny Lyon’s The Bikeriders; Rick Sieman’s Monkey Butt; and Ed

15 Steven E. Alford and Suzanne Ferriss, Motorcycle (London: Reaktion Books, 2007), 8. 16 Ibid, 114-6. 17 On Any Sunday, dir. by Bruce Brown (1971; Monterey Home Video, 2003 dvd). 11

Youngblood’s John Penton and the Off-road Motorcycle Revolution.18 Terry Pratt’s Grand Prix

Motocross: The 1972 World Championship Season,19 while not a book ostensibly about

American motocross, is nonetheless written by an American enthusiast taken in by the sport, and covers early American riders negotiating the European circuit. Danny Lyon’s and Terry Pratt’s works are largely photojournalistic, but both succeed in revealing the values and motivations of the sport rider. Lyon’s important work, a collection of photographs and explanations detailing his time as a member of a Chicago motorcycle gang and as an observer of motorcycle competition in the Midwest United States, is valuable for its examination of the rarely mentioned motorcycle competitors of the 1950s and 1960s. In later editions of The Bikeriders, Lyon has included transcriptions of oral statements by several of the characters appearing in the photographs, allowing a deeper insight into these men and women. Lyon is an artist and documenter, however, and not a social scientist. Not surprisingly, he leaves the ultimate comparison of the differences and similarities between the opposing cultures, the road-riding gang members and the off-road competitors, up to the viewer/reader.

Journalist Terry Pratt’s book, like Lyon’s, is more reference work than analysis. Pratt’s

Grand Prix Motocross fixates exclusively on motocross competition. His collection of photographs, taken during his time covering the 1972 international motocross circuit while on assignment for Cycle News, concentrates on European subjects but does allocate some space for

American riders. The portrait he creates of the early days of professional motocross and the small factories (of which Maico was one) gives an accurate portrayal of the similar but still emerging

18 Danny Lyon, The Bikeriders (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003); Rick Sieman, Monkey Butt (San Antonio Del Mar, Baja: Rick Sieman Racing, 1995); Ed Youngblood, John Penton and the Off-road Motorcycle Revolution (North Conway, NH: Whitehorse Press, 2000). 19 Terry Pratt, Grand Prix Motocross: The 1972 World Championship Season (Costa Mesa, CA: Cycle News, 2007). 12 culture in the United States. In the context of any examination of Maico, Pratt’s section on the

Maico factory and his intermittent photos of Maico riders in action are both valuable.

While Pratt’s work provides hundreds of photographs of early motocross racing and the many historical figures which were important in its growth, scholarly methodology is again absent. It is a source of images and information, not an explanation of the sport, its people, or its culture. This information is there, but must be extrapolated through further analysis.

Rick Sieman’s Monkey Butt, a collection of previously published essays from the early days of Dirt Bike Magazine, together with additional writings, is likely the most direct window on off-road riding in the late 1960s and 1970s. It allows a first-person description of the era which is otherwise lacking in motorcycle history. Sieman’s often course text resembles neither a historical narrative nor an ethnography; it is the spontaneous, unpolished, and insightful observations of a “native who was there” when the culture emerged and took recognizable shape. Sieman’s opinions and recollections are important glimpses into the mindset of the

American off-road rider in the “golden age” of American off-road motorcycling.20 Sieman remains both a much-revered figure from motorcycling’s past, as well as a current contributor. I have interviewed Sieman on several occasions.

Like the previous works by Pratt and Lyon, Monkey Butt is not an academic work, being largely recollections, ramblings, and in some cases fictional writings. Sieman’s book is best used as a window on period dirt bike culture and language: the oral narrative of an important figure in the American off-road movement. Sieman’s history of the establishment of Dirt Bike Magazine is important as well, but the work as a whole is a personal story, and not an analysis of the movement.

20 Author Harry V. Sucher (The Iron Redskin) considers an earlier era, the 1930s, to be the “Golden Era” of motorcycling in the United States, for excellent reasons. My use (and I assume that of others) of the term refers to the availability of excellent motorcycles and the record sales in this country, circa1973. 13

Ed Youngblood’s history of John Penton and the Penton motorcycle company, John

Penton and the Off-road Motorcycle Revolution, chronicles the story of why, to a significant degree, we have the dirt bikes that we now have. Ed Youngblood, a doctoral candidate in English literature before assuming a long post as president of the American Motorcyclist Association, is a prolific writer on American motorcycling and well equipped as a cultural observer. In this work

Youngblood chronicles the history of how a tough young 1950s American racing prodigy eventually grew weary of pushing his Harley through the outback. Penton dared to question why large, heavy bikes were the only answer, and succeeded in formulating the pivotal design of a far more effective, practical, and lightweight two-stroke off-road motorcycle. John Penton was an exceptional competitor whose personal motivations and driven Midwestern frontier heritage well-describe traits of the archetypal American rider. Youngblood’s history of the Pentons is a small but important contribution to off-road motorcycling studies.

Beyond motorcycle-centric texts, this dissertation adapts methods of inquiry and ideas from a variety of American Studies writings and approaches. Since the Maico motorcycle subculture will be examined largely using methods of material culture analysis, several classic

American Studies texts lend themselves well. James Deetz’ work in historical archaeology is particularly useful in this regard. Deetz’ admonition that the mundane objects we might otherwise overlook “carry messages from their makers and users” simply and beautifully expresses my concept of material culture.21 Deetz broke with the “top down” methods of earlier text-based American Studies theorists such as Perry Miller and Sacvan Bercovitch, replacing high-culture narratives of the educated classes with the material objects and everyday documents of the common folk (and all folk) as the informing texts. Along with other American Studies

21 James Deetz, In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life (New York: Anchor Books, 1996), 4. 14 writers such as John Demos, Deetz and the “bottom up” approach became the new expectation in historical scholarship. When Deetz released In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early

American Life in 1977, the work became a turning point in the study of the American history, bringing historical archaeology to the forefront as a method, and not simply an authenticating device, in the tools enabling historians to understand and order the past.

The work of James Deetz can be further characterized by his desire to humanize history; to create a living, feeling human face from the discarded objects of long ago. Seeking to best provide readers and scholars with a sense of the flesh and blood of these real men and women, now long-dead, Deetz created historically-based vignettes of how he imagined scenes from the people’s lives. In The Times of Their Lives, Deetz and co-author Patricia Scott Deetz recreated scenes such as the following, describing the indictment of one Mary Ingham of Scituate,

Massachusetts, for witchcraft on March 6, 1677. Not satisfied with merely presenting facts and deductions, the Deetzes create a more detailed stage for the reader: “A cold wind was blowing in from the ocean, carrying the plaintive mew of sea gulls . . .”22 I utilize this technique as well, introducing and illustrating some chapters with similar vignettes, taken from facts and reasonable inferences. These vignettes serve to place historical events in more easily understandable and compelling context.

I borrow from other American material culture scholars, and a discussion of my hybrid technique, assembled from their personal methods, immediately follows this preface. Besides technique, I believe material culture scholar Jules David Prown’s concept of objects being metaphors for human experience and expression is especially relevant to the motorcycle.23 From

22 James and Patricia Scott Deetz, The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love, and Death in Plymouth Colony (New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 2000), 95-96. 23 Jules David Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method,” Winterthur Portfolio, Vol.17, No.1 (Spring, 1982), 11. 15 the design and construction of the Maico motorcycle at the factory, to the modifications and customized parts that American owners applied to their machines, the objects related human feelings and carried meaning for both owners and observers. These projections included: pride of ownership, dedication to riding, a will to compete and to win, an acceptance of fear and danger, attitudes toward technology, and the importance of quality, among other things. In the pre-

Guggenheim The Art of the Motorcycle years, when the idea of the “motorcycle as art” was not yet firmly imprinted on American minds, Prown also recognized and discussed the divergence of those objects into those we consider utilitarian artifact, and those we call art. Prown notes that even the most technical artifacts can still be “aestheticized,” dependent upon the context of the object or the viewer.24

The interpretation of period photographs is fundamental to explaining motorcycle sport in past decades. Here, historian Alan Trachtenberg’s Reading American Photographs is particularly applicable.1 Trachtenberg observed that we have conceived photography as many things throughout the past centuries: as documentary, as fine art, as the “visual poetry” of Walker

Evans, and also as a social tool (the “social photography” of Lewis Hine). Trachtenberg also notes that while we long have thought of photography as tantamount to truth (“seeing is believing,” and the like), most photography of living creatures is a “construction:” the result of some degree of interaction between the photographer and the subject.25 Rare is the scene in which the subjects or background have not been manipulated in some way by the photographer.

Trachtenberg and most other students and practitioners of photography agree that photographs show more than is on the surface, and our understanding of photographic constructionism may

24 Jules David Prown, “The Truth of Material Culture: History or Fiction?” in History from Things: Essays on Material Culture, ed. Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery, 1-19. (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993). 25 Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs: Images as History (New York: The Noonday Press, 1990), 53-83 16 help us to better understand not only the subject, but the unseen photographer. This belief figures prominently in my investigation of the Maico and its owners.

Thomas J. Schlereth’s Artifacts and the American Past advocates using a wide range of sources. Schlereth advises the use all material culture available, be it mail-order catalogs, ancillary objects, or even landscape work. I particularly follow Schlereth’s lead in my inclusion of period advertising and sales literature as avenues through which to delve into the value systems of both the German producers and the riders/consumers.

One recent text that greatly contributed to my work is Briann Greenfield’s Out of the

Attic: Inventing Antiques in Twentieth-Century New England. Used in conjunction with the judging guidelines of the Antique Automobile Club of America and the Antique Motorcycle

Club of America and other texts on the presentation of antique American furniture, I propose rationales for changes in perspective on the restoration of antique motorcycles (which the Maico qualifies as). Greenfield illustrates that the idea of an old utilitarian object possessing value, apart from its present usefulness, is a fairly recent trend in American thought. It is, in fact, an invention of the early Twentieth century. Greenfield’s explanation of the separation of “aesthetic antiques” from “historical antiques” helps to create rational grounds for the preservation—versus the complete repair and resurfacing inherent in restoration—of old vehicles.26 This is a major change from the former default position (particularly among antique automobile owners in the

United States) that restoration was the reasonable and requisite first step in the appreciation and enjoyment of any old car, as either functional or aesthetic object.

As a work dedicated to revealing an American subculture, this dissertation refers often to

David Potter’s People of Plenty. Potter sought to define the American character from the vantage

26 Briann Greenfield, Out of the Attic: Inventing Antiques in Twentieth-Century New England (Boston: The University of Massachusetts Press, 2009), 6, 28. 17 point of the 1950s but his observations remain very true for the 1960s and 1970s. The American character revealed in People of Plenty is one that strives for success, but not status, and measures this success by the figurative distance traveled from his place or condition of origin.27 Potter’s

American possessed an inherent competitive spirit. In the subculture of motorcycle racing, the strong presence of this spirit goes without saying, and each off-road rider, competing in some way against physics, time, or personal limitations, is a testimony to the type of American Potter described. Potter’s work is now sixty years old and has come up against criticism; some modern scholars disagree with the premise of a “national character.” Yet Potter’s theories so characterize the competitive American motorcycle rider that they will be addressed here. Beyond these specifically mentioned authors, the works of Carroll Pursell, Jeffrey L. Meikle, David Pye,

Simon Bronner, William Manchester, Will Kaufman, and David J. Boorstin also figure prominently in this dissertation.

The Maico as Material Culture and Artifact

The central material object uniting the culture being studied here is the Maico motorcycle. Using material culture techniques, this man-made object will be evaluated in order to extract significance and meaning. The Maico motorcycle may also be referred to as an artifact, since it is thing “created by humans, for a practical purpose.”28 Some scholars would further classify the motorcycle as a tool; a man-made object intended to accomplish work.

Utilizing material culture methodology to examine the Maico motorcycle not only reveals the most information about the object, but also stands the best chance of informing us about the people who built it and used it. E. McClung Fleming writes that, “To know man, we must study

27 David Potter, People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 48-69. 28 Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2003. 18 the things he has made.”29 Fleming notes that, historically, the study of man’s artifacts (his material culture) has actually received less attention than the study of humankind’s other two major forms of culture: social and mental (or ideological).30 This is not surprising, as a written record is generally more accessible and easily studied than the artifact: a clean book in a climate- controlled library, versus material culture, lying broken, dirty, silent, and undiscovered. Yet material culture examination holds some advantages over the study of the other two areas, and in some situations is the only way to study a culture. For example, most pre-historical history is necessarily conjectured completely on the basis of material culture, these times by definition lacking written records. Archaeologists and historians reconstruct ancient worlds, as best they can, through the analysis of the found items which may constitute the only record of these societies. Fortunately, I have at my disposal not only material culture, but an array of written and visual records with which to portray my subject. This study will be a holistic examination of written records, oral histories, and photographs, as well as the motorcycle.

Regarding written records, historians posit that our age-old fixation on writing as our primary historical portal has actually inhibited our learning; or at least weighted it towards the circumstances and culture of the writers. First, writing is a relatively recent development across the arc of human history, and, in the well-informed convenience of hindsight, we now understand that writing has always been more a device of the educated and elite, rather than of common and working folk. Thus, formulating ideas primarily based on the study of written records is to possibly take for granted the viewpoints of a narrow class of people who possessed the ability or inclination to write about their experiences, and to accept their (written) word for it.

29 E. McClung Fleming, “Artifact Study: A Proposed Model,” (Winterthur Portfolio 9, 1974, ed. by Ian M.G. Quimby), 153-173. 30 The three aspects of human culture are variously referred to as material, social, and mental (E. McClung Fleming, quoting Leslie A. White’s The Science of Culture, 1969, 364-365) or ideological (Thomas J. Schlereth in “Material Culture Research and Historical Explanation,” in The Public Historian, Fall, 1985). 19

For example, can historians on the middle-ages expect the aristocracy to have accurately conveyed—or even understood—the mindset of the serf? Can we truly learn about an American slave’s point of view from the diary of her master, or of the values of the common sailor from the

Lord of the Admiralty’s campaign memoirs? We see that it does not necessarily follow that with the presence of writing in a culture, that that expression should become the preeminent mirror of that society, while material objects become relegated to secondary historical value. On the contrary, the way we create, use, and relate to objects offers substantial information for the scholar of any period who is equipped to decipher it (and may, when compared to contemporary written records, be the more revealing source of information). Motorcycle racing, a pursuit largely of the working class,31 falls into exactly such a category, wherein comparatively little written history was produced by either the participants or observers. To gain the fullest understanding of motorcycle competition in American, I apply all means at my disposal; the holistic approach will best be able to complete or correct the record where the written word fails.

Similar to the approach of modern historical archaeologists such as James Deetz, this work takes a comprehensive stance in its study of both the artifact and every other source of information, written, oral, and visual, that is available.32

Even within the field of material culture studies, some objects have sometimes held inordinate importance. Scholars have long had a preoccupation with the artifacts of the elite and wealthy. Whether due to the quantity of surviving elite objects (consider the odds for survival of a 1700s wooden plate versus that of a silver teapot) or historians’ fascination with these finer

31 “Working class” (also, “blue-collar”), for purposes of this dissertation, these terms are roughly defined as relating to “the class of wage earners whose duties call for the wearing of work clothes.” “Middle-class” is used to suggest “a class occupying a position between the upper class and the lower class,” and, “a socioeconomic group composed principally of business and professional people, bureaucrats, and some farmers and skilled workers.” Both definitions are taken from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2003. 32 James Deetz’s multi-disciplinary method of material culture examination is beautifully evident in In Small Things Forgotten (1977), The Times of their Lives (2000), and Flowerdew Hundred (1993), among other works. 20 things, scholarship has at times been centered on these existing objects and then assumed to be representative of all classes within a given culture. Folklorist Warren E. Roberts notes his experience of reading in history books of “the typical hostess in Colonial America” setting her table, and then seeing a list of high-end table furnishings that no “farm wife” (then comprising over 90% of the American population) could have dreamed of really owning.33 We can see how these historical writers made their understandable mistake; after all, for every surviving wooden table setting, there may be twenty or thirty surviving period pewter or porcelain settings. Why?

Besides being impervious to the deterioration which would have plagued wood, pewter and porcelain objects are generally considered far more valuable. Off-road and competition motorcycles similarly fall into this dilemma, due to their more disposable nature. Dirt bikes (as we refer to off-road machines), especially, were ridden hard, often neglected, became technologically obsolete within several years, and tended to suffer the same fate as old lawnmowers: discarded and left to rust. Not only were these machines used up in the course of their service lives, they also tended to be owned by young and less-affluent off-road competitors, who may not have had the means to store the bikes indefinitely. Street motorcycles, on the other hand, usually have an easier life. The external appearance of the generally more expensive street bike is habitually better-maintained, they are not ridden in the same harsh conditions, they are usually stored inside, and they stand a much better chance of having been owned by older and possibly more elite riders. There are exceptions; Steve McQueen’s Husqvarna dirt bike may be more valuable than most other motorcycles on the planet, and some off-road riders did indeed save and preserve their machines. However, this is not the norm.

33 Warren E. Roberts, Viewpoints on Folklife: Looking at the Overlooked (Ann Arbor, MI:UMI Research Press, 1988), 6. 21

Figure 3. Discarded racing engine, from the remnants of the Eastern Maico warehouse in Lewistown,

Pennsylvania. The cylinder and head at the top of the engine are non-standard items, likely specially-made for a member of the factory racing team, circa 1972, and identified through comparison with standard items.

The engine was probably retained for this reason. (Photo: the author)

Methodology

Material culture scholars have created various working methods to standardize their approaches and maximize their opportunities for results. Folklorist Simon Bronner teaches a four-part methodology incorporating: Introduction/review of questions; Findings (description and history of the object); Interpretation and conclusions; and Amplifying data (photographs and charts).34 E. McClung Fleming proposes a similar four-part method, consisting of Identification

(object description), Evaluation (judgments about the object), Cultural analysis (relationship of the object to its culture), and Interpretation (significance).35 Jules David Prown describes his three-part art history/archaeological-derived approach as Description (analysis and content),

Deduction (engagement and response), and Speculation (theories and hypothesis and a further

34 As taught to the author while he was Dr. Bronner’s student at Penn State Harrisburg, 2005-2006. 35 McClung, “Artifact Study: A Proposed Model,” 9. 22 plan to investigate questions posed).36 Finally, the work of Thomas J. Schlereth and (once again)

James Deetz reminds us that every source of information relating to an object/artifact is a source worth considering and thoroughly exploring, from wills to old photographs, grave markers to mail-order catalogs, the written and oral statements of observers, and the clothing they wore.37

Everything can inform us, if we allow it to. My work incorporates the methods above (with particular deference to Fleming’s model) and keeps Schlereth’s and Deetz’s guidance strongly in mind.

Directing my inquiry towards the culture’s principal artifact—the Maico motorcycle—I ask the following questions:

*What are the origins and composition (physical and design) of the motorcycle?

*Why does it look as it does?

*How does it do what it does?

*Who used it? Who made it?

*How did the object affect—and what did it mean to—its immediate users

and those with which it made contact?

And, ultimately,

*What can we then deduce about the object’s makers and users, and the society which existed around this object?

After careful and sequential deconstruction of the motorcycle, I argue the following specific points:

36 Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method,” 1-19. 37 Thomas J. Schlereth, Artifacts and the American Past (Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1980). 23

*That the very individual aesthetics of the Maico—its squared, severe lines, sculpted form, and rough finish—are the result of performance, cultural, and economic pressures from

Germany and the United States.

*That the overall functionality, reputation, and modification possibilities of the Maico motorcycle made it a favorite of the most dedicated American racers.

*That the company’s American distribution systems were a major cause for the company’s success, and corporate changes made to this system over time negatively affected the distributers, the dealers, the riders, and ultimately the Maico company.

*That off-road and competitive (sport) motorcycle riders in the United States, to which

Maico motorcycles appealed, constitute a definitive subculture within the overall motorcycling culture, with specific group values, behaviors, and mores.

*That Maico’s technical advances were significant in its time, and continue to influence motorcycle design to the present day.

*That the dynamic off-road motorcycle culture in the United States in the 1970s was related to changes in American society, but at the same time retained a conservative tendency.

*That Maico’s failure in 1983, two years after producing one of the finest competition motorcycles ever made, resulted from a combination of management errors, family infighting, and world-wide economic conditions.

Use of oral histories and visual references

Oral histories from first-person-observer sources figure predominantly in this work.

Protocols from the Penn State University Institutional Review Board (IRB), governing the proper collection and use of this research, were followed. The narratives were recorded prior to and during the writing of this work from phone conversations and some person-to-person live

24 interviews, and the speakers were informed that their statements would be used later. Each oral history has been repeatedly provided to the speaker for approval and corrections, until both the speaker and I were satisfied with the result. Copies of the complete oral histories are on file in the Humanities Department at Penn State University, Harrisburg, under the title Russell

Motorcycle Sport Collection, in the Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies.

The oral history is currently very much embraced by historians, and provides a directness, flavor, honesty, and paths to other sources (if not always absolute accuracy, given the limitations and revision of memory) that offers immense value for social science research. In the case of this dissertation, I was very much influenced by the oral history work of Studs Terkel and

Al Santoli.38 I encourage readers interested in the subject of early American sport motorcycling to access the original oral history transcriptions of my interviews with the speakers, for the speakers’ full narratives.39

Period advertisements were used to a great extent in this work. Much of the Maico company’s advertising in the United States, mostly funded and created by the American distributors, was print advertising and is very accessible in the pages of period enthusiast magazines. These advertisements were then digitally scanned. Examples of advertising handouts and extracts of technical manuals, produced by German Maico for use by distributors, dealers, and owners, have also been scanned and referred to extensively.

Finally, this dissertation would not be possible without access to the personal photograph collections of many enthusiasts. These amateur snapshots not only convey factual information about the Maico motorcycle and its riders, but also allow us to read the images for clues to the

38 See Studs Terkel’s The Good War: An Oral History of World War II (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984) and Al Santoli’s Everything We Had (New York: Random House, 1981). 39 Copies of the original oral histories are available at the Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg, under the title Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection. 25 overall styles, values, and cultural markers of this past generation. As historian Alan

Trachtenberg points out, American snapshots are often “constructions,” showing us not simply what was, but what the characters in the images and those depressing the camera shutter wished us to believe.40 With this material asset, added to period literature, oral histories, and the motorcycle itself, a comprehensive image of American sport motorcycling emerges.

40 Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs: Images as History, xvi.

26

1.2 THE MOTORCYCLE AND MAN: A SOCIAL HISTORY

T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia,” 1888-1935) loved to ride his motorcycle. On a damp early morning in 1925, former Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence, now living incognito as the lowly Royal Air Force enlistee Airman Shaw, rose and slipped into his breeches and puttees in the dark. By 4:00 a.m., Lawrence finished breakfast at his quarters. He had come here several years before, hoping to find peace in anonymity and simple work, following his disgust with duplicitous British post-war policies in the Near East, where he had fought to liberate the Arabs.

Joking with other airmen as he passed, Lawrence made his way to his 1000cc Brough-Superior.

Nick-named “Boa” by Lawrence, the twin-cylinder Brough was the super-motorcycle of its day.

It produced fifty-three horsepower and was capable of entirely unsafe top speeds; Lawrence would own eight of the beasts in his life. It was the best-engineered, most powerful, fastest motorcycle then available. Riding Boa, Lawrence, one of the most famous, yet intensely private men in Britain, was further freed from his former, complicated life. Boa eagerly carried him that day from town to town on the narrow dirt roads, bisecting the calm English countryside. He stopped for sausage and ham early-on, and later for hot chocolate to warm him. Her roared through the old cathedral city of Lincoln, past Retford, north to Nottingham, and farther: freedom, power, speed, escape.

“A miracle that all this docile strength

waits behind one tiny lever

for the pleasure of my hand,” 1

1 T.E. Lawrence, “The Road,” The Mint (London: Jonathan Cape, 1955), 242. 27

Ten years later, in May 1935, Lawrence would die from injuries in an accident on an identical motorcycle, after he swerved and lost control in order to avoid two young boys on bicycles. Free at last.

Equating speed with freedom, and understanding that it was the Brough’s technical specifications which allowed him the liberty he craved, Lawrence would no doubt have melded immediately with any group of American motorcyclists, yesterday or today. Speaking the language of their shared culture, they could swap comments and compare insights on displacements, speed, mechanical peculiarities, accessories, and the best riding routes. Lawrence and many like him—particularly Americans—would certainly agree: there is just something about a motorcycle.

Americans and the British have shared motorcycle culture from its creation. Indian and

Harley-Davidson both sold motorcycles in Great Britain from the very early 1900s, and a more benign “British Invasion,” this time not with armed “Red Coats,” but the importation of high- performance British motorcycles to the United States, began in the 1940s. In the pivotal

American biker movie The Wild One (1953), all the members of Johnny’s (Marlon Brando) gang are in fact riding British motorcycles2 Currently, in the United States, British motorcycles still historically constitute the principal non-Harley-Davidson product to be accepted as a “real” road motorcycle (the other being BMW), among Harley purists.

In recent decades in North America, as in England, the fascination with motorcycles and motorcycling culture has increased. Much of the interest is directed towards the more sensational outlaw culture, with popular reality television shows like “American Chopper” and dramas like

“Sons of Anarchy” offered in response to Americans’ insatiable desire for stories about anti-

2 The Wild One, dir. by Laszlo Benedek (1953; Columbia TriStar, 1998 dvd). Curiously (and conversely), most members of rival Chino’s (Lee Marvin) gang are on American-built Harley-Davidsons. 28 authoritarian biker lifestyles. 3 Old motorcycles have also become objects of curiosity and value to Americans; “American Pickers” focuses on the discovery of “Americana,” particularly relishing old motorcycles, and suggests the idea (whether true or not) that the old motorcycle in our barn or rusting in the yard invariably has value.4 The present-day viewer is informed that an old product like this usually holds great monetary worth and historical meaning, once the right people take notice of it. Like some other discarded utilitarian objects in the United States, motorcycles seem to follow a similar and predictable trajectory: starting out as a wanted and useful item, they eventually spend a requisite purgatory in disuse, and then one day are pulled from the refuse pile as a desirable antique and “collectable.”

The motorcycle, similar mechanically and yet differing from the automobile in ways both obvious and subtle, has come to stand as a symbol for certain qualities we consider “American.”

More so than the universally accepted and ubiquitous automobile, the motorcycle is a polarizing object; it elicits strong positive or negative opinions from most people. It is dangerous; as we remember the perpetual limp a grandfather carried with him his whole life, our grandmother forever warning us about the infernal devices. It represents freedom; able to carry us on that rite- of-passage graduation trip to the coast; or simply away from our hum-drum present circumstances, be they physical or emotional. When we were young, it propelled us over the hot earth under its own power to our delight, without the dismal labor of pedaling a bicycle or walking. It is rebellion from the safe and predictable norm; it can exude a working class, anti- establishment, don’t-screw-with-me street toughness. Or, it can be imagined as the affordable, egalitarian mode of transportation for the people (perhaps falsely, as motorcycles originated as toys for the wealthy, and remain so, if we consider current prices and the motorcycle’s overall

3 “American Chopper” ran 2008-2010. “Sons of Anarchy” aired first in 2008 and is still in production. 4 “American Pickers” aired first in 2010 and is still in production. 29 limited practicality). But, “Screw practicality!” its proponents maintain. A full tank of gas, cleaned and shining like a weapon, it stands ready to speed the American of David Potter’s accelerated, competitive, always-moving characterization forward. Forward to the gates of that mythic, larger-than-life American frontier, described by Frederick Jackson Turner and Roderick

Nash, and painted in lush colors by the great Western landscape artists. 567 Emanating anti- authority attitude, the motorcycle promises to remove us from our present circumstances; to make us stand out, to reveal that we are somebody, and not just another cubicle-dweller. We move on “out to [our] big two-wheeler” when we are “tired of [our] own voice,” as Bob Seeger sang, our motorcycle serving as escape vehicle from staid suburban conformity.8 We are Marlon

Brando, terrorizing the sheepish townspeople; Peter Fonda on his chopper, leaving the squares behind; Steve McQueen spraying gravel in Nazi faces.9 If only we possess it. Speed device, instrument of self-destruction, declaration of individuality, giver of freedom, antidote to mind- numbing conformity: the motorcycle.

A brief history of motorcycling in America

“Some people will tell you that slow is good—and it may be, on some days.

But I am here to tell you that fast is better.

I’ve always believed this, in spite of the trouble it’s caused me.

Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube.

5 David Potter, People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 46-68 . Potter described an American as always moving forward, competitive, and seeking advancement to a higher level. 6 Frederick Jackson Turner, “Significance of the Frontier in American History” (lecture, American Historical Association, World Columbian Expo, Chicago, IL, July 12, 1893). Turner wrote of the importance of the notion of a frontier to the American psyche, feeling that the wilderness/frontier was the “formative influence” on the American national character. 7 Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967). Nash echoed Turner, and further affirmed that American consciousness required a wilderness in which to place both its past and its future. 8 Bob Seeger, “Roll Me Away” on The Distance, Capital/EMI MW0000195656. 9 Referring to Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953), Peter Fonda in Easy Rider (1969), and Steve McQueen in The Great Escape (1963). 30

That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba. . . .”10

American motorcycle history, spanning just over a century, warrants a brief re-telling here. The motorcycle (in early times called a moto-cycle; and then motor-cycle) appeared concurrently with and developed in parallel to the automobile. Both were dependent upon the invention of self-contained propulsion devices, which initially included steam engines, electric motors, and internal combustion engines. For the first 100 years, at least, internal combustion won. Germans Gottleib Daimler and William Maybach are traditionally credited with having produced the first motorcycle in 1885.11 The Daimler/Maybach machine was powered by petroleum-fueled internal combustion engine, fitted with two large wheels, and had two small

“outrigger” wheels to keep the machine erect while turning. It should be seen to be an original transportation invention, in that it did not owe its form to either conventional four- or two- wheeled vehicles—meaning it was not just a bicycle with an engine attached. Interest in bicycling did influence motorcycle design several years later, however, when inventors such as

Swedish-American immigrant Carl Hedstrom (soon to cofound the Indian Motocycle Company) attached engines to bicycle-type frames. Hedstrom’s motorized hybrid was used to pace bicycle racers and to provide wind “drafting” for racers as they went around the track.12 The first production motorcycle frames, while similar geometrically to those of bicycles, were noticeably heavier and larger than the earlier bicycle derived devices. This was to cope with the additional weights and stresses of the engine, fuel tank, oil tank, drive mechanism, and other added features. Motorcycle design improvements accelerated world-wide through the 1910s and 1920,

10 Hunter S. Thompson, “Song of the Sausage Creature,” in The Art of the Motorcycle, ed. Mathew Drutt, 44-7 (New York:The Guggenheim Museum, 1998). 11 Steven E. Alford and Suzanne Ferriss, Motorcycle (London: Reaktion Books, 2007), 19-20. 12 Hedstrom, along with bicycle racer and businessman George Hendee, formed the Indian Motocycle Company in 1901. 31 with the machines becoming both more capable and more practical. Further technical evolution of the motorcycle in the United States, specifically, is discussed in the following chapter.

Early American motorcyclists sought out one another in order to share technical knowledge and to jointly deal with the challenges of abysmal roads and the initial scarcity of good maps and fuel.13 They also immediately began to compete with one another, initially choosing to view the motorcycle as a performance device, above practical concerns. Early motorcyclists in period photographs are often pictured in riding groups. Clubs formed throughout the United States, and some clubs purchased land and built clubhouses on the acreage, facilitating picnicking and frequent racing events. We see that from its beginnings, motorcycling developed very much as a social activity. As the 1900s became the 1910s and the 1920s, motorcycle clubs and motorcycle competition became more and more entrenched in American life, as motorcycle manufacturers stressed the social, sporting, and healthy outdoors potential of the motorcycle. As competition flourished, motorcycle companies did manufacture special racing machines for their teams and for serious racers, but in fact every motorcycle could do double- duty as a competition mount; most early competitors rode to and from the races on the same machines they competed on. In the United States, the presence of race tracks near many towns, built originally for horseracing, facilitated motorcycle racing. “Flat-track” or “dirt-track” racing became a popular attraction at these ½ mile and mile fairground ovals across the United States.

Motorcycle races also fit neatly into the “velodromes,” banked wooden tracks originally designed for bicycle racing. Velodrome motorcycle racing become an exciting and wildly popular attraction, though it proved extremely dangerous to both spectators and riders.

Given both the additional physicality necessary to ride a motorcycle, and the ever present exposure to the elements—not to mention its lessoned cargo space when employed as a hauling

13 Harry V. Sucher, The Iron Redskin (Sparkford, Somerset: Haynes Publishing Group, 1990), 47. 32 device—the motorcycle has always served more as a recreational device, compared to the more stable and larger car or truck. While motorcycles and modified versions with two rear wheels and a storage container did see commercial service as delivery vehicles, they could generally not rival an inexpensive four-wheeler’s utility. Contrary to the popular idea that the early motorcycle was primarily cheap transportation for Americans, it actually began as something of an amusement for wealthier owners. This intention can be seen in the Indian company’s advertising description of its product as “A Gentleman’s Mount.” Once used motorcycles entered the marketplace and could be purchased for lower prices, less-than-wealthy Americans also became riders and were able to experience the wonder of the new motorized conveyances.

The very first semi-practical American motorcycles had appeared in 1902. Oscar

Hedstrom and George Hendee’s single-cylinder Indian of that year was functional, but the machine’s design made it unsuitable for everyday drivers. It was complex, mechanically finicky, and relatively expensive. In 1909 an Indian motorcycle retailed for between $175 and $325 on the east coast; a significant price at the time, considering the annual salary of the average worker was not much over $400. Until used and smaller motorcycles became available in later years, buying such a machine for economy was counterintuitive. As Henry Ford’s mass-production techniques filtered into the motorcycle industry in the 1920s, motorcycle prices did come down, but buying a new motorcycle mostly remained a decision for a mechanically competent young male of fairly established means, although some young women did ride as well.14 As the years passed, lower-price, more reliable, and lighter-weight motorcycles made riding more accessible to a wider spectrum of American buyers.

14 For a photojournalistic review of early American female riders, see: Christine Sommers Simmons, The American Motorcycle Girls: A Photographic History of Early Woman Motorcyclists (Stillwater, MN: Parker House Publishing, 2009). 33

Figure 4. Yonkers, New York Motorcycle Club, 1938. Note the neat appearance of the members and what

appears to be a well-appointed meeting area; these men are not rebelling. (Photo: American Motorcyclist

Association)

Motorcycle development in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s, as opposed to

England and Europe, tended towards the production of large, heavy, and fast machines. This can be interpreted as a reaction to the potentially long distances traveled and the then good availability of fuel.15 Another reason for this tendency was the fact that American motorcycle buyers tended to be ‘enthusiast’ buyers, and enthusiasts valued performance over economy. The

“v-twin” engine design, the two-cylinder fore-and-aft arrangement favored by Harley-Davidson,

Indian, Excelsior, and other manufacturers in the United States, became the standard engine configuration offered on the larger machines. The v-twin thus ingrained itself as the preferred

“American” type of motorcycle engine, though it did not originate in the United States: Gottlieb

Daimler of Germany built one as early as 1889, and they were popular in England and in other

15 Sucher, The Iron Redskin, 47. 34

European countries. After the Great Depression years had winnowed out most other producers and in the economic boom years following World War II, these large-capacity Harley-Davidsons and Indians were the kings of American roads. Owners of the big native-built machines were jolted, however, when English-made Triumphs, BSAs, Royal Enfields, and other quicker and lighter “vertical-twin” engine motorcycles (with the two cylinders arranged side by side, in parallel) began arriving in the United States after the war. Given a choice, many Americans, including many of the returning servicemen, took to the lighter and better-performing British bikes. These dynamic post-World War II years also saw the birth of a new feature on the

American landscape: anti-social motorcycle “gangs.”

Prior to World War II, motorcycle riding was largely a hobby, enjoyed by knowledgeable adherents. It carried little of the “rebel” connotation now attached to motorcycling, although the sport was obviously more risky than many other contemporary recreational activities. Riders were often members of community-based clubs, and might have worn matching uniforms, or at least a tie, in the male’s case, when riding (as is seen in Figure 4). The popular image of motorcycling in the early pre-war years might in fact be compared to that of mountain-biking, kayaking, and rock climbing today: it was a somewhat daring and still evolving “adventure sport,” but without any significant negative stigma attached. During these early decades of the

1900s, Americans were in awe of new technologies, and enjoyed the spectacle of machines moving quickly. Airplane demonstrations and automobile races were popular, and motorcycling held the same allure of speed, noise, and power. The American Motorcycle Association (AMA) formed in 1924 and had become the recognized sanctioning body for motorcycle racing in

America. Local clubs often applied for charters from the AMA (again, evident in Figure 4), which allowed them to conduct racing events and connect with riders around the country. With

35 the AMA’s help, other forms of competition followed velodrome and flat-track, including road- racing (more accurately described at racing on a closed-circuit paved track), scrambles racing

(held on a closed-circuit course over natural terrain with a minimum requirement for a mild jump and several other features), cross-country and desert racing (racing from point to point with the competitor determining the exact route), and the American invention of hill-climbing (attempting to reach the top of a massive hill from a standing stop, involving chain-wrapped rear wheels for traction and “catchers,” men hanging down the hill from ropes to assist in restraining men and motorcycles when they fell). In later years trials competition (negotiating natural obstacles without the rider’s feet touching the ground), enduro (long cross-country courses, usually through wooded areas east of the Mississippi, on which riders seek to maintain a set pace), and motocross (which took the place of scrambles racing in the United States) also became regular events in the United States. Motocross had its roots in post-World War II Europe (particularly in

Great Britain, France, Sweden, and Belgium) and had matured into a popular spectator sport by the early 1950s. The sport was introduced to American riders in the mid-1960s. Taking root quickly, motocross became the premier motorcycle sport with American participants and spectators by the 1970s, and forms much of the background setting for this dissertation.

With the end of World War II and the return home of millions of soldiers, a significant new actor in American motorcycling culture appeared. This character was the “outlaw” motorcycle rider. Anti-social or “socially-deviant”—that is, resisting societal authority and deviating from social norms—motorcycle gangs can be traced to the years prior to World War II in a few cases. 16 17 However, it was with the onslaught of returning young servicemen, some not

16 Danny Lyon, The Bikeriders (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003), 6-7. Lyon noted that oldest mid-western outlaw motorcycle gang began prior to World War II, in the late 1930s. Most other gangs are post-war formulations. And, while motorcycle gangs are largely an American occurrence, other locations (notably in Britain, with the legendary “Mods” and “Rockers” movements) also saw organic gang formations. 36 finding or not wanting jobs, some negatively affected by the war, and others simply bored in their new peacetime environment and still craving the adrenaline that the war provided, that quickly led to this largely American metamorphosis from the law-abiding motorcycle clubs to the anti-social gangs. The most significant contribution to American motorcycle gang and outlaw18 culture was the ride of the “Boozefighters,” a gang with pre-war lineage but a decidedly post-war identity, to the sleepy California town of Hollister, over the July 4th weekend of 1947.

Upon the groups arrival, ex-Army Air Corps gunner and leader William Forkner and his gang of succeeded in disrupting the scheduled AMA racing and spoiling the town’s 4th of July festivities, getting drunk, and landing in jail. Their deeds, while highly publicized, stopped well short of

“terrorizing” the town; Forkner’s miscreants may have counted themselves lucky to have not been on the wrong side of Hollister’s citizens’ own sense of justice, had the gang taken their behavior much farther.19 But, taken up by the media and sensationalized, Forkner’s Hollister nuisance became the “Hollister riot,” beginning a process of re-defining the motorcyclist to

America, and the motorcyclist to himself. It is important to consider the two major protagonists in the Hollister story. Conspicuously present at Hollister and standing with the town’s citizenry were the AMA-sanctioned motorcycle racers, and opposing them were Forkner’s non-AMA, outlaw biker motorcycle riders. Thus, the recognized initial conflict and bell weather event of outlaw motorcycle culture was that of motorcycle outlaws contesting with mainstream motorcycle racers. This admittedly rare physical clash of cultures, within motorcycling, remains today a fascinating social marker, bringing attention to the differences between sport riders and

17Alford and Ferriss, Motorcycle, 114-116. Alford and Ferriss use the term “socially-deviant” to define the outlaw biker, the motorcyclist who resisted societal authority and deviated from social norms. Also see Alford and Ferriss for further discussion of social deviance, biker identity, and gang origination and culture. 18 ‘Outlaw’ is a term used to describe a wide range of meaning in motorcycle culture. Depending upon its context, it may refer to entirely benign, non-AMA-sanctioned races, or to truly anti-social, criminal behavior. 19 Tom Reynolds, Wild Ride: How Outlaw Motorcycle Culture Conquered America (New York: TV Books, 2000), 31-58. 37 some in the biker community. Several years after the Hollister event, the event was again re- invented and further sensationalized in the 1953 movie The Wild One.20 Marlon Brando’s character, Johnny, clad in leather, epitomized a slightly less threatening rebel attitude: “What are you rebelling against, Johnny?” the local girl asks; “Whadya got?” Johnny answers. The movie was a hit (though shocking enough in its time to be actually banned in Great Britain for 12 years after its release21) and provided archetypes for road-riding fashion and for the socially rebellious motorcycle rider, persisting to this day.22

Figure 5. Marlon Brando as The Wild One’s Johnny Stabler. The movie established the fashion and the

“attitude” which continues to influence biker culture and attract youth. (Photo: the author)

At the same time as The Wild One and subsequent Hollywood offerings were helping to amplify the myth of a pervasive American outlaw motorcyclist culture, real motorcyclists were

20 The Wild One was first shown in movie theaters on December 30, 1953. Since it scarcely appeared in 1953, many sources report the movie as having been released in 1954. 21 Mike Seate, Two Wheels on Two Reels: A History of Biker Movies (North Conway, NH: Whitehorse Press, 2000), 9. 22 Alford and Ferriss, Motorcycle, 89-93. 38 following other paths. The importation of the high-quality, high-performance British motorcycles in the 1940s and 1950s and the market take-over by the Japanese in the 1960s (introducing even better machines) reenergized riding as both sport and transportation. By then, used and low-cost machines were readily available. Motorcycle competition became especially popular. This

“motorcycle boom” of the late 1960s and early 1970s was the high watermark of motorcycling interest in America, with particular growth in off-road use and personal recreation and transportation sectors. Just as young people of the early 1900s wanted a horse or a bicycle, young pre-teens of the 1960s and 1970s dreamed of their own small motorcycle. Period television shows such as “Then Came Bronson” (1969-1970), and films such as Easy Rider (1969) did much to spread the equation of motorcycles equating to freedom. Even children could get into the act. “Mini-bikes,” small motorcycles with, at first, low-powered lawnmower-type engines, were available for as low as $200 in the late 1960s, and legions of young American boys and girls had their first motorized transportation experience on such a machine. A natural progression from a mini-bike was to one of the many excellent small Japanese on-or-off-road “dual-purpose” motorcycles, built with engine sizes from 90cc to 175cc, or to one of the well-designed and purely off-road-intended European competition motorcycles. As these young people were likely below driving age and riding in vacant lots, farms, or the desert, their subsequent interests often led to more advanced off-road riding and competition—especially motocross, then soaring in popularity.

The separation of street and off-road motorcycling

The motorcycle boom of the late-1960s and early-1970s marks a second pivotal point in the evolution of American motorcycle culture. For the first time, many riders, beginning their riding careers on smaller off-road bikes, elected to stay off-road, either completely or for the

39 most part. For decades prior to the creation of purpose-built off-road motorcycles, many young riders stayed off the roads only long enough to gain their motorcycle license and move on to the street. Now, rather than constituting only a starting point in the progression to licensed on-road transportation, off-road riding and competition became for many an end in themselves. This can be attributed in part to the motorcycles, which were now designed specifically as dirt bikes; lightweight, high-performing and evolved to a state well beyond that of just a street motorcycle without lights. Another factor was the riding environment, then still mostly unregulated and spatially unlimited. Desert areas and much state and federal forest land were initially open to off- road riders, as were many farms. With the further availability of exciting forms of competition, such as motocross and enduro events, these motorcyclists saw no compelling reason to leave the dirt and venture onto the street.

The transplant of the European sport of motocross to America represents a major shift in the interests of American racers. One man inextricably linked to this sport’s growth in the United

States and Canada is Edison Dye (1918-2007). Dye, often referenced as the “Father of American

Motocross,” was an aeronautical engineer and businessman with a love of motorsports. During a trip to Europe in 1960, Dye noticed and was immensely impressed with motocross racing there.

In the next several years his interest continued, and eventually he visited the Husqarna factory in

Sweden to arrange for two off-road racing motorcycles to be brought back to the United States, where motocross was beginning to catch on.23 Working towards a goal of mass distribution of the Husqvarna in North America, Dye understood that the motocross races were the best forum in which to demonstrate and create interest in his product. Having witnessed the advanced skills of the European riders, Dye decided to bring this same excitement to the United States. In 1966,

23 Edison Dye, “Biography of Edison Dye by Edison Dye,” The Early Years of Motocross, www.earlyyearsofmx.com/edison.html. Accessed September 13, 2014. 40

Dye paid Swedish champion Torsten Hallman to fly to the United States and compete along the

American motocross circuit, using his spellbinding riding abilities to sell native riders on the

Swedish machine. The next year, fellow Swede Lars Larsson repeated Hallman’s efforts, but with even greater duration and effect.24 Larsson and Hallman, winning nearly every race they entered, no matter what the conditions, left a trail of eager buyers and energized dealers in their wakes. To further fuel motocross growth in North America, Dye created the Inter-Am motocross series in 1967, this time importing not just Husqvarna riders, but a small group of the very best

European motocross riders of several brands, including riders for CZ, Greeves, and the new

Maico factory rider, Ake Jonsson. Dye surely realized, as motorcycle historian Ed Youngblood writes of Dye’s efforts, “that a rising tide raises all ships.”25 By 1970, motocross was firmly entrenched in North America.

Figure 6. American scrambles racing, circa 1970. Scrambles’ popularity was at the time being usurped by

the new sport of motocross. Note the lack of a banked turn and the relative smoothness of the track;

American riders were ill-prepared for the rough, rutted sport of motocross. (Photo: Carl Hess)

24 Gunnar Lindstom, Husqvarna Success (Stillwater, MN: Parker House, 2010), 58-81. 25 Ed Youngblood, John Penton and the Off-Road Motorcycle Revolution (North Conway, NH: Whitehorse Press, 2000), 102-3. 41

The United States after World War II had become a consumption-oriented society. There were better wages for most workers, a high standard of living, inexpensive mass-produced goods, and a culture infused with the appropriation of material goods. Available to Americans at the time were a myriad of exceptional motorcycles from around the world. Each country counted at least one major motorcycle manufacturer. These manufacturers had likely been involved in armaments production during World War II or wars several centuries past, and were accustomed to industrial machine work done to high tolerances. They were likewise familiar with modern materials such as plastic, aluminum alloys, and chrome-molybdenum steel, essential ingredients in high-performance motorcycles. The world motorcycles of this period of growth and experimentation reflected a variety of approaches to common engineering challenges, and, unlike modern homogeneous motorcycle designs, looked and performed very differently than machines made in the other countries.

Throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, interest in and sales of motorcycles increased.

With American brands Harley-Davidson and Indian giving only marginal effort to the competition for smaller off-road models, small makers in Europe fought for this United States- free vacuum in market share.26 A very large portion of this non-American production, fifty percent or more, in the case Maico, for example, went directly to the United States.27 From

Sweden came the Husqvarna, a high-quality machine made by the old Husqvarna weapons foundry; usually red and chrome, expensive, and with a reputation for high-end quality; and also

26 Sucher, The Iron Redskin, 137-8. American companies had long produced smaller motorcycles (such the Harley Hummer, the Mustang, the Cushman scooter, and motorized bicycles such as the Whizzer). As the 1950s merged into the 1960s , however, the Japanese and other foreign makes were simply much better and cheaper. 27 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded), 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 42 the jewel-like, yellow and blue Monark.28 From Spain came three high-performance motorcycles, their beautiful fiberglass bodywork always colorful and their highly-tuned (and highly-stressed) engines often providing only minimal longevity: the Bultacos, Ossas, and

Montesas. Austria produced the solid and well-engineered Puch and KTM machines. Japan, whose motorcycle industry began in earnest after World War II and was moving inexorably to a domination of the world market, exported exquisitely-made motorcycles which, though somewhat deficient for serious off-road use in the late 1960s, were only getting better. Honda,

Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha produced very good machines at excellent prices, their sales especially aided by world currency fluctuations in the mid-1970s.29 Typical of the Japanese technological style of the time, these motorcycles captured one segment of the market after another, beginning with the smallest machines. This tendency of the British manufacturers, up until then the largest exporter of motorcycles in the world, to yield one part of the motorcycle market after another became what Steve Koerner, in his study of the collapse this industry, would refer to as “segment retreat.”30 Convinced the loss of one after another market segment was unavoidable or inconsequential, the British continued to narrow their offerings, until they only produced high-performance motorcycles for young males—too small a market to allow survival. Even that small economic outpost, in time, was conquered by the Japanese.

Honda, in particular among the Japanese makers, positioned itself for success in not only the on-road market, but in off-road sales as well. Honda engineers had already created a reputation of building exceptionally well-executed interpretations of what they believed buyers wanted, even if they sometimes misjudged the buyers’ actual desires. Early Honda dual-purpose

28 Lindstrom, Husqvarna Success, 83-108. 29 Interview with Brian Thompson by David Russell, November 5, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 30 Steve Koerner, The Strange Death of the British Motor Cycle Industry (Lancaster, UK: Carnegie Publishing, 2012), 1-8. 43 bikes, like those from Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha, tended to be over-equipped with superfluous niceties (such as large horns, turn signals, and oversized and heavy tail lights), be overweight, and be designed around a tiny Japanese rider on a perfectly smooth trail. Now, carefully assessing the attributes of successful motocross motorcycles and the real needs of the users (though having virtually no past experience in two-stroke engine design) Honda crafted one of the most impressive motorcycle new-releases in recent history. The 1973 Honda

“Elsinore” CR250 and CR125 motocross bikes, named after California’s Lake Elsinore riding area, were nothing short of phenomenal when released. The 125 immediately and for several years hence rendered all other 125cc machines outmoded.31

Czechoslovakia produced the CZ and Jawa motorcycle lines. These sturdy bikes recalled farm implements of Communist-block manufacture, with their simple, rugged construction. They were fast (though heavy), and were able to endure the harsh terrain of the new sport of motocross. CZs were among the first two-stroke engined machines to displace the four-stroke motorcycles, then dominant in the sport, in the early 1960s in Europe.32 Great Britain continued to produce BSA, Triumph, and Greeves off-road machines into the 1970s, but the once- dominant British industry was clearly dying, a victim not only of Japanese competition, but also of poor management, nasty labor relations, lack of quality control, sluggish market response, and similar currency devaluations as were plaguing Germany.33 Smaller independent British makers, such as Rickman, CCM, and Cheney, however, made expensive and respectable limited edition machines for off-road use. Germany, the home of the BMW street motorcycle, made the very competent DKW, Hercules—and the Maico. America imported Harley-Davidson-badged

Aermacchi lightweight motorcycles, and John Penton designed the Penton motorcycle around an

31 Interview with Brian Thompson by David Russell. 32 Paul Stephens, Moto-Cross: The Golden Era (London: Osprey Publishing, 1998), 187-200. 33 Koerner, The Strange Death of the British Motor Cycle Industry, 1-8. 44

Austrian KTM baseline, a well-designed all-purpose dirt machine but rarely a professional-level finisher in motocross.34

Amidst this sea of beautiful and technically-advanced motorcycles, one brand quietly stood out among American competitors. This was the German Maico (the name derived from

Maisch & Company, and pronounced “my-co” in Europe and “may-co” in the Americas). The bikes were expensive, but by the 1970s were recognized as the off-road standard to which the myriad other companies and motorcycles aspired. Maico concentrated on off-road motorcycles from the early 1950s, after it received a lucrative (and timely, given financial troubles at the time) contract for thousands of such machines for the German Army’s tactical use. This experience left the company well-positioned when lightweight machines became popular again and motocross captured the world’s fascination. At the same time, however, Maicos were recognized as being sometimes haphazardly assembled, prone to include oddly-deficient components, and having a tendency to fail if not fastidiously cared for. Spots in the paint and carelessly mounted decals were routine on Maicos. In some cases, they were twice as expensive as a precisely assembled, cosmetically perfect, and reliable Japanese motorcycle; as well as being much more likely to break down, if ignored. Yet, when handling and power were considered and the machine properly maintained, the Maico was believed by riders to be the finest off-road machine available.35 American riders sought out the Maico, in some years buying all the machines that the small company could import into the United States. Maicos became synonymous with no-compromise quality amongst off-road motorcyclists, both in the United

States and abroad. They sold well, and developed a strong following in the United States during

34 Youngblood, John Penton and the Off-road Motorcycle Revolution, 77-92. 35 The theme of Maicos being the finest, even if flawed, machines available runs throughout this dissertation. An example of this sentiment is John Barclay’s remembrance in chapter 5.5 of the wide-spread belief among European professionals at the time that to win on the Grand Prix level, a rider “needed to be on a Maico.” 45 the boom years of 1968 to 1974. Former riders now recall that at least half the motorcycles on the starting line of a typical Expert 500cc class motocross race in the mid-1970s would be

Maicos.36 Maico was the first company to implement long-travel-suspension in its production machines, and the bikes were routinely shipped to Japan for tear-down, analysis, and copying.

The 1981 Maico 490cc motorcycle is considered by many motorcycle experts to be the finest motocross motorcycle, for its time, ever made; the basic frame geometry and dimensions established with the 1981 model Maico are the basis for and are incorporated into all competition off-road motorcycle designs to this day.37

Figure 7. The 1981 Maico MC490, the basis for all modern off-road motorcycles. While other Maico variations and engine sizes for 1981 share the basic frame design, the popular motocross 490 tends to be the

machine remembered as representative of Maico’s collective achievement. (Photo: the author)

Two years after producing this benchmark motorcycle, the Maico company entered bankruptcy. Poor management decisions, family infighting, and a complex array of external factors had been at play since at least 1970, and finally combined to defeat the machine which

36 Interview with Craig Shambaugh by David Russell, September 11, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 37 Interview with Selvaraj Narayana by David Russell, June 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). Other authorities referenced in this dissertation to proclaim the 1981 Maico 490’s pre-eminence include professional racers Barry Higgins and Brian Thompson. 46 had been so difficult to best on the racetrack. To the brand’s American fans, had they known, the intrigues then occurring at the Maico factory in Pfeffingen, Germany would have been hard to believe.

47

1.3 THE GERMAN SIDE: A HISTORY OF MAICO FAHRZEUGFABRIK

The brightly-colored cubist motorcycles that fascinated American racers originated in a small automobile repair shop in post-World War I Germany. Maico (“Maisch & Company”) was formed in Poltringen, an industrial town in the southwest corner of Germany. The year was 1926, the same year that the reparations-wracked and starving country was admitted to the League of

Nations. Company founder Ulrich Maisch began the business in a garage, providing twenty-four- hour automobile service, and also sold bicycle and motorcycle parts. Ulrich had two sons,

Wilhelm and Otto, who entered the business following their schooling. By 1931 the boys decided to expand the family business by assembling complete bicycles for sale. In the still-devastated

German economy of the time, this was a sensible, clear-headed enterprise: producing cheap locomotion. In 1935 the brothers ventured even further, producing their own, complete motorcycle. The first machine was little more than a bicycle frame powered by a small engine; an Ilo at first, and later a small Sachs unit.

Figure 8. Early Maico logo: shield with “the man on a motorbike.” (Photo: the author)

48

On February 27, 1933, four years after the crash of the American stock market and in the midst of the Great Depression, the firebrand leader of the recently ascendant German National

Socialist (Nazi) Party, Adolf Hitler, accused Marinus van der Lubbe, George Dmitrov, and other foreign communists of setting a fire in the Reichstag building in Berlin. The crisis lent Hitler the opportunity to send some 11,000 German communists and other non-conformists off to concentration camps, from which few returned. Decrees after the fire gave Hitler carte-blanche to consolidate his power. By March 1933 Hitler was in effect the dictator of the former democracy, and in a position to being implementing his plans for domination by Germany of all of Europe. His immediate plans included subjugating neighboring Czechoslovakia, a task facilitated by British and French diffidence at the 1938 Munich Conference.

In 1939, early in the morning on March 15, German troops moved across the misty border into Czechoslovakia, northeast of Pfeffingen. After a fierce but doomed fight by the overwhelmed Czech armed forces, the Germans placed the country under the Nazi flag. With its capitulation the nation’s independence was ended for six decades, and it was opened to exploitation by the Third Reich.

Some of that exploitation would be economic. Czechoslovakia offered a healthy and advanced industrial base, with a trained labor force. German businesses took full advantage of the new situation. In the latter months of 1939, the Maisch families moved their growing enterprise into a new facility, close to the Czech border, near Pfeffingen, with Ulrich’s sons Otto and Wilhelm now running the company. In that same year the brothers displayed their Maico motorcycles at an exhibition in Berlin. The future for the family and their company, colored by

Germany’s rejuvenation, remained bright.

49

Observing the events in Czechoslovakia, Hitler’s proclamations, and the overall German mood, the Maisch brothers would have certainly noted the likelihood of a coming government- mandated change in their product line; from motorcycles to war materiel. As Germany again dragged Europe into war, the Maisches soon found themselves in the aircraft parts business. For the next six years, as part of mobilized German industry, Maico joined BMW, Porsche,

Mercedes and other manufacturers in keeping the Luftwaffe flying and the Wermacht fighting.

Because Maico was by this time manufacturing and assembling high quality motorcycle components, using advanced machine tools and employing skilled workers, the changeover to airplane parts was a relatively easy and predictable one.

By 1944 Hitler’s Germany had been transformed to a smoking, besieged fortress, mercilessly pounded from above each day and night by American and British bombers. By fall, the remainder of the country was under imminent invasion threat by the Russians in the east and the American, British and Canadians in the west. On April 30, Hitler killed himself in his bunker, with the Red Army only blocks away. A few days later the tattered remnant of German military government surrendered.

In 1945 the Maisch family would have looked out from their relatively unscathed

Pfeffingen, across pulverized and ruined German industrial areas. They witnessed an economic reality not far removed from the company’s beginnings in the 1920s; their broken country was once again in need of basic transportation. Turning from armaments and back to motorcycles, the brothers continued development of more advanced machines, on which they had stopped work five years earlier. Their first motorcycle with a Maico-built engine (the model M150) rolled out in 1949. Good fortune fell upon the brothers as they and their West German neighbors enjoyed relative freedom in the Allied sector, safe from the economic and political oppression which

50 characterized the Russian zone. Otto now ran Maico; this was a result of Wilhelm’s wartime

National Socialist party membership, which ran afoul of de-Nazification policies in the West.1

These rules precluded former Nazis from owning controlling shares of German firms. Otto now possessed 60% ownership, while Wilhelm retained 40%.

Figure 9. 1956 English-language brochure Figure 10. 1956 Maico “500” car

(Source: Jim McCabe) (Photo: Peter Vaught)

Providing motorcycles to a rebuilding nation was profitable. During the 1950s Maico thrived. The company developed new and well-engineered motorcycles, scooters, and even a small car with a Heinkel engine for the recovering German middle-class, who by now were ready for the comforts of automobile ownership.2 The road-going Taifun motorcycle, in particular, emerged as a marvelously engineered and executed two-stroke twin-cylinder machine, in either

1 Wilhelm’s precise reasons for joining the National Socialist Party are unknown. Whatever the Maischs may have felt about Adolf Hitler and his policies, it is a fact that observing Hitler’s ascent to unquestioned power, vast numbers of Germans “saw the light” and joined the party as a matter of practicality (early Nazi party members, the “old fighters” who supported Hitler when doing so incurred much greater risk, referred to these later converts as “spring violets,” noting derisively that these soft new recruits came to the party long after the hard fight of the previous two decades was behind them, where such great numbers might have actually been useful). From a pure business perspective, it is reasonable to assume that the Maischs were hedging their bets for the future; with one half-owner in the party, and one half-owner outside. If this was the case, it succeeded (though probably unforeseen by Otto and Wilhelm) in keeping ownership in the family. 2 Interview with Eric Bley by David Russell, March 21, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 51

350cc or 400cc versions. GS (“Gelandesport,” meaning “on/off-road”) versions of the growing line of M150, M175, and M250 machines were offered, and Maico began to develop a reputation for good off-road and competition motorcycles, a product unique at the time. Quality became the company’s hallmark. Road-racer and engineer Eric Bley recalled from his childhood in Germany that Maico’s machines were just “a little bit better” than what their competitors BMW, Kreidler,

NSU, and others were offering.3 To summarize the company’s strength in motorcyclists’ terms,

Maico effectively incorporated simple two-stroke, unit-design engines into rugged, good- handling frames with reasonable suspension.4

Maico continued to develop new machines and expand within the small-to-midsized motorcycle market. The Maicoletta scooter was a large machine in comparison to contemporary and even later scooters, but was fast and ingeniously designed. It incorporated a relatively large twin-cylinder engine in an aerodynamically enclosed body. Introducing new technologies to all their products, chief engineer Ulrich Pohl and other designers departed from engineering norms of the day in pursuit of the best performing machine possible—a characteristic of Maico that caused it to stand out among other manufactures. This quest for top quality drew the attention of motorcycle enthusiasts in Germany and, increasingly, in Europe and abroad.

3 Interview with Eric Bley by David Russell. 4 Unit-design implies a reciprocating engine wherein the crankshaft (driving) output and the (driven) gearbox are connected and located within the same housing. Motorcycle engine designs prior to mid-century often incorporated separate engine and transmission units; this design known as “pre-unit.” 52

Figure 11. The Maico works, Pfeffingen, Germany, circa 1960. (Photo: Peter Vaught)

The Blizzard road motorcycle rounded out Maico development in the 1950s, with the production of two more street bikes, the two-stroke rotary-valve MD-50 and MD-125, beginning in the 1960s.5 Commercial pitfalls occurred along the way. A bankruptcy in 1958 (the first of two; the latter being the fatal event in 1983) was fueled in part by Germans’ growing disenchantment with small motorcycles as basic transport, in part by a bad overall economy, and in part by the commercial failure of the Maico automobile project. This led to an unforeseen and timely opportunity for Maico, when the West German government ordered 10,000 motorcycles from the company for the German Army. From this even greater emphasis on “dual-purpose”

(on- and off-road) motorcycles for the Army in the very late 1950s, off-road and competition bikes became Maico’s bread-and-butter line. They would remain so for the rest of the corporation’s history. This emphasis on dual-purpose bikes was rare for a European motorcycle producer; the only similar situation at the time was that of the Swedenish Husqvarna factory.

Maico’s iron “oval-barrel” engines gave way to the late-1960s “square-barrel” alloy motors

5 Rotary-valve is a system of two-stroke air/fuel induction in which the carburetor feeds directly into the crankcase, past a rotating disc (valve) splined to the crankshaft and controlling inlet timing and duration. 53 under engineers Gunther Schier and Kottlep Hafs. Maico actively supported racing and sponsored Maico riders, and German stars such as Herbert Schek and Lenz Muller (enduro),

Toni Gruber (road-racing), and Adolf Weil (scrambles/motocross) became associated with the brand then. Exports to North America, begun in the 1950s, increased greatly. Dennie Moore, of

Reedsville, Pennsylvania, and Frank Cooper, of Burbank, California, emerged as the major

American distributors and marketers of Maico motorcycles. Moore and Cooper were motorcycle enthusiasts themselves, who keenly understood both their audience and their product. Their promotion of the German bike succeeded due to personal motivation and to the intrinsic quality of the Maico.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a pivotal age for American motorcycle culture. The post-war market of performance-conscious American riders wanted the best motorcycles available, now having options not only beyond Indian and Harley-Davidson, but outside the

1950s influx of British Triumphs, Nortons, and BSAs as well. Continually refined in European racing, Maico off-road motorcycles improved every year. By the late 1960s, the classic “coffin- tank, square-barrel” Maico design was well known in North America as a top-quality competition machine, and became a staple of the American scrambles and motocross circuits. In

1973 and 1974, at the height of American motorcycle sales, they were (despite a list of minor faults) better handling, simpler, quicker, and offering more possibilities for further enhancement any other off-road motorcycle then available.6 Maico was understood to be a motorcycle designed from the ground up for off-road use; one of the very first of such creations in the world.

It was not a street or general-purpose machine which needed adaptation for off-road riding and racing, but a singularly designed off-road competitor. Additionally, its functionality caused it to

6 Dirt Bike Magazine, “1975 Maico 250: If you ride one, you’ll have to buy one,” Dirt Bike Magazine (November, 1974), 65. 54 resemble nothing else on the market. To own a Maico was to own a visually unique machine, expressly made for what more and more American riders liked to do: race their motorcycles in rugged off-road conditions. For many of these riders, Maico was synonymous with the best machine a rider could own; a device not only revered in its own right, but carrying with it the panache of the German reputation for quality engineering.

Aware and comfortable with their niche by the 1960s, Maico refined its focus on off-road competition motorcycles throughout the decade. Increasingly, the firm received press and public attention for its high-quality products. In the United States, the European motocross-ready Maico fit perfectly into the burgeoning American translation of the sport, of course, but also found considerable niches in both flat-track racing (to include all the variations: quarter-mile, half-mile, and mile) and enduro.7 Dealers in small and large towns throughout America sold every Maico they could obtain from the distributors, usually before they even took receipt of the motorcycle.8

As the 1960s decade ended, Maico was arguably producing the finest off-road motorcycle obtainable.

In the United States during this time, dissention over the war in Viet Nam remained an open national wound, as Richard Nixon was inaugurated President on January 20th, 1969. Nixon promised change. The 1960s had already transformed the United States and the world with a new freedom of experimentation and “personal liberation,”9 and one characteristic of the period was the interest in the personal mobility afforded by the motorcycle. If historian David Potter was correct, and Americans could be defined by their tendency to move and compete, then the

7 Flat-track racing is one of the oldest motorcycle competition events. Run on flat, unpaved tracks—such as those found on local American fairgrounds—flat-track developed from this widely-available resource. Enduro competition involves the traversing of sometimes vast expanses of natural terrain, while maintaining a prescribed pace. 8 Interview with Dennie Moore by David Russell, March 27, 2007, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 9 Terry Anderson, The 1960s, 2d ed. (New York: Pearson Longman, 2004), 143. 55 skyrocketing growth of motorcycle riding and competition during this time was a predictable conclusion.10 In any event, as the prosperity that initially fueled post-World War II motorcycle interest continued, it was amplified by a new cultural paradigm of venturing beyond the safe and predictable—and what had been expected. The United States had just landed a man on the moon;

Americans were crossing boundaries and finding their own paths; all trends which found ready expression in off-road motorcycling. The sport was positioned to exemplify larger cultural trends, especially for that large segment of Americans who liked machinery and speed.

As the 1970s began, Maico’s best engineering talent continued to spend the majority of its energy on off-road machines. Engineers Reinhold Weiher and Ladislav Gorgos, joined soon by the young and energetic Indian expatriate Selvaraj Narayana, continued the steady improvement of the off-road machines.11 Otto Maisch assumed complete corporate leadership, since brother Wilhelm had been sidelined since the late 1950s, run over by a motorcycle while watching a race. The company thrived. Joining original race-team members Schek, Muller, and

Weil were new stars Dieter Braun and Borje Jansson (road-racing), Egbert Haas (enduro), and

Ake Jonsson and Willi Bauer (motocross). Jonsson, in particular, would bring the company as close as it would ever be to winning a world championship; his brilliance and Maico’s well- earned prominence only foiled by chance misfortune.12 To the competitors and fans, these men were undeniably sports superstars, and their association with Maico lent luster to the brand.

Popular culture expressions in the United States at the time, particularly movies and television, tended to focus on the growing anti-social connotations as they related to

10 David Potter, People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 48-9. 11 Ladislav Gorgos and Selvaraj Narayana would both later join Austrian motorcycle giant KTM, after Maico’s demise. 12 The “blown spark-plug incident.” See chapters on Ake Jonsson and Selvaraj Narayana for their versions of this story. 56 motorcycling. The prime example was 1953’s The Wild One. Yet motorcycle competition and interest in riding by “regular” people, to include Hollywood stars, grew at the same time.13 Actor

Steve McQueen was the most famous example of Hollywood’s infatuation with motorcycle culture. McQueen, who rode and competed on many brands and also represented America at the

1964 International Six-Day Trials competition in East Germany, understood, as did his fans, the appeal of pushing a machine to the brink of its performance capabilities under demanding and unpredictable conditions. This appeal was the essence of the growing sport of motocross.

McQueen, though forever associated with the Swedish Husqvarna brand, a competitor with

Maico, remains an icon to all sports motorcyclists, world-wide.

Obviously, the United States represented a prime market for any motorcycle producer.

Throughout the decolonizing, developing world, including Asia and Africa, small motor-bikes functioned as basic transportation.14 Poor roads, the lack of public transportation systems, expensive (or hard-to-find) gasoline, and limited purchasing power all made the motorcycle a natural response in Third World and underdeveloped nations. In the United States and the developed countries, motorcycles were often purchased for different, self-actualizing reasons: sporting use, image, and the pursuit of performance, as well as transportation. Road-riding

Americans avidly consumed fast, technically advanced, large-capacity, powerful machines.15

13 Other Hollywood stars interested in dirt bikes included John Wayne, Elvis, Lee Marvin, and Keenan Wynn. 14 Steven E. Alford and Suzanne Ferriss, Motorcycle (London: Reaktion Books, 2007), 62-5. 15 Motorcycle riders in the post-World War II United States tended to purchase larger-capacity machines in greater numbers than citizens of other countries. The reasons for this were three-fold. First, gas prices in the United States tended to be lower than in other countries. Second, the country was large, with (beginning in the 1940s) a good road system. Third, the government of the United States, unlike European countries such as Sweden, Great Britain, and Italy, did not legislatively limit the use of larger-capacity machines. Sources for these ideas include: Interview with Gunnar Lindstrom by David Russell, January 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg); Lindsay Brooke and David Gaylin, Triumph in America (Osceola: Motorbooks International, 1993), 37-60; and Steve Koerner, The Strange Death of the British Motorcycle Industry (Lancaster, UK: Carnegie Publishing, 2012), passim. 57

American preferences for high-performance led buyers to the high-end off-road sporting motorcycles such as those made by Maico.

Figure 12. Tim Hart on a 250cc Maico, circa 1971, California. (Photo: Tim Hart)

Seeing the interest and eager to create the dealer network necessary to move motorcycles,

German Maico allowed American Maico distributors to make the process of becoming a dealer extremely easy. This casual acceptance of new dealers, with many just individuals working out of their garages, represented one of the company’s major successful policies in penetrating the

United States market. The creation of such a network, from which the products imported by the distributors could be sold and serviced, was essential to increased sales. All motorcycle companies, including the largest Japanese corporations, allowed and encouraged a quick dealer network establishment. Shop owner Gig Hamilton recalls the minimum requirement for being a

Yamaha dealer at the time as “buying two bikes, $50 to $100 worth of parts . . . and a sign!” His requirement to be a Maico dealer (Hamilton was the first dealer signed under Eastern Maico

58 distributor Dennie Moore in 1968) was even less taxing: buying one motorcycle sufficed.16 Like

Dennie Moore and Maico itself, other proponents of the high-end, imported ‘boutique’ off-road machines took to the road to create the necessary dealer network. On the American west coast,

Husqvarna importer Edison Dye had been at work for several years, having hired Swedish motocross stars Lars Larsson and Torsten Hallman in 1965 and 1966 to come to the United

States and travel the developing motocross circuit from town to town. The Swedes raced with and invariably amazed the Americans with their skill and the bike’s abilities, signing-up plenty of new Husqvarna dealers and generating great interest in motocross in their wake.17 Dye knew motocross would engage America, and in the process of promoting it, he created a market for the

Swedish Husqvarna motocross line he was importing as well as whetting American’s appetites for other high-quality European dirt bikes, like Maico.

Motorcycle distributors were soon racing against one another to establish dealer networks. By the early 1970s, virtually any American hardware store, welding shop, or auto garage might have had several European dirt bikes in the display window. More than likely in such a case, the owner or his son also rode, and the small franchise did double-duty as both profit generator and a source of racing motorcycles and parts at a discount. Maico, CZ, Rickman, and

Puch were some of the makes commonly offered for sale in the storefronts of small American businesses, side by side with the lawnmowers and automotive parts. This arrangement of foreign-built products in American small businesses was unique for the time, and is one example of off-road motorcycling transcending boundaries. Though British motorcycles had long been imported to America, the major British North American distributors, like the American manufacturers, placed basic minimum floor space and inventory requirements on retailers that

16 Interview with Gig Hamilton by David Russell, June 19, 2007 and April 7, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 17 Gunnar Lindstrom. Husqvarna Success (Stillwater, MN: Parker House Publishing: 2010), 73-9. 59 effectively prohibited the minimalist business model that the new European brand micro-dealers enjoyed. (A similar arrangement can currently be seen now, at American auto-part stores which sell Chinese-made motorbikes and four-wheelers, which are now seeking to impregnate established Japanese market control.)

As noted, by this time in the early 1970s, Maico produced, if only by degrees, the finest off-road motorcycles in the world. Challengers such as Husqvarana and CZ (and soon Honda,

Yamaha, and Kawasaki) did make inroads with enthusiasts, but Maico’s association with top performance remained entrenched. The company again upgraded their winning off-road motorcycle line in 1972 with the introduction of the improved “radial”-head engine, first in

250cc and then in 400 and 440cc. Maico also continued to improve the newer 125cc and 501cc

MC/GS models, although these models did not sell as well as the 250cc through 450cc models.18

The single-cylinder RS125 road-racer remained a highly competitive machine, even when compared to the multi-cylinder offerings of the Japanese “Big Four,” and collected many

European National Champion and Grand Prix wins.

Maico’s North American sales counted for approximately fifty percent of the company’s total world-wide sales during this period, and the moderately-sized German company clearly dominated the high-end off-road competition motorcycle market in America. Maicos were particularly favored by open-class (the “unlimited” engine capacity class) competitors. Period racers have stated anecdotally that Maico motorcycles often composed half or more of all motorcycles entered in an average open-class motocross race in America, in the 1970s and

1980s.19

18 Interview with Charles Schank by David Russell, October 6, 2009, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 19 Interview with Craig Shambaugh by David Russell. 60

The corporate headquarters in Germany was keenly aware of the importance of the

American market to Maico. Furthermore, Maico management wanted to ensure they were reaping as much net profit from their share of the American market as was possible. In 1972, beginning with Eastern Maico Distributor Dennie Moore and followed by western distributor

Frank Cooper, Maico began to replace their American distributors with Germans. This proved to be major error. As they focused on the additional profits, the German management did not consider the complexities of the distribution system set up over the years by these initial pioneers. Nor did they reckon on the potential cost of severing long-time relationships, which, in a closely-bound community like off-road motorcycling, was not insignificant.

Across the Atlantic Ocean in the spring of 1973 and far removed from these corporate workings, Maico race-team engineers, operating in muddy, make-shift tents around Europe’s motocross tracks, were attempting to solve an annoying problem. Rear tires were jamming into the rear frame, following full-compression landings by the factory riders; a potentially disastrous situation. Might a little extra wheel clearance, as they had seen on the experimental Grand Prix

Yamahas, do the trick? So, lower and upper shock mounts were crudely cut and moved forward a few inches, then re-welded at the swing-arm and frame and the bike re-assembled. The result of re-positioning the rear shocks farther forward on the chassis not only accomplished the immediate goal of increased tire clearance, but also leveraged shock travel. This allowed the rear wheel to travel farther and faster (and in turn respond to bumps better), and to retain ground contact longer. This simple change, apart from correcting the minor problem of the rear tire sticking in the sub-frame, provided a much smoother ride and allowed better acceleration and braking. The improved riding qualities of the modified bike were instantly apparent; engineer

61

Selvaraj Narayana characterized the changes as suddenly being “like riding in a Cadillac.”20

Thus came about one of the single greatest technological advancements in motorcycling: effective long-travel rear suspension.21 Quick to capitalize on the unforeseen handling benefits of what Narayana described as essentially an accidental discovery, Maico immediately began modifying all team race bikes with the new rear suspension design, and brought their distributors in on the concept as quickly as possible. Quick communication and cooperation between the racing and engineering departments and down to the users, long a Maico corporate strength, brought the new-found technology of long-travel suspension to the most isolated American dealerships within months. During 1973 and 1974, Maico long-travel motorcycles were the undisputed top of the dirt bike world. All looked good for the little West German company.

20 Interview with Selvaraj Narayana by David Russell, June 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 21 Maico’s introduction of long-travel rear suspension (LTR) and what role Yamaha played is certainly open to speculation. Ake Jonsson suggests that Maico’s invention of forward-mounting was more a deliberate adaptation of Yamaha’s innovation than Mr. Narayana’s fortuitous discovery narrative suggests. For further discussion of Maico’s role in the advent of LTR, see both Ake Jonsson’s and Selvaraj Narayana’s narratives. Still, the fact remains that Maico was the first manufacturer to market production long-travel suspension motorcycles. 62

Figure 13. Maico advertisement from 1974, showing the forward-mounted Maico, and indicating that Maico

(at least) had no doubts as to who built the best motocross motorcycle in the world.

(Source: Dirt Bike Magazine )

Maicos had long stood out for another key handling attribute: their front fork design and geometry were again ahead of their time. The forks were rigid and resistant to flexing, and used a

“leading axle” design, with the front axle mounted on the forward side of the lower fork tubes.

Also, the upper fork tubes were positioned nearly in line with the frame steering stem, lessening the mechanical advantage of the front wheel’s path over the strength of the rider. This front end design, now emulated by all modern off-road bikes (but present on Maico from the mid-1960s), gave the Maico what is described as a “front-steering” tendency. Unlike all other off-road motorcycles of the era (which in turns were usually steered by applying power to bring the rear end around, opposite the intended direction of turn), the Maico would actually go where the front end was pointed. Maico’s front end design theory proved to be correct, when all other manufacturers adopted similar geometry.

By 1975, though, Yamaha’s Monoshock rear suspension stood as a cheaper and very effective rival to the Maico’s fine-handling (but expensive and problematic) twin-shock design— due primarily to the greater pressures and subsequent overheating that the hold-over, conventionally-designed twin shocks were being subjected to. Additionally, other manufacturers had likewise moved their shocks forward and created their own long-travel rear suspensions, whittling away at Maico’s lead and initial advantage. In the years after 1975, Maico was still recognized as “the handling motorcycle,” thanks to not only suspension, but also to the machine’s ideal geometry, low center-of-gravity, and the inherent “gyroscopic effect” from the crankcase. The Maico suspension itself, however, was no longer greatly superior to that of the

63 other manufacturers.22 Still, during the late 1970s, the engineers at German Maico pressed on, building improved motorcycles that were considered to be of excellent quality. Some, particularly the 1978/1979 Magnum series and the 1981 machines, were exceptional.

Despite having achieved reputation and renown in the motorcycling world, all was not well within the Maico organization. Management was torn along family lines. Otto Maisch and his daughters, majority shareholders since the war’s end and largely in charge (since Wilhelm

Sr.’s paralysis from a motorcycle accident), were increasingly in conflict with Wilhelm’s sons and heirs, principally Wilhelm Jr., head of Design and Production.23 Otto and his daughters,

Ingrid and Gabriele, had had differences with the Wilhelm Maisch side since the 1970s. Also, as early as 1972, both the Eastern and Western American Maico distributors encountered unusual predicaments such as leaking gas tanks and high quantities of metal shavings in the fork tubes of newly-delivered motorcycles, which the Americans took as evidence of deliberate product sabotage by someone at German Maico.24

Feeling pressure to follow-up on their brilliant 1981 490 with a single-shock (“mono- shock”) equipped motorcycle, the factory found itself in a difficult position. Some in Maico’s management, notably Otto Maisch, felt that the introduction of a mono-shock suspension was absolutely essential for 1982, if Maico was to retain its reputation as a progressive industry leader. Only Swedish Husqvarna was by this time still using the twin-shock suspension; all other principal manufacturers had moved to their own variation of the Yamaha mono-shock design.

The 1982 product line did introduce the brand-new Maico monoshock suspension. While the

22 Interviews with Craig Shambaugh, Selvaraj Narayana, and Gunnar Lindstrom by David Russell; Interview with Brian Thompson by David Russell, November 5, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 23 Wilhelm Sr.’s sons were Wilhelm Jr. (an engineer and head of Development and Production); Hans (a Maico factory racer); and Peter (various responsibilities). 24 Interview with Dennie Moore by David Russell. 64 innovation was of good intent and generally headed in the proper direction, its actual execution was extremely flawed. The Maico mono-shock’s basic design, in particular, was faulty due to its being mechanically overstressed, the system having been rushed into production before it was anywhere near ready. Actual riding performance of the new design was mediocre or worse, and to exacerbate the situation the shock and suspension components began failing and breaking.

Even various other components, completely unrelated to the new suspension, were flawed: gearboxes, wheel hubs, and shocks failed with regularity. Individual dealers and the American

Maico distributors were beset by lawsuits, and sales quickly plummeted. So close after experiencing the glories of 1981, Maico was in deep distress.

1983 was another devastating year for Maico. Even with the introduction of the redesigned and reasonably competent 1983 models, the quality and design fiasco of 1982 had severely injured the company. American dealers could sense problems in the air, and were themselves switching to (and pushing customers toward) the now well-engineered and precisely executed Japanese models. Disappointed dealers, like riders, had other choices, and in this era of

Japanese competition, Maico’s errors quickly proved to be mortal wounds. As sales and income dwindled, suppliers and German workers were paid late or not at all.25

Later that same year Maico neared bankruptcy for a second time. Unlike their previous experience in the 1950s, they would not be saved this time by a massive contract with the West

German government. All production and export of motorcycles ceased. Maico’s leadership had failed to bring the company through challenging times, not anticipating marketplace changes and abandoning their long-held adherence to quality—the one thing Maico buyers had always been able to count on. Due largely to questionable business arrangements made by Otto Maisch and ongoing legal complaints from America, German Maico had little cash or tangible assets with

25 “Business Failures/Bankruptcies,” Der Spiegel, April 23, 1984. 65 which to pay wages due the 230 plant workers or to business creditors. In a painfully bizarre turn of events, the American Maico distributor (owned by Otto Maisch) was demanding money from the parent company, German Maico (run by Otto Maisch). Taken together, these circumstances warranted investigation by the German government, which eventually found evidence of criminal actions. Otto Maisch and his two daughters were accused of unethical business practices, and other suspect activities soon became apparent.26 With motorcycle production halted, workers laid off, and the company under receivership, sales of assets were arranged in order to help pay off the creditors. The factory’s facilities at the Pfeffingen were seized as collateral against outstanding debts, and all other activity ceased. Selvaraj Narayana, by then

General Manager of Maico, stayed behind in the remnants of the factory to run the parts liquidation operation until 1987, when, as essentially the last German Maico employee, the

“lawyers locked the door behind him.” In the United States and elsewhere, the remaining Maico dealership network unraveled entirely.

The Wilhelm Maisch side of the family believed they could salvage the business and continue producing motorcycles. With financing obtained from American motorcyclist and businessman Ted Lapadakis, brothers Wilhelm Jr., Peter, and Hans began making and exporting

“new Maico” machines in 1984, though these were essentially re-marked 1983 models. Their operation used machinery purchased from the bankruptcy sale of the old company, and they rented some of the same factory space in the industrial park at Pfeffingen from the bank administrator.27 The firm could sell motorcycles under the Maico name in Europe, but legal concerns prevented the used of the old name in North America. On Lapadakis’s urging, the

26 Analysis of the German government’s case against the Maisch’s is detailed in chapter 7.1. 27 The brothers’ purchase of Maico tooling, and continuation on the Pfeffingen premises fueled the suspicion by some that the brothers had intentionally caused the former company’s bankruptcy. Analysis of German press coverage of the legal proceedings suggests this was not the case. 66 company used the unusual brand name “M-star.”28 The odd new name was not a help to the company, which had hoped to bank on and resurrect the glorious Maico legacy. Maico/M-Star made motorcycles in 250cc and 500cc displacements, which were weakly released from 1984 through 1987 to a tepid reception from both enthusiasts and the motorcycle press. The new company faced two formidable challenges: it was under-resourced; and the world-wide Maico dealer network that the brothers hoped would return to them was angry, unresponsive, and by now had mostly disappeared. The bikes themselves were clearly re-makes of previous Maico machines with the MAICO name removed, even though some modern features like water- cooling and disc brakes were added. Sales in the United States, generally around 3,000 units a year in proceeding seasons for the old Maico, barely broached the 200 mark in 1984, and they failed to improve in the next two years, contrary to Lapadakis’ predictions.29 With insufficient sales to maintain viability and Lapadakis unwilling to sell-out to an interested “White Knight” shareholder, the new Maico enterprise also ceased production, this time in 1988.

28 The new Maico company was known as Maisch Brothers, Ltd. in Europe. 29 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded) 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 67

Figure 14. Remnant of the Maico factory at Pfeffingen as seen in 2007. (photo: Ake Jonsson)

The Maico name was sold several times in the 1980s and 1990s, popping up in the

Netherlands and later again in Germany. In the years since the last gasps of the “new” Maico enterprise, most of the old Maico factory at Pfeffingen has been razed. The unpaid factory workers left a generation ago, and both Otto and Wilhelm Maisch Sr. are long-deceased. Four decades after Maico was recognized in America as the finest off-road motorcycle money could buy, today’s young rider likely has never heard of a Maico.

One can still purchase an expensive, limited production, high-end off-road motorcycle with the name MAICO emblazoned on the side, if one has the cash and does not mind waiting.

Clearly though, this modern derivation is much more a very nice assemblage of high-quality parts with a once-glorious name attached, than anything really related to those grand iconic machines of Pfeffingen. The comparison is similar, perhaps, to that of a modern Hinkley-built

Triumph motorcycle to the Meriden-built Triumph Bonneville of one’s youth; sharing a trademarked name, a country of origin, and some superficial design embellishments, but little else.

Fortunately, not all the original Maico motorcycles have been relegated to rusting and dissolving back into the soil, as some believe old dirt bikes should. Interest in both Maico motorcycles and what Maico meant to a generation of American riders continues to grow.

Sometimes still evident in a yellow or red paint flash, barely visible in dusty basements, barns, and sheds throughout the world, they continue to reappear in private collections and at vintage racing events. At this writing, Maico is among the most expensively-traded of the vintage dirt bikes among collectors, and will always account for one of the most fascinating stories in motorcycling. It is a brand which carries cultural significance in both its country of manufacture

68 and in the country that consumed the bulk of its production. Upon examination, Maico’s story reveals the interplay of post-war economics and cooperation between former enemies, international relations, motorcycle subgroups, the willingness of Americans to zealously adopt a

German-made product, and the challenges faced by a foreign manufacturer to remain competitive in a constantly changing North American market. The Maico story shows how details mattered to a group of intensely driven American motorcycle enthusiasts, and how a relatively unknown commodity from a distant German town became a competitive force in international motorcycle sport. Finally, Maico’s experience shows how historical memory can embrace an industrial artifact, transforming it into a symbolic object conveying significance and meaning from times past.

This chapter has conveyed the history of the Maico company in Germany from a corporate viewpoint. Now, the record of American sportsmen’s embrace of the Maico can begin.

The next chapters are technical, and are meant to provide the reader with an understanding of off-road motorcycles in general. These chapters will review the Maico line of motorcycles through the years, and discuss the interaction between these unique industrial objects and their owners in the United States.

69

1.4 EARLY MAICOS IN THE UNITED STATES

To comprehend another culture, an understanding of the material objects central to that culture may be necessary. As the surf culture enthusiast should thoroughly understand the physics of the surf board and surfing, or the student of early American life possess a command of colonial housing and barn construction, anyone examining motorcycling culture must understand the motorcycle. The object can be central to unlocking the values of the people who used it.

Historian John Kasson recognizes that Americans, in particular, have always had a special connection with technology, and much can be learned about them through analysis of their industrial objects.1 In the case of motorcycle culture, this analysis of the central object is necessary if we are to understand and decode the language and motivation of the motorcyclist.

The motorcyclist’s language and his desires are inextricably linked to the technology of motorcycle power and speed. Understanding this technology is critical in the case of the historian of motorcycle culture, as technology is the catalyst through which the rider is enabled to realize his or her aspirations of performance.

The story and some details of the early model Maicos in America (that period I categorize as 1955 to 1970) will equip the reader with a reasonable knowledge of motorcycle design and will set a foundation for the understanding of important technological innovations affected by Maico and Maico riders, presented in later chapters. This chapter will also introduce the critical split in the evolution of the motorcycle from the early general-purpose motorized two-wheeler to the more singularly-purposed modern motorcycle; specifically, the creation of the off-road motorcycle. Finally, this chapter and the associated pictures will serve to introduce the

1 John F. Kasson, Civilizing the Machine: Technology and Republican Values in America. (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), xiii-xiv. 70 common language and shared references which allow us to understand how the American off- road motorcycle community, often opaque to outsiders, defines itself.

This technical history owes much to Jim McCabe, an early Maico enthusiast originally from Markle, Indiana, who raced motorcycles in a variety of events in the American Midwest from the mid-1950 through the 1970s.2 Before his death in December, 2009, McCabe was recognized as a pre-eminent authority on not only Maicos, but on late-1900s North American motorcycle racing. He was a largely self-taught engineer, and possessed an amazing degree of mechanical prowess. His level of interest and understanding of mechanical objects was reminiscent of the generations of American males before the 1980s, when mechanical knowledge was an indicator of manhood in American culture. Jim McCabe was that typical young American male, smitten by the power and thrill of motorcycles, when the unusual German Maicos first appeared in the United States.

The Whizzer International Corporation, based in Pontiac, Michigan, first imported and distributed these Maico motorcycles in America. Whizzer International was also the distributor

2 Jim McCabe provided much of the factual data and images in this chapter. The bulk of this data is extracted from a letter that McCabe wrote to an acquaintance for the purpose of “clearing the air” of incorrect information about early Maicos. In his letter, McCabe spent considerable time describing racing in the 1950s American mid-west, and in completing the record on the technology of early Maicos where no information currently existed. He had competed in scrambles, short track, and enduro events since 1956, beginning and finishing his riding on Maicos. McCabe was a noted amateur competitor, having finished in the top thirty riders in the famous Michigan Jackpine Enduro on a 500cc Indian. Like Charles Schank (whose remarks appear in chapter 2.3), McCabe competed in the days when one rode one’s motorcycle to an event (often a state away), completed perhaps 100 miles off-road in the most arduous conditions, and then rode the motorcycle home in order to get some sleep before getting up for work on Monday morning. McCabe, who passed away before the completion of this work, was a pre-eminent authority on all Maicos and was one of the very few experts on pre-1970 machines. He was also a long-time observer of the sport and a master mechanic who tinkered with any object housing an engine. His personal stable of projects included a vast number of Maicos as well as many other European motorcycles, and extended to airplanes, which he both repaired and flew. McCabe was most recently known for his creation of a three-cylinder 1500cc Maico (made from three 490cc engines) and was deeply involved at the time of his death in the construction of a very-large capacity single- cylinder engine, using Maico and KTM parts. He had been working to overcome the design challenges of such a motor, and hoped to build it for no other reason than to show it could be accomplished. His insights and also his contribution of many early promotional pieces and period photographs were critical to the portions of this work addressing early Maicos in America. Source: Interviews with Jim McCabe by David Russell, January 2008 and February 2009, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg).

71 of the Whizzer motorized bicycle, which was very popular in 1940s and 1950s America. At this time, Michigan was at the epicenter of world motor culture. Whizzer, owned by the Gray brothers, first imported Maicos in 1955, and initially sold directly to buyers while they worked to establish a dealer network for the new product. In 1958 Nick Gray left Whizzer to found his own importing and distributing company in Detroit (Gray International), and took the Maico brand with him. The Grays functioned as the Midwestern Maico importers through these years, and also dealt with other brands and products.

Figure 15. 1956 Scrambler model. Note the Earles front suspension, off-road tires, and overall

lightweight, off-road ready design. (Source: Jim McCabe)

The early imported Maicos were 250cc and 175cc four-speed “Scrambler” (implying they were built for racing) models with close-ration gearboxes and Earles forks.3 Being specifically designed for competition, these models had immediate appeal to performance-oriented American motor enthusiasts. The cast-iron cylinders on the Scrambler were ported for maximum power output, and the peppy, lightweight machine stood in great contrast to the much heavier British and American motorcycles of the period. The road riding and Enduro models were available with

3 Earles forks are a derivation of the front suspension designed by Englishman Ernest Earle, utilizing twin shocks and a pivot-point aft of the front axle to absorb front-end bumps. This is also known as the “leading link” suspension. 72 more sedate power-output characteristics, sharing the same basic frame design, seats, and gas tanks. Maico Scramblers apparently gained popularity very quickly in the Midwest; Jim McCabe recalled being on the start line of eight-bike Ohio heat races as early as 1956, with four of the motorcycles being Maicos.4 This recollection is evidence of the immediacy of Maico’s penetration of racing culture. The 250 Maico Scramblers claimed horsepower ratings of around eighteen horsepower, impressive for a 250 cc motorcycle of the time, and were capable of staying ahead of just about any other motorcycle in their class (with the exception of another

German import, the Adler two-stroke twins, a design later copied by Yamaha). The Maico

Scramblers were equipped with 3.25 x 19 inch front and 3.50 x 19 inch rear wheels, resulting in a large motorcycle, similar in dimensions to British machines. The rims on the Scramblers were steel, with two attractive red painted pinstripes and heavier spokes than the road-going or Enduro versions. This use of stouter spokes where needed is indicative of Maico’s attention to detail among the other manufacturers, who would have probably have used one size spoke for all applications. Later Enduros utilized a lighter rear wheel assembly to help lesson their weight in the woods. The forward part of the frame was made of oval steel tubing on the Scrambler (for optimal strength), compared with the round steel tubing used on the other versions; again, this showed Maico’s willingness to indulge performance riders with truly high-performance equipment. Ignition was by Bosch generator and battery, with the option of using the generator to power lights, if needed. The generator utilized an automatic spark advance, actuated by rpm increase, and fired a single spark plug. Both the Scrambler and Enduro versions shared a high exhaust, with the road version using a low-mounted street-type exhaust. All machines utilized a round 3.3 gallon chromed steel gas tank. Carburetion was via German Bing units, with a choke

4 Interviews with Jim McCabe by David Russell. 73 that worked by closing off the opening on the back of the rather ineffective “gravel-strainer” air cleaner.

The 1950s 250cc Maico, compared to the 500cc and 650cc British four-strokes it often competed against, gave remarkable performance and quickly cultivated a reputation for high quality and power. Only a decade removed from World War II, Maico’s German identity apparently presented no problem for its buyers. If anything, the motorcycle benefited from the perceived Old World, German reputation for engineering excellence. And, in the case of sport motorcyclists, interested in power and reliability, the machine’s performance in competition, not national origin, was what mattered. In light of the period marketing practices of other motorcycle manufacturers, it is interesting that Maico produced the three versions of the same motorcycle as early as 1955, marketing not only the standard road version, but also pure racing (Scrambler) and on/off-road version (Enduro). While other manufacturers might produce a “factory racer” for

North American buyers (generally, a street bike with no lights and a higher-performing engine, such as was sold by Triumph and BSA) Maico stands out because the company extensively and early-on tailored their products to meet the buyer’s end use, producing an “out-of-the-crate- ready” tool. Until the early 1960s, in fact, Maico was one of very few companies producing versatile “race-ready” motorcycles as the rule, rather than as an exception, to their prevailing product line (see Figure 16).

Maico made its reputation through purpose-built off-road performance machines in the

1950s, while it also exported excellent, purely road-going motorcycles to America, which were again highly praised. This practice of purposely building motorcycles for specific applications, and particularly racing use, was unique from that of the other manufacturers, who made (for the most part) general-purpose motorcycles. An English BSA, Triumph, or most any other import

74 had to be made into what the owner wanted. To do this, the owner could buy competition engine parts, remove lights, or change tires; in the end, though, the onus remained on the owner, not on the factory. Maico approached the needs of the consumer differently. The Maico owner could start with any of three versions of the same basic motorcycle—competition, off-road/on-road, or purely on-road—and could either use the motorcycle as delivered or modify it to taste, using readily available factory parts. Even if the buyer chose the 250cc Maico Blizzard, the road-going variant of the three machines previously discussed, it could also be easily modified by using parts from the other two versions—and likewise easily be placed back in road-going trim. This company policy was an excellent selling point for performance-oriented Americans. The

Blizzard, in fact (produced with conventional telescopic front forks in 1956, and eventually equipped with a larger 280cc engine), became the pillar of the Maico mid-size trio through 1962, and no doubt many were used as part-time competition models.

The Maicoletta scooter, though never very popular in the United States, was still an excellent and innovative motorcycle. Available in 175cc, 250cc, and 280cc sizes, it was rather large (at least when compared to the popular Italian Vespas) and powerful and robust enough that it could even be fitted with a sidecar. The Maicoletta abounded with new technology, from its back-and-forth “rocking” engine starting, to its leading-axle front forks and high-performing engine. Another scooter, the Maico Mobil, was equipped with large front bodywork, and used the 175cc and 200cc engines.5

Maico also produced lighter 49cc mopeds, and 175cc, and 200cc road-going motorcycles during these years.6 These machines were periodically imported to the United States, but like the

5 McCabe, a motorcycle expert by any measure, considered the Maicoletta scooter one of the most innovative motorbikes he had ever encountered. 6 “Mopeds” are step-through bicycle/motorcycle-like machines, popular throughout the world to this day. Their engine capacity, usually 49cc, figured into legal regulations in both Europe and North America which permitted 75 scooters, did not gain popularity. The rationale for scooters and mopeds was one of efficient urban transportation; this differed from the needs of off-road riders and racers, for whom utility was not at all the point. Furthermore, owing to cheap fuel, rough roads, and greater travel distances in the United States, very small motorcycles did not appeal to American motorcyclists at the time. (Later, in the 1960s, small motorcycles like the Honda would appeal to predominantly non-motorcyclists, for different reasons.)

Maico manufacturing practice was, from the early years on through later years, to use all the parts on-hand before fitting newer ones if at all possible.7 This practice was followed even when transitioning to completely new models. Thus it is common to find Maico motorcycles equipped with older parts which might seem incorrect for the model. Because of the general inherent interchangeability of engine parts from year to year, this situation is most common with respect to Maico engines. Maico engine parts are often found to be stamped with a year of manufacture which is earlier than the “model year” of the machine. The concept of a “model year” is often not wholly applicable to Maicos. Prior to the mid-1970s, Maico simply released re- designed motorcycles when they were ready, and not in accordance with marketing practice in the United States (where retailers found that “new” year models fueled America’s consumer- driven economy by inciting demand for supposed improvements). The Germans’ method of incremental product release did not stop American retailers and distributors from christening

Maico motorcycles in their own advertising as “new for 1968!” or “the NEW 1970” models. As

Jeffrey Meikle observed in relation to the marketing of industrial design in America, a “goal of artificial obsolescence” helped guide consumers to develop dissatisfaction with last year’s

their use by unlicensed riders and often negated the need for registration fees. “Moped” is a contraction referring to the motor and the presence of pedals (the Moped is pedaled to start the engine, and can, with some effort, be pedaled like a bicycle). 7 Interviews with Jim McCabe by David Russell. 76 model, and to instead desire a brand new product.8 Earlier, Henry Ford’s “democratization of the motor car” had (by 1920) resulted in an unexpected competition for auto dealers: that of the millions of still usable used Fords left over from previous years.9 Clearly something needed to be done to stir consumerism. This “new necessity,” as it was coined by General Motors’ Charles F.

Kettering and Allan Orth in 1932, was the recognition that new products were needed to relieve the monotony of the same item, year after year; this would give the buyers something to want and the dealers something to sell them.10 German Maico eventually conceded this reality, too, and from 1975 coincided new motorcycle design releases with the next calendar year.

Figure 16. Circa 1958 promotional handout, noting that Maico quality made a 175cc Maico perform

like a 250cc motorcycle made by anyone else. The designer has placed the image of the engine at the very

center of the layout, and the writer is clearly targeting the language toward a reader with knowledge of

motorcycle engineering—not a neophyte rider. (Source: Jim McCabe)

8 Jeffrey L. Meikle, 20th Century Limited: Industrial Design in America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979), 72. 9 Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The Democratic Experience (New York: Random House, 1973), 551. 10 Ibid, 546-55. 77

As understanding of two-stroke design and tuning progressed, Maico and other two- stroke engines were capable of producing more power.11 A major factor in enhancing two-stroke performance is the design of the expansion chamber exhaust to specifically match the engine’s gas-flow characteristics.12 The fact that most two-stroke engines prior to the early 1960s had only an exhaust pipe—not enhancing engine performance at all, but merely routing exhaust gasses out of the way—suggests the level of performance two-stroke technology had yet to attain. Maico, however, had not been sleeping. Later-model 280cc single-cylinder Maicos, equipped with a 27 mm Bing carburetor and a reasonably tuned expansion chamber, could be capable of 90 mph in stock (un-modified), out-of-the-box condition; a significant achievement for even a present-day 250 single. The 175 utilized an aluminum cylinder and a chrome bore; lightweight but requiring more frequent piston and ring changes, since it could not be re-bored.

The 175s, equipped with an expansion chamber and high-compression head, ran as well as the soon to arrive 200cc Bultacos (the recognized small-bore speedsters in those years) in McCabe’s opinion, again exhibiting the edge in performance that Maicos tended to have over other machines. Besides power, the Maico singles could also easily be fitted with a 21 inch front wheel, a popular handling modification for off-road riders.

The general interchangeability of parts among Maico motorcycles was undoubtedly attractive to Americans. These were the inveterate tinkerers about whom de Toqueville wrote:

11 A two-stroke engine fires every time the piston reaches the top of the cylinder, using the piston to open and close air passages in the cylinder; its “two strokes” are 1)ignition and downward power stroke, with exhaust gasses exiting and fresh fuel/air charge entering, and 2) upward compression stroke, as the piston seals the intake ports on its way up, pushes remaining exhaust gasses out before sealing the exhaust ports, and compresses the charge for another ignition/power stroke. A “four-stoke” (as used in most automobile engines) fires every other time the piston reaches the top of the cylinder, and generally uses valves openings at the top of the cylinder to allow gasses to enter and exit. 12 Expansion chamber. A tuned exhaust system, harnessing the shock wave created by exhaust discharge by “bouncing” the shock wave off the tapered end of the chamber, back against the cylinder exhaust outlet area at precisely the moment subsequent exhaust sequences begin, and “help” the next exhaust charge speed out (thus increasing gas flow and engine rpm). Ultimately, increasing rpm means increasing total volume of air movement through the engine, which has the end result of creating more power. The concept of the expansion chamber, vice simply an exhaust pipe, began to take shape in the late 1950s. 78

“In America, the inventions of Europe are adopted with sagacity; they are perfected, and adapted with admirable skill to the wants of the country.”13 Americans never stopped their tinkering; by the 1960s, “hot-rodding” cars and motorcycles had become ingrained in the American experience, and being able to easily modify a machine was attractive to these enthusiasts. This tendency towards parts commonality across years and models (necessitated by being a small manufacturer) bolstered Maico’s acceptance in the United States.

Maico also produced extremely well-engineered and executed twin-cylinder motorcycles, known as the Taifun (Typhoon) line. These machines were so good that a dealer from whom

McCabe sought to purchase a BMW road bike questioned McCabe’s intent. Then, as now, the

BMW road bike stood as the gold standard of touring and street motorcycles; yet this dealer actually preferred the Maico twin to the classic BMW in many respects for road use. These

350cc and 400cc twins featured duplex (double) final drive chains, running in an ingeniously- designed fully-enclosed aluminum oil bath housing, on both counts something that no other manufacturer had done. The basic overall design was similar to the Maico single-cylinder bikes, with the addition of fuller bodywork, which covered more of the front end and below-seat areas.

At this juncture, Maico’s impressive debut with a variety of machines seemed to suggest a healthy future, and it was easy for both Germans and Americans to feel optimistic about prospects for the company in North America.

During the years 1955-1961, Maico motorcycles changed very little. Having always specialized in producing two-stroke engines (as opposed to the heavier four-stroke engines still favored by American and British manufacturers for the Harley-Davidsons, Triumphs, BSAs, and

Nortons), Maico was already on the “right side of history” with respect to the impending mid-

13 Alex de Tocqueville. Democracy in America (New York: Bantam Dell, 2004), 366. 79

1960s move to two-strokes in most off-road competition.14 As road-going and off-road/sport motorcycle designs became further differentiated, Maico found itself ideally positioned to manufacture the product that sport riders in the United States and Europe really wanted. New sporting riders could not accept the old, general-purpose motorcycle of previous decades, as the chasm between the two applications grew wider. The company had honed their product through a decade of intense involvement with off-road and military applications, so, as the 1960s dawned, Maico made exactly the right motorcycle at the right time, just when American interest in the sport started to explode. Maico’s formula of a light-weight, well-made, reliable, two-stroke powered, well-suspended motorcycle with an exceptional ability to be customized by the buyer, was perfect for the times. This optimal product position accounts for the phenomenal North

American growth in Maico sales, confirmed by McCabe and Eastern Maico distributor Denny

Moore.15 Off-road racing and riding erupted in popularity, and Maico, now a refined and recognized brand, prospered as well.

14 The move to two-stroke engines in competition motorcycles was not permanent. Since 2000, environmental regulations have pushed two-stroke motorcycle engines aside, in favor of cleaner-emitting (but more expensive to maintain) four stroke engines. 15 Interviews with Jim McCabe by David Russell, and interviews with Dennie Moore by David Russell, March 27, 2007 through November 14, 2013, Lewistown, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 80

Figure 17. Jim McCabe on his own well-used Maico; Santa Fe Speedway, Chicago, Illinois, 1965.

This same machine, used here on what appears to be a scrambles course, could be converted to use in flat-

track, motocross, or endure events with minor changes, and may possibly have been ridden home by its

owner (once its lights were re-attached). (Photo: Jim McCabe)

As noted, the small Maico company could not afford excessive variation in parts, and the

175cc, 200cc, and 250cc engines shared the same engine cases to avoid extra expense. This same basic engine case design was actually continued through the 1970s four-speed engines, and the vestigial “extra” aluminum on later-model, pre-1975 engine cases is a testament to this practice.

Different primary-drive gear ratios were used between the larger and smaller bikes, allowing the extra rpm on the smaller-capacity machines to be used without needing extremely large rear sprockets. The same flywheel and rod were used throughout the range, as piston stroke travel remained constant, with displacement increases brought about by increasing the piston diameter.

Bendix magnetos replaced the Bosch units on the Scrambler models in 1962. Curiously, Maico used the same seat on all single-cylinder bikes through 1961, when a smaller one-person seat was fitted on the competition bikes, along with a smaller tank and racing expansion chamber. The

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250, thus equipped, was claimed to create 22 horsepower in 1962, making it very competitive with any other similarly sized machine. Overall, American Maico racers made relatively minimal changes to Maico engines in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The changes they did make were generally limited to fitting higher-compression heads, matching the ports16, and fitting a larger carburetor. As noted earlier, Maico tended to implement technical changes into the production line as soon as they were approved, so that at any time a more high-performing or otherwise new item might be noted on a motorcycle arriving from Germany—with dealers not always informed of the changes. While this was a strange practice for Americans, the customers liked it. With different performance parts abounding at Maico dealerships, individual riders also felt empowerment and agency to experiment on their own.17 The early Maicos were also very reliable; McCabe notes that he raced a 1956 250 for seven seasons with only minimal maintenance.18 And, following these seven years of hard racing use, the same engine was sold and continued service in a micro-midget racing car. McCabe stated that early Maico riders actually enjoyed having to perform minimal in-depth maintenance, “assuming you mixed the oil correctly and knew a little about [carburetor] jetting.” The Maico was very much the ideal motorcycle. It possessed high performance, it could be fettered and modified by those with the inclination, and it was reliable in all cases.

In 1963 Maico single-cylinder bikes (Figure 18) began to arrive at the distributor’s equipped with an alloy cylinder barrel and were fitted with larger carburetors to further increase engine performance. Exhaust system/expansion chamber design still left something to be desired,

16 “Matching the ports” was essentially ensuring the gas passages inside the cylinder and piston were formed to match ideal factory specifications; also known in automotive circles as “blue-printing.” 17 Interviews with Jim McCabe by David Russell. McCabe recalled that Maico regularly sent high-performance parts out through the dealer network, which racers bought to update their machines. 18 The only major maintenance done by McCabe were yearly re-bores (until a good air-cleaner was fitted), one connecting rod replacement, two small gears and two primary chain replacements, and a set of clutch plates and hub. 82 although the German engineers were aware of the importance of the tuned exhaust to two-stroke performance. The pioneering German two-stroke manufacturer NSU had gone so far as to create a supercharged two-stroke. Their engine was so successful that it was banned from post-war racing, and the “free” extra power, obtained by harnessing exhaust gas resonance, has been the focus of two-stroke performance since then.19

Competition models were by now equipped with telescopic type front forks, as opposed to the Earles variety. Though a decade from the discovery of long-travel suspension, Maico chassis designers realized that more suspension travel (the difference between full extension and full compression of the spring) provided more comfort for the rider and allowed the motorcycle to safely negotiate rough ground surfaces at higher speeds. Subsequent models came with increasingly longer travel and bump-absorbent front suspensions. The bikes still used the single- loop frame, but with their mid-level-height exhaust, small seat and tank, sparse appearance and standard equipping with number plates, the machines were beginning to look like modern motorcycles. One problem with the bikes (still using iron-barrel cylinders) occurred when they were taken on the road and ridden at constant high speeds. During such high-speed use the engines would overheat, resulting in the quicker-expanding piston “sticking” in the slower- expanding cylinder bore. McCabe recalled dealing with the situation by judiciously applying the carburetor choke, which resulted in a fresh shot of rich, cooling fuel and oil mixture arriving in the cylinder to help dissipate the heat and alleviate the problem. Once Maico fitted alloy cylinders, the issue was generally alleviated.

19Vic Willoughby, Classic Motorcycles (New York: The Dial Press, 1975), 98-100. 83

Figure 18. 1963 enduro model. Note the oval–barrel cylinder, leading-axle forks, double-loop frame, 21 inch

front wheel, and pre-installed number plates. (Source: Jim McCabe)

1965 was the year of the next major model redesign, with the introduction of the larger

360 (354cc) X-3 (X-3 being apparently an American designation; it does not seem to appear in

German-language period literature). The X-3 design (reminiscent of the names attached to

American high-performance aircraft, like the X-15), was available in either GS (Gelandesport, or

Enduro) or MC (motocross) versions. The GS version could initially be ordered with 174, 247,

277, or 354cc engine displacements, while the motocross-intended MC was available in 247 and

354cc versions, suiting the under-250cc and over-250cc internationally accepted motocross class delineations. Once again, this choice in engine capacity to suit the individual’s use and preferences was highly unusual in the motorcycling world at the time. Equipped with a double- loop, thin-wall molybdenum frame, high exhaust pipe and leading-axle forks, the Maico now closely resembled the classic motorcycles of the early 1970s. Basic Maico frame measurements and angles (“frame geometry,” in rider language) for the next decade were mostly established,

84 and Maico handling was now, by most any standard, faultless. Relative to other leading competition machines of the era, Maico overall measurements resembled those of rivals

Husqvarna and CZ, although both these makes used the conventional steering stem/fork mounting relationship (as opposed to Maico’s “front steering” design), and both used a single down-tube frame (rather than Maico’s double down-tube arrangement). An early version of the

124cc Maico was also introduced in 1965/1966. Maico had by this point ceased to follow its previous tripartite model line practice (Scrambler, Enduro, road-going), and, abandoning the road variants, would issue only two versions of each displacement: the motocross bike (MC) or the motocross-bike-with-lights (GS). There were minor engine differences between the two models, including the provision of a lighting coil and later the larger associated ignition cover on the GS models. Wide-ratio or close-ratio gears could be specified for either model, based upon the customer’s desires; again, something of an exclusive for Maico.

While Maico still produced road-going models (and one road-racing model, the RS-125) the company now concentrated on off-road motorcycles as its future identity, particularly outside

Europe. In America and world-wide, Japanese street motorcycles were then beginning their displacement of the British in the world street motorcycle industry. The futility of attempting to compete with the Japanese in the small street bike market (without considerable import or tariff protection by one’s home government, at least) was obvious to industry insiders, and Japanese popularity boomed.20 It is important to note that, just as Maico’s German identity did it no harm in the post-war years, neither did the Japanese brands suffer from significant historically-based prejudice. Performance minded bikers were pragmatic. The British had been great Allies during

20 Maico would, however, make this exact mistake of hoping to compete with the Japanese on their own terms, with the development of their 125 and 250 street bikes in the 1970s. The results of this misbegotten and costly strategy contributed to Maico’s demise. (Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded) 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 85 the war, but the Germans and Japanese were then building better motorcycles. In Maico’s case, rather than waste resources competing with Japan for road bike sales in the United States, Maico decided to do just that in Europe; this plan proved ultimately futile.21 The few Maico street bikes that did come to America after about 1960 were likely brought here by servicemen transferring home from assignment in Germany or enthusiasts on an individual basis, and not as part of any export strategy.

1968 was another major re-design year. The X-3 360 became the X-4, utilizing the new improved “square-barrel” engine (Figure 19). The square-barrel engine incorporated not only the massively-square, alloy-finned and iron-sleeve top end, but also came with strengthened gears.

The X-4 still came with the high “leg-burning” exhaust, in McCabe’s words, and the frame design remained unchanged. Very early X-4s likely have arrived with the short 50-inch wheelbase, owing to the use of the older and shorter swing-arm. Late in 1968 (although sometimes considered to be the 1969 “model year,” though Maico did not yet follow this practice), an improved frame was introduced, designated the X-4A in the United States. This improved frame was geometrically similar to its predecessor, but came with wider diagonal struts below the seat, allowing for a full-width air-box, containing an air filter, to be fitted. The new X-

4A frame, like its predecessor, could accommodate any engine size in the Maico ange, usually

250 or 360 (but now including the newly introduced 125), and was sold in either GS or MC form.

21 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell. Maico’s later 1970s street bike program (initiated by Otto Maisch but opposed by Wilhelm Maisch Jr.), failed after precious research and development expenditures by the company. 86

Figure 19. 1968 square-barrel 250. Older oval-barrels remained at the dealers, but were difficult to sell to Americans once the square-barrels arrived. The frame is an early 1968 X-4 type, not yet with the air-

box below the seat, as with the X-4A later in the year. (Photo: Jim McCabe)

The 1968-1969 years also saw the introduction of the most iconic bit of Maico equipment, the “coffin” gas tank. The tank is described in company literature as a “special motocross tank,” and is constructed from thick, angular fiberglass panels. Like the

Czechoslovakian CZ tank of the same period, the tank loosely conveys a coffin shape. The rational basis for the shape is not fully known. Narrow at the rear to make way for the rider’s legs, and shaped to keep the fuel volume and weight low, the shape makes some sense. The reason for the angular construction, however, still remains a mystery, and would have no advantage in ease of manufacture or production cost over a more rounded design. Whatever

Maico’s reason for the design was, this was during an era when Americans increasingly prized

87 individuality22 and this cosmetic difference certainly caused the brand to visually stand apart.

1970, the year that Richard Bach’s Jonathon Livingston Seagull captured the imagination of

American young people with its tale of an individualist, non-conformist bird finding satisfaction outside the flock, was the ideal time for a motorcycle like this Maico, which resembled no other.23 Though considered ugly by some, the coffin design certainly helped to differentiate the

Maico from its competitors.

A fiberglass tank is lighter in weight than a steel one, but also slightly heavier than plastic tanks in use at the time—besides being more expensive. The fiberglass tank also incorporates the bonding of a steel spout on top, adding to weight and labor costs. An alternative to either steel, plastic or fiberglass was the use of aluminum.24 Aluminum (or an aluminum alloy) was lighter than either material but was about twice as expensive to manufacture, according to Production

Manager Wilhelm Maisch Jr.25 It was less likely to leak, as well. Aluminum was used on the factory race bikes, but not installed on production bikes till much later. Maico tanks fitted to motorcycles bound for sale in Europe and Britain (where prices were 20-30% higher than in the

United States), had, as Maisch recalls, mostly aluminum tanks. Maicos imported to North

America came with fiberglass tanks though 1973; a mix of aluminum and fiberglass in 1974; plastic in 1975; and back to aluminum for the next few years. 26

Aluminum in the motor sports world equated, and still equates, to light weight and a resultant high level of performance. The visual presence of aluminum indicates a seriousness of purpose and denotes exclusivity to those of the subculture in-the-know, since aluminum items

22 Terry H. Anderson, The 1960s (New York: Pearson Longman, 2004), 140-43. 23 Richard Bach, Jonathon Livingston Seagull (New York: Scribner, 2006). 24 For the purposes of this text, aluminum, aluminum-alloy, and alloy denote the same thing: a lightweight metal object made all or mostly from aluminum. 25 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell. 26 Interview with Dennie Moore by David Russell. Distributor Moore recounted that virtually all fiberglass tanks shipped to Eastern Maico leaked in 1973, and had to be replaced at the distributor level. This mass defect contributed to Moore’s contention of industrial sabotage by some entity at Maico. 88 are generally costly. Aluminum was again an example of Maico offering a signifier which observers who were in the riding culture could immediately and favorably interpret. Adding any aftermarket performance part, particularly an aluminum one, also allowed the owner to personalize his or her motor vehicle, making it an extension of his taste and reflective of his will to win. Maico owners, a group of enthusiasts who defined themselves as serious about riding

(given their purchase of an expensive, high-performance motorcycle), shared these traits, and custom aluminum parts (tanks, brake levers, brake actuators, chain tensioners, and shock bodies) were popular. The Maico factory likewise used aluminum to not only make their motorcycles high-performing, but to make the machines appear high-performing. Maico aluminum tanks, even if dented, hand-formed and irregular, identified a seriousness of purpose on the part of the owner, who was visibly elevating functionality over aesthetics, in order to improve his motorcycle’s performance.

As the 1960s ended, motorcycle design innovation was continuing forward, as interest in motorcycle riding in the United States edged towards its high point in 1973, as indicated by sales figures for new motorcycles in that year.27 This same year also roughly identified the seamless turning point when the 1960s shifted to the 1970s. The United States, according to some observers, irrevocably changed from its former industrial, community-centered identity to a post- industrial, self-centered, and self-defined place: the “Me Decade.”28 Focusing on their own interests, Americans began riding in record numbers. In both the United States and around the world, the small but meaningful locus of activity and technological progress that Maico motorcycles represented was likewise on the move and changing.

27 1973 stands as “the record for most new bikes sold in a year:” 1.5 million. Source: The Motorcycle Industry Council, “New Motorcycle Sales Top One Million for Record Sixth Consecutive Year,” http://www.mic.org/news021309.cfm. Accessed June 11, 2014. 28 Will Kaufman, American Culture in the 1970s (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 1-26.

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Figure 20. Maico four-speed engine, showing (from left) crankshaft and piston rod, main gear shaft, and lay gear shaft (countershaft). The gear changing mechanism can be seen above the gear shafts. Note the

simplicity of the engine design, the basic form of which saw service from the 1950s through 1974.

(Photo: Gig Hamilton)

At about 1970, we see the end of the “old” Maico and the beginnings of the modern

Maico. Competitive motorcycling’s growth paralleled the upswing of motorcycling in general, and sport motorcycling and Maico hit their stride. This new period at Maico saw the younger generation of the Maisch family enter the company business, new engineering talent arrive, and the company recognized as the purveyor of the finest off-road motorcycles available.

Looking back on his own years in the sport, from the mid-1950s to the 1970s, Jim

McCabe reminisced about the altitudinal changes in motorcycle competition; from the “good fun” of these earlier days (as he saw it) to a present-day mentality of success at any cost. He expressed hope that the preservation and continued use of old Maico motorcycles would permit others to see what American racing of the 1950s and 1960s was really like. Beyond the motorcycles themselves, however, he also wished to not misrepresent the motivations of the competitors. Observing the American vintage motorcycle racing movement, in which Maicos are

90 common participants, he was adamant that highly modifying the old machines “in the interest of winning” was not what the racing should be about. McCabe advocated the use of sort of motorcycle that one might “pull from the corn crib, so to speak:” the more primitive and reminiscent of old-time riding, the better. Finally, he noted several words of advice on racing as it was in the “old days,” which he hoped might remain intact in modern vintage racing.

Primarily, he asserted it should be “fun . . . not too serious or violent.” One could ride hard, and might accidentally bump another rider, but, “For those who could not ride like gentlemen and win on the basis of ability . . . well, occasionally feet were known to slip from the brake pedal, and that person [was pushed] off the track . . . Usually, the overly-rough rider got the point after one or two such incidents, while those who persisted usually lost interest in motorcycle racing entirely after a season or two.”29

Whether or not the attitudinal change McCabe lamented was occurring as the early 1970s passed, technological change certainly was. Having described the classic design and fundamental characteristics of the two-stroke off-road motorcycle, we are now equipped to examine a high water mark of Maico innovation which forever altered motorcycle design: the long-travel suspension 1974 models.

29 Interview with Jim McCabe by David Russell.

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Figure 21. Tool kit as supplied with every Maico motorcycle in the late 1960s. The German-made tools were high-quality hardened steel, and far exceeded the quality of the tools provided with a new Japanese motorcycle. The quality and quantity of tools and spare parts provided with a new motorcycle are considered

by enthusiasts to be a direct reflection of the quality of the motorcycle. (Photo: name withheld)

Figure 22. Maico small warning decal, lest there be any doubt about the intended use of the Maico

motorcycle. (Photo: the author)

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Chapter 2: ANALYSIS OF THE OBJECT

2.1 ENGINEERING ANALYSIS: FORM AND FUNCTION

“It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and

metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the

head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever

follows function. This is the law.”1

In previous chapters the evolution of early Maico motorcycles and their acceptance and use by American competitive riders was discussed. We have seen how the small German company moved towards a specialization in sporting off-road motorcycles, and how these machines began to pique the interest of the American sport riders of the 1950s and 1960s. With this foundation in mind, a pivotal Maico motorcycle, the 1974 forward-mounted suspension model, can be introduced. This example warrants detailed examination for two reasons. First, the new longer-travel rear suspension on the machine signaled a new era in motorcycle technology, not unlike the significance of the transition from black to smokeless gunpowder, or from diesel to nuclear submarine propulsion. Second, this motorcycle appeared at the height of buyer interest in motorcycles, in the United States; the “boom” of new motorcycle sales, circa 1973-74. This machine will be examined through a systematic, thorough analysis of its components, design, and performance. In the same manner as industrial historian Jeffrey Meikle, in American Plastic, describes the chemical make-up and production processes inherent in plastic as a precursor to assessing plastic’s cultural implications, I believe a detailed understanding of the Maico

1 Louis H. Sullivan, “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered,” Lippincott’s Magazine 57 (March 1896), 403-9; and later published as “Form and Function Artistically Considered” in The Craftsman 8 (July 1905), 453-8. 93 motorcycle is necessary.2 For several of the core concepts to be discussed, I draw upon engineer

Gunnar Lindstrom’s analysis of a 400 Maico in the July, 1975 issue of Dirt Bike Magazine. 3

Lindstrom, in his “Analysis of a Proven Winner,” highlighted aspects of Maico and general off- road motorcycle performance that were understood by the American riding community in a “seat of the pants” way, but had previously not been explained to consumers in objective engineering terms. 4

Figure 23. 1974 ½ Maico in a period advertisement, December, 1974. (Source: Dirt Bike Magazine)

2 Jeffrey I. Meikle, American Plastic: A Cultural History (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995). 3 Gunnar Lindstom, “Analysis of a Proven Winner,” Dirt Bike Magazine, (July, 1975), 63. 4 Interview with Gunnar Lindstrom by David Russell, January 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). As the first editor of this leading magazine with a formal engineering background, Lindstrom consciously sought to impart objective technical descriptions in place of the ever-present “funny” slant Dirt Bike had relied upon since its inception. 94

As did Lindstrom, I have selected a 1974 production-year long-travel rear suspension

(LTR) model (Figure 23) to analyze. This model is sometimes referred to as the “1974 ½ model,”, the “GP” (for Grand Prix) model, and also as the “1975” model, owing to Maico’s practice of releasing machines as they were updated, and not under a “model year” system. Many examples of this type of machine reached United States shores in late 1974 and in the early months of 1975. The engine size selected is the 386cc, or “400” model. The 400 was the standard

Maico “open class” displacement size for several years, displaying the best of Maico engine power characteristics. This is to say that it produced very strong and easy-to-manage engine power, even if it did not produce the sheer overwhelming horsepower and acceleration of the 450 or the massive torque of the 501. The 400 was the size preferred by professional motocross star

Ake Jonsson in elite racing, even when the more powerful engines were available. Jonsson believed that the 400’s power output was “enough, but not too much” for even his talents.5

Produced from 1970 through 1979, the 400 was also the most popular Maico engine size bought by American riders.6

Initial Speculation and Findings

The Maico is, if we are to believe period publications, a high-quality machine designed for serious use. If we had any doubt, the owner’s manual tells us as much in halting, nearly-well- translated English from the German: “The Maico models . . . are constructed especially for competition and off-road use. They are suitable for moto-cross and enduro competition, and for crossing any difficult terrain.” The 1974 MC400 motorcycle here examined sold for

5 Interview with Ake Jonsson by David Russell, November 25, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 6 Interviews with Craig Shambaugh (September 11, 2008) and Gig Hamilton (June 19, 2007 and April 7, 2008) by David Russell, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 95 approximately $1595 when new (or, nearly $400 more than the Japanese-built 1974 Suzuki

TM400 ($1205), somewhat more than a Spanish Montesa or Ossa, and about the same as a

European-built CZ, Husqvarna, or Penton of the same period). Cost alone would have dissuaded a casual prospective buyer. Clearly, the Maico was intended for a select owner.

The Maico motorcycle is at times a paradox. Its elite overall design and construction contains parts which we will see are woefully inadequate; this list includes the bike’s foot-pegs, side-stand, front brake, and gas cap. As the Dirt Bike staff complained in the same July, 1975 issue as Lindstrom’s analysis, the foot-pegs were “stone-age,” the “sidestand is a joke,” and gas leaked out of the tank and from around the petcocks.7 There are also outdated components: breaker-points ignition, hard hand grips, vestigial metal on the crankcase. The Maico was among the most expensive off-road motorcycles available, and yet the paint always contained fish-eyes and scratches, decals were applied sloppily, and hammer marks from assembly might be visible on outer engine parts. Dirt Bike affirmed as much in the magazine’s introduction to the Maico

400, when it lamented that Maicos “all look as though they were thrown together, just to see if the parts would fit,” and the “Welds are cobby and the castings look like they were finished off by a grinder who had a few too many glasses of fine German beer.”8 The Maico seems to be an object designed by passionate engineers, and then assembled by daydreaming workers.

The overall aesthetic effect draws upon Art Deco. This 1920s design movement reflected the advent of modernity and interpreted, in its application, the industrial geometric and angular forms which often accompanied it. The Maico’s design incorporates basic geometric shapes— triangles, squares, and circles—into a stark but flowing and interlaced mechanical assemblage. It

7 Dirt Bike Magazine, “400 Maico MX: Forward-mounted Four-speeder,” Dirt Bike Magazine (July, 1975), 56-62. 8 Ibid. 96 is indeed a “marriage of art and industry,” possessing a utilitarian beauty.9 Each aspect of the machine’s construction reinforces the overall form: the horizontal line created by the lower borders of the seat and gas tank; the nestling of the air-box within the steel frame tubes and seat bottom; and the parallel, slightly downward tilt of the brake pedal, carburetor, and cylinder cooling fins. The vertical, horizontal and diagonal panel junctures of the gas tank echo the lines of the forks and frame, and announce the machine’s overall forward inclination. The motorcycle visually creates the sensation that it is waiting for permission to begin launch sequence. While angular and simple, the Maico suggests streamlining and an inexorable forward momentum.

Looking down from the rider’s position and following the visual narrowing of the front fender, the machine directs the rider forward, pointing the rider on to something out there. Like the

Merry Pranksters yellow bus demanded, “Furthur!” [sic] it seems to say.10

The Maico’s liberal use of unpainted metals amplifies the forceful, combative posture of the machine. Most metal surfaces appear rough and unfinished (in opposition to the polished and painted Japanese and other European motorcycles of its day). The rough engine, fork and hub castings intertwine with unabashedly simplistic yet attention-grabbing color mixtures, to suggest nothing less than impending action. Perhaps even conflict: Conflict between people, between machine and earth, between machine and machine. Here, though, a man and his machine are united into one entity. Finally, together, they wear one number; a militaristic detail identifying the pairing. Man and his chosen tool are de-individualized and then recreated as a combined, unified force, together on a contested field. The squared numerals, applied over bright, pure color, suggest Stuka, Messerschmitt, Mustang, Zero; fearsome instruments of war, impressive what they could do with the right pilot. The man and the machine are interdependent. The pilots

9 Jeffrey L. Meikle, Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925-1939 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979), xiii. 10 Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (New York: Bantam Books, 1969), 61. 97 and racers cannot achieve their goals without the machine. “We are in this together,” they would say.

Maico buyers/riders differed from other motorcycle consumers in their willingness to spend money on a premium product and their acceptance of the inadequacies that annoyingly accompanied this expensive machine. Assuming a young tradesman at the time was earning

$20,000 annually, he would have spent nearly ten percent of his gross income on a Maico, considering base price, taxes and the cost of some spare parts—which was then normally replaced after a season or two. We must also remember this was a motorcycle meant entirely for sport; it could not legally transport the owner on the road or serve any other utilitarian purpose.

What was it, then, that the buyer was obtaining with the purchase of a Maico?

Description and Analysis

Describing the details of a material object often begins with examining that aspect of the item most affecting its intended performance. With a house, we describe its square footage; a gun, the size of its projectile/propellant; an anchor, its weight. The description of any motorcycle usually begins in one place as well. The fundamental component—the core, the personality, the mechanical touchstone for any motorcycle—is the engine. The engine utilized in the MC400 model is a two-stroke, single-cylinder unit displacing about 386cc of capacity. This measurement, in simplified terms, is the volume “swept” by the piston within the cylinder, from the bottom of its stroke to the top. Like all two-stroke engines, the 400 Maico draws a fuel/air mixture from a carburetor into the crankcase, the area where the crankshaft is housed and is rotating, with the vacuum created by the upward traveling piston. Of the several methods of fuel/air mixture induction, Maico chose the conventional “piston-port” design for the MC400, as it did with virtually all its engines (the one notable exception being the rotary-valve induction

98 used on the 125 engines).11 The MC400’s piston-port system first routes the air from the carburetor (mounted just aft of the cylinder) into inlet ports (passages) cast within the cylinder and leading to the crankcase. These inlet ports are opened and closed by the piston, which acts as the opening-and-closing valve. In the process of its up and down strokes the piston allows the compressed fuel/air mixture to transit through other passages (called transfer ports) into the combustion chamber, where it will be further compressed by the piston. Just prior to the highest point of the piston’s upward compression stroke, the ignition points (located on the crankshaft) open. At that millisecond, a high-voltage blue spark crosses the credit-card-thick gap between the spark plug electrodes projecting into the cylinder crown and ignites the compressed fuel/air charge. This resulting explosion pushes the piston and piston rod downwards, rotating the crankshaft. The first ports exposed by the downward moving piston are the exhaust ports, and burnt gasses are permitted to exit through the now-unobstructed ports, pushed along their way by the incoming rush of a fresh fuel/air charge. This fresh charge entered the cylinder when the transfer ports (farther down and on the opposite side of the cylinder wall) were opened by the piston. In another millisecond the piston reaches the bottom of its stroke, reverses direction, and the entire process begins again. The big single-cylinder engine is claimed to produce 43 horsepower at 6700 rpm, a robust motivating force for a 230 pound motorcycle.

11 Maico adapted a reed valve induction (a variation on the piston-port) to several models in the 1980s. 99

Figure 24. 1974 MC400/MC440 engine (typical, left side). The finned cylinder and head sit atop the

engine cases, while the carburetor can be seen to the right of the cylinder. The clutch lever (visible atop the

left engine case and attached to a cable to the handlebars) separates the spring-loaded clutch plates. The

black kick-starter lever is located just above the aluminum gear shift lever. (Photo: the author)

Below the piston and cylinder are the engine cases, containing the crankcase, primary- drive case, and transmission (Figure 24). Maico constructed the engine cases from aluminum alloy. They are thus lightweight, strong, and repairable when necessary. The principal dynamic components in the engine (crankshaft, connecting rod, clutch housing, and gears) are made from specially hardened steel. The piston itself is a specially-formulated high-quality forged item made by the German Mahle company, who also made pistons for Porsche automobiles. Forging differs from casting, the cheaper and easier process used by most other manufacturers, in that compressive forces are used in forging, and the forged product is much stronger. The forged pistons are constructed from a mixture of metals to achieve the best combination of low weight,

100 high strength (under the extreme pressures of combustion and high rpm), and minimal expansion when heated. The pistons use a single compression ring, and move within a tubular iron sleeve, pressed into the aluminum outer cylinder. Maico pistons were virtually impervious to wear, with ring replacement being the most common upkeep chore. When enough wear (usually in the iron sleeve) did occur, the sleeve would be bored and an oversize piston assembly fitted.12 Also indicative of Maico’s quality of metallurgy is the fact that used Maico/Mahle pistons generally wear very little; even when the cylinder itself enlarges with wear, Mahle pistons can be re-used in another engine. This differed again from most other motorcycle engines, whose cheaper cast pistons wore excessively with use and had to be discarded.

A unique Maico engine practice was the use of silver-plated bearings in the connecting rods. The practice, begun with the design of the 125 road-racer, was carried over to the other

Maico engines to assist in countering the forces encountered in high-rpm running. This was a very expensive procedure, typical of Maico’s early insistence upon top quality, and one that director of engineering Wilhelm Maisch Jr. was particularly proud of.13

Mixing the fuel with air is the function of the 36 mm Bing V54 carburetor, also made in

Germany. A brass slide inside the carburetor bore, connected to the throttle on the right handlebar via a cable, slides up and down and varies the size of the horizontal air passage

(known as variable-venturi) through the device, allowing differing fuel/air mixtures into the cases. The fuel mixture is finely metered for various throttle openings, expected engine use, and

12 Maico oversize pistons were made in very small diameter increments, as compared to those of other manufacturers; the increase in size from a standard Maico 400 piston increases from 76.95 mm to 77.10 mm for the first oversize, an increase of only 0.15 mm.12 This contrasts with the practices of other manufacturers, who often increased their over-bores by a full millimeter or more with every piston size increase. Such devotion to minute tolerances supported the folkloric notion among riders that Maico engineers paid attention to the smallest details in their devotion to maximum performance. The use of the smallest non-Maico 1st-oversize piston, with its big jump in size, erases any possible future use of the four available Maico/Mahle oversized pistons. 13 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded) 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 101 even atmospheric density, through the adjustment and replacement of different-sized brass fuel jets. The Bing is recognized as a high-quality assembly, though riders were known to substitute

Japanese Mikuni carburetors in place of the Bings, due to the Mikuni’s reputation for being easier to tune and less changeable with atmospheric variation.

The Maico engine is a “unit-construction” engine; meaning that the gearbox is housed in the same cases as the rest of the engine. This is as opposed to “pre-” or “non-unit” design, wherein the engine and transmission/gearbox are separate units, linked by a chain or driveshaft.

Non-unit construction is still used by Harley-Davidson in its largest series engines and in automobiles. Aft of the crankshaft, which rides perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the motorcycle, sit the two shafts on which are mounted the transmission gears. The MC400 uses a four-speed transmission, which was available with either wide-range or close-range gear ratios.

Maico transmissions were another engineering point of excellence; the metallurgy and heat- treatment of the gears were of the absolute highest standards, and actually exceeded those of

Porsche and Mercedes, two other Stuttgart-area manufacturers known for superior quality.14

Some years later in the early 1980s, Maico’s later abandonment of this hardening practice for short-sighted cost savings would cause immense repercussions for the company. This mistake, taken in spite of warnings by engineers, and in conjunction with several other misjudgments discussed later, shattered Maico’s longstanding reputation for quality and its iconographic position in the culture. Even with the loyalty American buyers had for Maico, both dealers and riders deserted the brand quickly when word of Maico’s quality decline became known.15 Once lost, the riders’ trust was impossible to recover.

14 Ibid. 15 Interview with Richard Sidle by David Russell, November 12, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 102

The gears and shafts are precisely shimmed by thin washers, to ensure optimal engagement and transmission of power. Connecting the crankshaft output to the main shaft gear assembly is a triple-row primary drive chain, made by Renold of England. This assembly is located in the left-side chain case. The use of a chain primary drive, as opposed to gear drive, was still common practice in European motorcycles (with some exceptions, notably Montesa and

Puch) during the 1970s. Chain drive, as compared with gear primary drive, however, demanded careful maintenance and frequent oil changes, and chain failure or degradation could result in catastrophic damage to the engine. Maico’s use of chain drive in 1974 was in part an indication of the company being unwilling to spend the time and money to redesign the engine. Even with

Maico’s coming release of the five-speed engine, incorporating a nearly complete redesign,

Maico elected to keep the chain primary drive. It was not until 1983 that Maico would finally move to a gear primary drive. Allowing the rider to separate engine drive from final drive is a multi-disc wet clutch, riding on the left side of the engine and sharing oil the same oil bath as the transmission. The clutch on the 400 could be the “small” 99 mm clutch (easy to operate but occasionally prone to slipping), or the “large” 119 mm clutch (requiring much more left hand exertion, but largely immune to slipping).16 The amount of muscle necessary for this was not lost on Americans: Motocross Action Magazine dryly declared in 1974 that “Disengaging the clutch plates on a Maico sometimes requires U.N. intervention.”17

Electrical energy for spark is created by an internal rotor magneto assembly. Spark timing is controlled by a traditional mechanical ignition breaker-points unit, opening several degrees before the piston reaches top dead center. Maico’s continued use of a breaker-points spark

16 Clutch “slipping” refers to the clutch plates slipping against one another and not transmitting full power between driving and driven plates, and also to a disengaged clutch still transmitting some power, causing the vehicle to want to move (also known as clutch “creep”). 17 Motocross Action, “Race Test: Maico 450,” Motocross Action (December, 1974), 41. 103 timing, when the Japanese and most other European manufacturers had moved to “pointless” and maintenance-free electronic ignitions, could be a frustrating nuisance. This practice did little to help the “Maico-break-o” criticism from riders.

From 1972 and the redesign of the old “square-barrel” engine, the new Maico 400 engine was designated as being a member of the “radial” family. Square-barrel and radial relate to the outward visual configuration of the large cooling fins about the cylinder and cylinder-head. The radial engines received improved internal components with this upgrade as well.

Finally, unlike many engines, the Maico engine does not possess a heavy flywheel on the end of one side of the crankshaft. The practice of installing such a large rotating mass tended to help maintain engine rpm in during increased demand, and to moderate engine acceleration. Yet, while Maico motors do not possess a large external flywheel, they do utilize rather large internal crankshaft slabs. These large rotating weights accomplish the same results as those of an external flywheel; but, being located very near the center of mass of the motorcycle, are responsible for one other unique result: “gyroscopic effect.” This effect is best considered as it relates to the motorcycle’s handling qualities, and will be discussed in later paragraphs.

Surrounding the Maico engine are outer cases, finished with only the imprint of the sand- castings in which they were made. Their roughness belies the extremely precise design tolerances and metal finishing within. A folding kick-start lever, finely splined to match the output shaft (and inviting the stripping of the splines and probable ruin of the assembly if the cinch-bolt is allowed to loosen) hangs at the left-rear of the motor. The solid aluminum gearshift lever, cleverly designed to allow breakage of the lever before damaging to the transmission in the event of a crash, protrudes on the engine lower-left. Finally, from the front of the engine

104 emanates the steel expansion-chamber exhaust. It is directed underneath the engine, ending in a long, narrow “stinger,” extending well beyond the rear wheel.

Moving outward from the engine is the frame. Maico frames were, since the 1960s, constructed from chrome-moly steel. They are “perimeter type,” meaning that they extend around the perimeter of the engine. This type of steel, incorporating both molybdenum and chromium to harden the final alloy, is also known as “chromoly,” “41xx” (a Society of

Automotive Engineers designation), “4130” (referencing the most common mixture of ingredients), or just “aircraft tubing” (alluding to its common use in aircraft). Chrome-moly steel is heavier than aluminum but much harder, and may even be further case-hardened. Very bendable by industrial machinery, chrome-moly is especially applicable to aircraft and to motorcycle and bicycle frames, owing to its ability to maintain exceptional strength even when used in very thin-wall dimensions. The Maico frame is deceptively light-weight. The rather large diameter but thin-walled tube frame achieves excellent structural rigidity. Motocross Action stated it was an “exceptionally strong and rigid frame,” and, “a primo handler.”18

18 Ibid, 43. 105

Figure 25. Circa 1974 chrome-molybdenum frame. This frame is a 1973 item which has been

modified to 1974 LTR specifications, with a non-OEM air box. (Photo: the author)

Maico’s use of chrome-moly could reasonably be expected to have been an outgrowth of

Maico’s wartime experience as a maker of aircraft parts. Long-time industry observer Lindstrom, however, believes that the real impetus may in fact have been rival Husqvarna’s use of chrome- moly, beginning in the 1950s.19 Most motorcycle manufacturers prior to this time were simply not sensitive to the relationship between low weight and better performance, Lindstrom recalls.

Husqvarna’s development of the “Silverpilen” lightweight motorcycle, to achieve the Swedish government-mandated maximum weight of 75 kg in 1955, forced that company to explore other materials; among these were chrome-moly steel. Maico and other companies might have thus followed the Husqvarna’s lead in the use of chrome-moly as a frame material. Lindstrom’s contention shows Maico as being responsive to industry advances during its rise to prominence.

That sensitivity was the hallmark of a focused, hungry, and young company, whereas some later decisions seemed to lack such sharp insight.

Were we to remove the single thin layer of unexceptional grey paint, we could see both welded and brazed connections. The brazed connections, near the bottom-center of the frame, and incorporating cast frame lugs, connect the front, center down-tube, and aft frame sections.

These large lug castings are another reason for the frame’s rigidity. Welds connect the steering head to the two front down-tubes and to the backbone section, the foot-peg mounts to the lower frame, and join the aft loop to the frame and the backbone to the center sections. A robust oval- section buttress connects the center section down-tubes, ensuring rigidity and providing a base for the rear engine mounts. Projecting from the juncture of frame members is the mount for the

19 Gunnar Lindstrom, email message to author, November 4, 2013. 106 cylinder head stay, necessary to absorb the high-frequency vibration of Maico engines and to minimize carburetor fuel “frothing.”

Why are some joints brazed and some welded? For the most part, Maico’s choice was driven by basic engineering practices. First, Maico engineers decided on the incorporation of the large, cast frame lugs for purposes of strength. To assemble the frame, the engineers also knew that the cast frame lugs and the frame sections which fit into them would have been best joined using the brazing method’s capillary effect to “creep” the bronze-based molten material into the joints. Other joints were gas-welded by hand, using conventional steel welding rod.20

Two dimpled, crude looking spring-loaded foot-pegs, made of hollow steel pipe, pivot from the foot-peg mounts. They are not the rigid “ankle-breakers” of years past, but still appear antiquated in comparison to the cleated, sturdier and wider foot-pegs being used on some other period motorcycles. Described as “stone age” by Dirt Bike, Maico foot-pegs were commonly exchanged for better ones, and were a primary source of wonder to observers.21 Just up and aft of the foot-pegs is the forward pivot of the swing-arm; as opposed to the foot-pegs, it is exceptionally robust for its day.

The wheel assemblies (Figure 22) use Spanish-made Akront high-sided (“mud-catcher,” in period vernacular, owing to the design’s ability to hold heavy and performance-degrading mud) alloy rims, but could have easily come from the factory equipped with Italian-made

Radaelli steel rims. Radaellis were described as “poor” by Motocross Action22 and easily bent by

Popular Cycling23. The aluminum rims are strong and light, but retain mud easily. Whether aluminum or steel, wheel diameter sizes are 18 inch (rear) and 21 inch (front). By the mid-1960s

20 Terry Pratt, Grand Prix Motocross: The 1972 World Championship Season (Cost Mesa, CA: Cycle News, 2007), 94-95. See these pages for photographs of Maico workers assembling frames at the Pfeffingen factory. 21 Dirt Bike Magazine, “400 Maico MX: Forward-mounted Four-Speeder,” Dirt Bike Magazine (July, 1975), 59. 22 Motocross Action, “Race Test: Maico 450,” 44. 23 Motocross Action, “Maico 501,” Popular Cycling (December, 1974), 37. 107 these were the standard-size wheels for off-road motorcycles. Tightly gripped by the Spanish rims are excellent German Metzler knobby “Moto Cross” tires in 3.00 x 18 and 4.50 x 18 inch sizes; again, standard for the time and through the present day. The 400 has the power to fully use a 4.50 rear tire; this is to say that it is able to break the tire free and spin it at most any time.

By comparison, the less powerful 250 comes equipped with a 4.00, and the 125 with a 3.50.

Chrome-plated spokes lace the wheels to the hubs, which in turn contain the brake assemblies. The front hub is a small, conical-shaped unit, cast of aluminum alloy. The rear hub is also conical-shaped, formed of steel plate. The steel hub is well-designed and rather light; the hub’s strength stands in contrast to that of the newer alloy rear hub by then being fitted on the production lines, which, though slightly lighter in weight, is prone to breakage.

Figure 26. Maico rear end. This early 1974 ½ model was equipped with Bilstein OEM shocks, though

Koni units were also fitted by the factory. (Photo: the author)

108

The Maico chassis is suspended from the frame by the best components then available.

On the rear, adjustable-damping German-made Koni or the more expensive Bilstein shock absorbers attempted to deal with the much-increased pressures of forward mounting and long- travel. Excellent units, they are none the less over-taxed, having never been designed for the increased stresses of forward mounting. After ten or fifteen minutes of hard riding, these conventional shocks will overheat. When this occurs, the oil viscosity breaks down and damping

(the resistance by the liquid to compression and rebound in the shock) fades, leaving only the coil spring to soften the ride. While later technology solved this problem, there existed nothing better at the time. The Maico factory had used hand-machined aluminum bodies on their race bikes’ Koni shocks since 1972, but such an expensive accessory was not practical on the production bikes.24

On the front end are Maico forks, the best production units made in 1974. They provide

7.5 inches of plush, stable suspension travel, mounted at a somewhat steep 30 degree fork angle, and were, according to Motocross Action, “as good as everybody says they are” in 1974.25 The fork tubes are very rigid but not overly heavy, thanks to the use of wide 36 mm [outside diameter] thin-wall fork tubes. Most other manufacturers used smaller diameters of 35 mm or less, and increased tube thickness (and therefore, weight) for strength. To achieve optimal rigidity without adding weight, Maico, as in the case of their frame design, simply followed physics. As recalled by Wilhelm Maisch Jr. it was “Just a basic physical law: more diameter is better than additional wall thickness.”26 The forks are unique in appearance: the fork springs are external to the fork tubes, and covered by large rubber dust boots. Further down, the aluminum

24 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell. 25 Motocross Action, “Race Test: Maico 450,” 43. 26 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell. 109 lower assemblies (also called “sliders,” since they slide up and down outside the upper tubes) do not attach to the front axle at the bottom, on centerline with the forks as on other

Figure 26. Maico front end. Note the “mud-catcher” Akront rim, leading-axle wheel mounting, and the

nearly in-line upper mounting of the fork tubes to the steering stem. (Photo: the author)

bikes. Instead, the fork lowers attach to the axle several inches up from the bottom, with the axle mounts in front of the forks; a practice called “leading axle.” This mounting design accomplishes two things. First, it allows decreased “trail” and gives the front wheel a tendency to track straight ahead through rough ground.27 Secondly, the front axle mounting, being in front of the lower tube (and not on the end of the tube), does not limit the length of the lower tube, and thus does not constrain the length of fork internals, necessary for longer travel.

The mounting of the forks to the steering head uses a triangular assembly consisting of two aluminum clamps with two holes for the forks and a shaft to ride in the steering head, often

27 “Trail” is defined as: the horizontal distance from where the extended steering axis line intersects the ground, to where a line drawn vertically from the front axle intersects the ground. 110 referred to by Americans as the “triple tree.” It is here, in the design of the triple-tree, that Maico engineers far surpassed all other off-road contemporary motorcycle builders. Maico mounted the forks nearly in line with the steering head, inscribing a very low isosceles triangle (when observed from above). While other manufacturers were mounting their forks in a way which placed the fork tube plane much farther in front of the steering head, inscribing an almost equilateral triangle, the Maico design created a minimal distance between the plane made by the fork tubes and the steering head (Figure 26). This design gives only a slight mechanical advantage to the front wheel as it leverages the fork assembly from contact with ruts on the ground. Conversely, the arrangement increases the mechanical advantage of the rider, turning the wheel with the handlebars, attached to the steering head. This allows the Maico rider to turn much more easily than the riders of other makes, and causes the Maico to be recognized as the only high-speed “front steering” motorcycle of any of the major manufacturers at the time.28 The riders of any other “rear steering” motorcycle would turn the motorcycle in the rough via power applications to the rear wheel. Eventually, the Maico-style steering head design was adopted as standard industry practice.

Completing the motorcycle chassis are fenders, an air box, a gas tank, and a seat. The fenders and air box (in either red, yellow, orange, and very rarely, white) are constructed of fiberglass.29 The fenders are beautifully designed and of a minimalist, delicate shape. The rear fender follows the overlying rear frame loop before narrowing and taking on the curve of the rear wheel. The high-mounted front fender follows the arc of the front wheel on the bottom, while the

28 Interview with Greg Smith by David Russell, February 9, 2009, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 29 Yellow, orange, and red are the most common colors used on Maico motorcycles of this era. White was occasionally used by the factory, as attested by Dennie Moore (Interviews with Dennie Moore by David Russell, March 27, 2007 through November 14, 2013, Lewistown, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg).). 111 top-rear section displays an angular echo of the front down tubes and reinforces the horizontal form of the motorcycle. The fenders are lightweight, but unlike plastic, “will break if you look at it funny.”30 Sitting astride the Maico, the front fender arrives at a lipped forward point, obscuring the front tire from the view of the seated rider.

The air box is small and sculpted. The design is clean and angular, and the box visually floats neatly in the cavity between the frame tubes and underneath the seat. The air bellows attached to the rear of the carburetor enters the box at its front, and delivers clean air through either a large-diameter dry paper filter element or an oiled-foam wet filter element. The box draws outside air from a large opening on top, just below the seat.

The seat is covered in a black artificial-leather, well-padded and comfortable, and was recognized as one of the major attributes of Maico design. The seat’s spaciousness and shock- absorbing ability allows the rider to sit down if needed in rough or slow riding, although the fast off-road rider or racer would have been standing on the foot-pegs much of the time, anyway. The

Maico seat, like the rest of the bodywork, is very angular, with few curves. The seat bottom follows the horizontal line made by the upper shock mount and the top of the air-box, before the line flows perfectly into the lower perimeter of the gas tank.

The gas tank, as discussed previously, is formed from either thick fiberglass panels or folded from aluminum sheeting. The fiberglass tank is marvelously formed and quite unlike any other motorcycle tank. Fiberglass tanks were made in small and large capacities (roughly 5.5 or

8.5 liter, respectively). Its steel filler spout is topped by a standard-sized metal half-turn cap. The tank mounts to the frame by a single long bolt through the front, and feeds the carburetor through one or two spigots mounted at the bottom rear of the tank. As noted, the fiberglass tanks, though

30 Motocross Action, “Race Test: Maico 450,” 43. 112 aesthetically beautiful to the many, tended to leak; aluminum was the impressive looking and practical answer.

Aluminum, at first used only on factory team racing bikes, became more popular from

1974 onwards. Each aluminum tank is slightly different from another, being hand-made and hand-welded. Some tanks vary significantly, but all follow the same general “coffin” shape. All the German aluminum tanks were said to be made by one Pfeffingen craftsman whose father worked at Maico. His small shop was 800 yards from the factory.31 The persistence of so many

1974-and-earlier aluminum tanks is something of a mystery, given Dennie Moore’s assertion that every motorcycle imported to Eastern Maico through mid-1973, at least, came equipped with the fiberglass tank and not the aluminum one.32

Hand controls used on the Maico are premium Magura levers, made in Germany and a standard accessory on northern European motorcycles at the time. Besides the clutch and front brake levers, a compression release lever is evident. The compression release lever actuated, via cable, a release valve at the rear of the cylinder which bled compressed air from the cylinder and lowered compression. By lowering compression, kick-starting the large-bore 400 was easier and safer, with a lesser tendency to “kick back;” however, a big Maico was still usually “a bear to start.”33 All the cables are black-plastic-sheathed, Teflon-coated, aircraft-type cable, measuring 6 mm in outside diameter and standard for the time. The hand controls are attached to a chromed steel handlebar, which is in turn mounted to the upper triple-clamp by two rubber-isolated handlebar clamps.

The front and rear brake stay arms and the rear brake pedal, mounted on the right side and pivoting about five inches aft of the right foot-peg, are all formed from aluminum. A simple

31 Interview with Wilhlelm Maisch Jr by David Russell. 32 Inteviews with Dennie Moore by David Russell. 33 Motocross Action, “Race Test: Maico 450,” 41. 113 chain guide is attached to the rear brake stay arm, helping to keep the #520 final drive chain on the rear sprocket. Both front (countershaft) and rear drive OEM sprockets are made of steel, though aftermarket rear sprockets would usually be constructed of aluminum. The rear brake pedal attaches to the rear brake arm via a tubular steel rod, bent to clear the shock absorbers.

The iconic Maico “flying M and shield” logo, printed on gold metallic foil, adorns the gas tank. Other small stickers, “MC400” and “MAICO”, are affixed to the gas tank, air box, and rear fender. A “CAUTION” sticker on the rear of the fiberglass gas tank flatly informs us that

“MAICO is a powerful lightweight motorcycle designed especially for racing purposes.” One can imagine the effect this ‘warning’ had on riders searching for higher performance. The placement of this and other decals was not always ideal, and some seem to have been haphazardly applied by workers. The use of so many decals, sometimes numbering seven on the fuel tank, detracts from the Maico’s appearance. Their afterthought-like application reinforces the suggestion of assembly workers being less concerned about their work than the engineers who designed the machine, and perhaps even angry. Eastern Maico importer Dennie Moore suggested that worker discontent could have been responsible for incidents of metal filings in fork tubes and other problems indicative of a lackadaisical or hostile workforce, though

Technical Manager Wilhelm Maisch Jr. maintained otherwise.34 Finally, a yellow front number plate completes the machine, awaiting its personalization with the owner, by the application of the owner’s racing number.

Experience and Deductions

The MC400 Maico is a tool. What does it feel like to use the tool? In the following paragraphs I will describe the process of starting and riding the motorcycle.

34 Interviews with Dennie Moore and Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell. 114

The motorcycle is properly oiled and fueled. We stand beside it, shifting its weight slightly from side to side. We sense that the center of gravity is fairly low in the chassis; the machine feels light and easy to handle. The hard rubber Magura handgrips have no “give,” but at least provide grip for our gloves. A slight amount of gasoline can be seen leaking from around the gas cap. The yellow gas tank is so bright.

We rotate the upper kick-starter lever outboard, so that the rubber-covered perch is perpendicular to the bike, and is ready for our boot. Now, we reach down with our left hand to the spring-loaded “tickler” on the big Bing carburetor, keeping the motorcycle erect with our right hand. We press the button until fuel can be seen dribbling out onto the engine cases and onto our boot. Unconsciously, we compare this to the clean and effective chokes installed on

Japanese motorcycles. Not every Maico design feature is state-of-the-art, but we endure this headache in the pursuit of the machine’s promise. Assuming that the crude choke set-up has also sloshed some raw fuel in the vicinity of the cylinder intake, the machine should be ready to start.

Placing our right boot on the kick lever and holding the bars—while depressing the compression release with one finger of our left hand—we slowly position the piston so as to be moving upward on its compression stroke and then: pppPPPPRREESSS! The engine begrudgingly spins against its will, responds with several bumps and coughs, and then falls silent. Again. Hopping up with our left foot while pushing the right foot down with all our might, trying to be steady and confident and in charge with something that might just kick back and incapacitate us, the big single erupts with a “bbBBRAP!-cough, BBRAPP-cough, BRAP-BRAP-BRAP.” It is running. We remember to let go of the compression release, and the engine stops its coughing and settles down to a loud erratic throbbing, punctuated by vicious-sounding, cutting ejections from the tip of the expansion chamber. Blue smoke settles around us: this is a two-stroke engine, and

115 lubricating oil is mixed and burnt with the fuel. Minimally-muffled noise envelope us, and we are thankful to be wearing a helmet.

As we slide our right leg over the machine, we again notice the relative feel of nimbleness. All feels right. Below the sculpted lines of the gas tank (still seeping fuel, we note) are visible the massive radial fins of the cylinder and head. The entire machine is pulsating along with the crazed, wagging piston and the massive crankshaft somewhere below us, now rotating about 900 rpm. Perhaps noting rpm drop, or nervousness, or just from force of habit, we keep up the “blip” of the throttle, bringing rpm up for a moment before it falls back down. We wonder if the thing will idle on its own. Eventually it warms up and begins to calm down. Looking ahead through the blue fog and the crackling pulses, the shape of the tank and the narrowing of the front fender seem to point forward. They indicate one true direction, away from where we are, now, to somewhere . . . quickly.

Ready. Blipping the throttle even more frantically, we slowly release the far-too-hard-to- operate clutch lever with our left hand. Within the clutch itself, driven plates (constantly turning and connected to the crankshaft by the primary drive chain) move back into contact with drive plates (splined to the transmission main shaft), and rotating energy begins to be transferred to the transmission. Feathering the throttle and keeping the rpm up with our right hand, the quivering machine begins to lurch forward; we fully release the clutch lever and the motorcycle accelerates violently. The rear wheel spins and throws a torrent of dirt and rocks behind the machine.

Pushing our weight forward over the gas tank to keep the front end from rising further, the acceleration increases. Managing to bring our left foot forward and up to the vicinity of the gear shift lever, we knock the lever up into second gear. It is anything but the short, precise throw of a

Japanese gearbox, but at least there is a crunching indication of positive engagement. There is no

116 further bothering with the clutch for shifting purposes after this; the competition-designed gearbox will shift under power without clutch disengagement. Engine speed drops off and engine noise subdues slightly, as second gear fully engages. We go even faster. Speed increasingly becomes the dominant sensation, the key factor of this experience. Another few seconds and we shift into third. More speed, as engine noise begins to change into wind noise, and the first turn can be seen coming into view with alarming quickness.

After only seconds of this violent acceleration, it is time to execute the reverse; to decelerate, and soon. Extending the right hand up to the front break and pushing down with our right foot onto the rear brake pedal, we begin to brake, and roll back the throttle. Remembering that we are still in third gear, we stab at the shift lever to down-shift to second, bringing two different gears under power, deep within that growling, spitting engine. The entire machine folds in on itself, seeming to collapse as the suspension absorbs the machine’s weight under braking, and then bounces back. Front braking effect is very weak, as all four fingers now squeeze the right lever in an attempt to slow the motorcycle down. We quickly take stock of the turn, allowing power back on and second gear to again pull at moderate rpm, as we bore-sight the corner berm with the front end. Avoiding larger wheel-grabbing ruts in the earth and the bigger rocks, we allow the Maico to enter the best line; the “groove” through the corner. The machine steers directly to where we want it to go, without having to point the wheel in the opposite direction and control direction with the throttle. Reaching the midpoint of the corner and feeling under control, we roll on more throttle; the big rear tire bites into the dirt as the engine bbrrrrRRAAPPs back to life. The front wheel claws for the air as we again throw our body weight forward to control it, then shifting to the left and the right on the machine to help maintain directional control.

117

Down the hill the Maico accelerates briskly and strongly; the rear wheel can be counted on to maintain its grip with the earth if we are judicious with the throttle and keep engine speed in the moderate ranges. The engine appears to work best when “lugging” a bit—forced to pull a higher gear at reduced rpm—rather than being permitted to break loose the rear wheel at maximum-power rpm in a lower gear. The motorcycle’s great acceleration potential is soon anticipated and comfortable; engine speed climbs when you want it, but not unpredictably so, in a split-second, spinning the rear wheel and causing problems. The power output seems perfectly balanced to the task: plentiful, but not too much to manage. Simply stated, the engine produces usable power which is easy to translate into forward movement of the motorcycle. It is not too quick-revving or too concentrated at one end of the spectrum or another. The power is not concentrated at the uppermost range of the rpm band, common in other two-stroke racing engines and difficult to utilize.35 We feel if that if we were really good, we could almost keep the throttle on all the time.

The suspension is plush and solid, at least for a 1974 motorcycle. The assessment may be difficult, if one is used to a modern dirt bike with twelve inches of travel, front and rear; but this is mid-1970s technology. Forgetting Twenty-first century comforts, the 7.5 inches of front travel are progressive and smooth. The front end is very stable; you even execute a front-wheel landing

(though usually a maneuver to be avoided on old bikes) and the MC400 does not throw you over the bars, but allows you to keep control of the front wheel, despite the forces attempting to twist the bars out of your hands. The six inches of rear wheel travel keep the rear wheel in contact with the earth exceptionally well, at least as compared to any pre-long travel machine.

35 Two-stroke engines (unlike four-strokes) possess an inherent tendency to produce a very non-linear power curve, when charted on a two-axis graph showing rpm and horsepower/torque; that is, power output increases greatly (and then subsides) in a particular rpm range. On highly-tuned racing engines, this output tends to be in the higher rpm range. This sudden increase in power is also referred to as “coming on the pipe,” a reference to the effectiveness of the expansion chamber (pipe) in this rpm range. 118

Accelerating up and ascending a long uphill, the machine crests the final height. It gently leaves the ground, becoming airborne. The Maico possesses a comforting quality in the air; it seems to desire to retain position and to generally stay erect as we fly. As the intended landing area comes into focus, we notice that the airborne machine will alter position if made to do so by weight shift or throttle application. But it is inherently neutral; it will stay or go as the rider commands. Lindstrom describes this sensation as owing to limited gyroscopic effect.36 The massive rotating crankshaft counterweight slabs, located very near the center of mass/movement of the motorcycle, create something like the operation of a gyroscope maintaining its spin axis, helping to retain the position of the motorcycle. While this condition tends to resist external torque on the motorcycle, it is also easily overcome by the rider, when desired. While virtually all internal combustion engines have weight imbedded in the crankshafts, Maico’s practice of using such large weights, placed so near the center of mass of the machine, appear to have accentuated this effect in the Maico motorcycle.

Pulling off the track, the Maico may leave the rider deceived. Yes, it is fast, but the rider has no idea he was going that fast; the confidence the rider develops with the motorcycle manifests itself unobtrusively. Parking the motorcycle with its factory installed side-stand, we notice the extreme length of the stand, and the far-too-low angle at which the bike leans while propped on the stand. In fact, given the stand’s mechanical leverage, it could easily twist off its own mount, and, in the worse case, could bend the frame. The stand will have to go. Whoever approved such a poorly designed component? At any rate, Maico’s strong point was not standing still. Turning the two fuel taps off, you note that fuel continues to seep out and cover the top of the tank. This comes as no surprise.

36 Lindstrom, “Analysis of a Proven Winner,” 63. 119

Assessing the machine from several feet away, the very angular styling is readily apparent, as are the simple, primary colors and the wealth of raw, unpainted metal. The Maico projects a serious, warlike appearance, not unlike that of a Teutonic knight in armor. The bright colors, augmented by the Maico “flying M” and shield logo, contribute to this image.

Riding the motorcycle reveals its excellence. Engine power, handling, and suspension are all superlative. The right kind of power produced by the engine is kept on the ground, longer, by the long-travel suspension. Frame and steering geometry optimize control. The machine’s inherent gyroscopic effect enhances stability while not inhibiting rider inputs.

Weak front braking, later discovered as a manufacturing error involving out-of-round brake shoes and hubs, suggests gross inattention to detail by someone at the factory. The front brake, as delivered on most 1973 and 1974 Maicos, is so weak that it requires full pressure just to keep the motorcycle from rolling on minimally sloped pavement. It will do little to stop a hurtling 400 pound mass of machine and rider.

The 1974-75 400 Maico was certainly an impressive motorcycle. It was an excellent example of Sullivan’s premise that “form must follow function,” at least considering all areas but the fuel tank. It was not perfect by a substantive margin, but it did possess those bedrock qualities necessary on a professional-quality machine. As Dirt Bike concluded its assessment of the motorcycle’s plusses and minuses, irritated with the small problems but reluctantly stating what all knew: “It’s a little heavy and a little cobby, but it is a Maico and it does handle.”37 More charitable several months earlier in 1974, while testing the similar 250 Maico, the editors noted that the “Maico can turn an average rider into a good one, just think what it can do to a rider who’s already good.”38 Rick Sieman described the Maico’s superiority with the greatest clarity,

37 Dirt Bike Magazine, “400 Maico MX: Forward-mounted Four-Speeder,” 62. 38 Dirt Bike Magazine, “250 Maico Test,” Dirt Bike Magazine (November, 1974), 69. 120 when he wrote, “Right around 1971, the Maico was so superior in handling and power, that it was almost like cheating.”39

For riders not accustomed to large-capacity racing motorcycles, the 400 Maico was exhilarating, at the least. The 450 Maico, released in 1973, had even more horsepower. Maico, the motorcycle company known for exemplary handling, also flirted with a reputation for sheer power. Realizing Americans’ love of horsepower, and thinking this extra power could actually help in flat track racing, two Californians propositioned Maico for an even larger capacity machine. The result of their work, the Maico 501, became an icon in American motorcycle racing and is discussed in the next chapter.

39 Rick Sieman, “What Killed Maico?” from “Maico Stories,” VMX Unlimited, www.wmxunlimitedcom/pages/Maico-Stories.html (accessed March 8, 2014). 121

2.2 LIKE NOTHING BEFORE: THE 501.

“You don’t test a 501; it tests you.”1

Maico was known as the company which made big-displacement motorcycles, the best.

Though it produced smaller ones, it was Maico’s larger motorcycles that forged its reputation.

During the company’s prime, as has been previously noted, over half the machines on the starting line of an American expert class motocross race in the 1970s were likely to be carrying

“MAICO” decals. While the 400 was the standard for a decade, the 450 the “powerhouse of powerhouses when it appeared,”2 and, later, the masterful 490 was the ideal of useable, perfect, massive power. But there was one more big Maico. In its day, the MC501 Maico (called simply the “five-oh-one”) was the largest single-cylinder, two-stroke-engined motorcycle ever made.

Maico built the machine due to the urging of two imaginative Californians: Frank Cooper, the western United States Maico importer, and C.H. Wheat, a brilliant tuner, racer, and businessman.3 That the company acted upon their suggestions reveals much about the communication and trust between the German and American ends of the Maico business, at least in the early days. At corporate headquarters, Maico knew the importance of their American market. On the other end, in the United States, dealers and racers justifiably felt a sense of ownership over their chosen motorcycle, and realized it when the Maico leaders and engineers were listening.

In American cross-country, scrambles, ice, and hill-climb competition events in the late

1960s, a “501cc to 750cc” class required motorcycles entered in this class to possess an engine

1 Rick Sieman, “Maico’s Earthquake Machine.” Dirt Bike Magazine (April, 1973), 42-6. 2 Motocross Action, “Race Test: Maico 450,” Motocross Action (December, 1974), 38-43. 3 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded), 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). Maisch’s characterization of Wheat as brilliant is a direct quote. 122 displacement within this cubic-centimeter range.4 The big British twins and singles, by virtue of being generally the only motorcycles having such a displacement, naturally dominated the class in these events. Cooper and Wheat were familiar with Maico’s superiority in every facet of off- road motorcycle design, and could plainly see that if Maico built a machine that met the displacement criteria, it would certainly outperform the old British Triumphs, Nortons, and

BSAs—all of which had had cache in their era, but which had been stagnant for years. Cooper and Wheat also may have conceived of the machine as part promotional creation. These two master tuners, racers, and salesmen certainly had knowledge, earned through competition, behind their vision. Their expertise provided a basic idea to Maico of what this bike should be; a short- stroke, massive engine in the proven and strong Maico frame. The idea was novel and interesting, but the actual design and production would require significant resources from a small company like Maico. Still, with Management’s blessing, Maico engineers began the unorthodox project.

Maico was in no way the exemplar of a motorcycle company eagerly adopting user input, but nor were they the worst. Gunnar Lindstrom recalled Maico ace Adolf Weil complaining of

Maico resisting the early 1960s trend towards light weight, yet they did eventually comply with the riders’ pleadings. Husqvarna, on the other hand, so resisted the implication that company management was anything but omniscient, that Lindstrom, then a Husqvarna engineer, left the company in disgust in 1974.5 Maico was not nearly as intransigent. And, considering their immediate integration of long-travel suspension into production (as will be discussed in later chapters), we can say that Maico was, for the most part, a company which did wisely listen to its riders.

4 AMA News, “Sportsmen Competition, Points Standings” AMA News (September, 1970). 5 Interview with Gunnar Lindstrom by David Russell, January 7, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 123

Figure 28. Frank Cooper (standing) and C.H. Wheat, fathers of the 501. The #27 400 Maico is Ake Jonsson’s

Trans-AMA motorcycle. (Photo: Rick Sieman)

Any mention of the Maico 501 invariably traverses a path to another American motorcyclist: the equally iconic Rick “Super Hunky” Sieman (Figure 29). Author and Dirt Bike

Magazine founder Rick Sieman is one of the most recognized and trusted (and often controversial) voices of the elder American off-road and vintage motorcycle community, and has not allowed Maico motorcycles or the 501 be forgotten. Sieman has certainly been the 501’s greatest cheerleader since the machine’s inception, and without him the motorcycle might now be just another unknown oddity. He retold the legend of the 501 many times, first in Dirt Bike, the magazine that serves as the text of record for the original off-road subculture, and later in other venues. Sieman promoted the 501’s mythic power and championed its reputation for decades, and his identification with the 501 is largely responsible for the enduring legend of the motorcycle. The man and the machine were certainly similar; both were unique and oversized in

124 respect to their personalities, physical presence, and impact within the American sport motorcycling community.

Figure 29. Rick Sieman, in his “From The Saddle” column picture as it appeared in early 1970s Dirt Bike

Magazine editions. Sieman remains the greatest cheerleader for, and historian of, the Maico 501.

(Source: Dirt Bike Magazine)

The engineering challenges faced by Maico engineers in the design of the 501 centered on minimizing the weight of the large piston-and-rod rotating mass, in order to control the big engine’s vibration. German Maico accepted the challenge and set to work. Collaborating with the

Mahle company (Maico’s regular piston supplier and also a supplier to Porsche) Maico designed a very wide 92 mm piston, running along a comparatively short 76 mm stroke. This “over- square” or “short-stroke” design, in which the bore is greater in diameter than the length of the stroke, differed from all previous Maico designs. The over-square design allowed the desired

501cc (500.84 cc to be precise) displacement, permitted higher rpm, and kept excessive vibration and other potentially dangerous reactions in check. The massive connecting rod was necessarily

125 heavy, but it was at least somewhat lighter than what it might have been, if the engine was of a longer stroke.

The first 501s (occasionally called “505s” in the early press reports) to reach America in

1970 were especially unusual in that they possessed a three-speed transmission. When other large bikes used a four- or five-speed gearbox, and smaller machines might utilize a six- (and rarely, seven-) speed gearbox, the big Maico stood out. Yet, when a prototype was tested by

Cycle Guide in 1970, there were no complaints; the machine produced so much power (“. . . absolutely staggering. It boggles the imagination. . . . [the] power output cannot truly be described.”) and was so capable of pulling any gear at low rpm, that the magazine’s testers pronounced the three-speed gearbox “more than adequate.”6 This same magazine notes that most riders could not ride this early 501 in anything but first gear, and only a few very experienced riders could ride the thing wide-open in second gear. No-one, the writers noted, was able to hold the big Maico’s throttle open in third gear (a gear with a top off-road speed that was aspirational, at best). All the same, a three-speed gearbox had not been seen on a motorcycle since early in the twentieth century, and everyone, it seemed, believed that a modern motorcycle needed at least four gears. (Importer Dennie Moore stated that, after riding the 501, he believed that the machine could actually have coped with a single gear, if tuned accordingly. If, as he reasoned, it did not need a first gear to start forward motion—second was easily able to do the job—and few riders could really use third, anyway; Moore’s idea is not groundless.)7 While a four-speed gearbox would be incorporated soon into all the actual production bikes exported to America, the early

6 Cycle Guide, “They’re getting bigger and bigger—and bigger” Cycle Guide (February, 1970), pp. 47-8. 7 Interviews with Dennie Moore by David Russell, March 27, 2007 through November 14, 2013, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 126

“so-powerful-it-barely-needs-gears” folktale was a key component in the formation of the Maico

501 legend.

While outfitted and nominally labeled as a motocross bike (MC, in factory code), the 501 was not necessarily suited to a closed track, or even to longer-distance outdoor riding. Its power output, though not unpredicatable, was still potentially explosive and could be difficult to control in a motocross racing environment. Ridden by riders of varying skill levels, the 501 appeared to invariably take a few seconds longer to navigate around a motocross track than either the old, easier-to-handle 400 or the brutally-quick new 450. In fact, no top professional racer is known so far to have used the 501 in elite competition. Even consummate Swedish racer Ake Jonsson, certainly one of the most gifted racers in the history of motocross, preferred the more docile 400 to both the 501 and the 450. The 501 inherited Maico’s annoying legacy of loosening motor mount bolts, a problem Sieman prominently noted, and one which could quickly ruin the expensive big engine.8 Finally, the Maico 501 was, after all, a Maico, and that implied careful owner preventative maintenance and repair to keep a thoroughbred of this degree healthy and running.

8 Sieman, “Maico’s Earthquake Machine,” 42-6. 127

Figure 30. The 501 was rarely promoted by Maico. Here it appears in a 1972 flyer, provided to Maico dealers

by the German factory as a customer handout. (Source: collection of the author)

Desert racing and long-distance rides tended not to be the 501’s ideal application, either.

Consuming fuel at a prodigious rate (“like a Buick Riviera with a camper and six boats bolted to the back,” in Sieman’s words9), the big Maico’s range was limited to about fifty total miles, even with the largest available accessory gas tank fitted. Thus, the 501 would always be tethered to its fuel source. The motorcycle’s actual, historical use by a majority of its owners appears to have been mostly that of a trail bike, where the rider could enjoy the incredible torque while staying close to the gas supply. Did, then, the 501 ever have a place in racing?

The notable competition applications for the 501 were its use in scrambles and dirt track racing, probably more what Cooper and Wheat had intended in the first place.10 Here the big

9 Ibid. 10 TT/scrambles. American “TT” racing (short for “Tourist Trophy”) and scrambles racing were often predicated on a ½ mile dirt track, with several additional features such as a low jump and turns added, as required by the rules. Scrambles racing evolved into the somewhat similar sport of motocross in America, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 128 motorcycle shined, as did Maicos of all sizes. Rick Sieman notes that a specially-prepared twin- carbureted version was raced by C.H. Wheat and later by professional flat-tracker Danny Hockie in California events in the early 1970s. This version, Sieman recalled, employed two carburetors on a “Y” shaped manifold, together with changes to the frame to accommodate the large assembly. A smaller 28 or 30 mm carburetor controlled lower-rpm operation, while a bigger 44 mm carburetor began adding its fuel/air charge at about 5000 rpm. Sieman, comparing Wheat’s personal machine to his own modified 501 (which was at the time producing sixty-three horsepower at the countershaft sprocket), proclaimed that Wheat’s bike was so much more powerful that there was “no contest” when racing the two. Sieman guessed that Wheat’s bike must have been at least 20% stronger than his own, which suggests that the twin-carb bike may have been producing seventy-five horsepower, or more.11

The whereabouts of C.H. Wheat’s machine are unknown, but a very similar machine was owned by former Eastern Maico distributor Dennie Moore until 2004, indicating that at least two twin-carb 501s existed. Moore recalls that a local flat-track star, Mike Bird from Bellefonte,

Pennsylvania (Figure 31), campaigned a Maico 501 with some success. He and Moore felt, however, that the engine was dangerously starved for fuel when operating at maximum rpm while flying down long straights in excess of 100 mph. Moore discussed the problem with Maico engineers in the fall of 1971. The factory and Moore jointly conceived of the idea of experimenting with using the two carburetors, one small and one large, feeding the cylinder at low and high rpm ranges, to ensure adequate fuel supply. Many months later, in early 1973, the experimental cylinder and manifold arrived at Eastern Maico in Reedsville, Pennsylvania, and

Moore had a replacement frame altered, to allow the additional room needed by the new head and “Y-mounted” carburetor intake set-up. 1973, however, would prove to be a tumultuous year

11 Rick Sieman, “In Defense of the 501,” Old Bike Journal (February, 1997). 129 personally for Moore and his business, and the partially-built motorcycle was set aside.

Ultimately, the machine was never used or completed. Decades later, in 2004, this east coast 501 engine and frame were sold by Moore to Kentucky collector Cody Tellis. Whether the west coast twin-carbureted version was derived from Wheat’s invention, or whether it was solely the result of Moore and Bird’s prompting, remains unknown. For his part, Dennie Moore was unaware of the existence of the west coast machine until 2013. 12

Figure 31. Pennsylvanian Mike Bird, from a 1968 AMA District-Six brochure. Racing is never without risk:

Bird, a 501 rider and protégé of both Gig Hamilton and Dennie Moore, died while flat-track racing in

Frederick, Maryland, in 1973. (Photo: Carl Hess, from District-Six brochure)

The 501 rolling chassis (frame, wheels, and suspension) is identical to other large- displacement period Maicos. Larger-capacity gas tanks were available as options, or were sometimes fitted prior to sale by wise dealers. The September 1971 Modern Cycle test 501 came equipped with a fiberglass or plastic oversized tank, which the authors said was a dealer option.

Later 1974 501s (which were by this latter part of the production year also LTR-suspension

12 Phone conversation between Dennie Moore and the author, November 14, 2013 130 models) are known to have been imported with larger alloy tanks, similar in form to the 1975-

1977 alloy tanks, but of less capacity than the very-large “GS-style” alloy tanks of these years

(see Figure 32). Other than the engine assembly and slightly increased weight, the basic 501 motorcycle is the same as the 250s, 400s, and 450s of that year. The engine itself is similar to other big-bore Maico units, but uses a different crankshaft and primary drive gear, cylinder, piston, and cylinder head. The exhaust system is the same as that used on the 400/450 engines.

The standard original-bore 91.6 mm piston ran in a 76 mm stroke barely longer than the 70 mm stroke of the much smaller-capacity 250 engine. Whether the early stock engines produced forty- eight, fifty-two, or some other amount of horsepower at the countershaft, it was no trifling amount of power for a 243-pound motorcycle. Later engines, fitted with the easier-to-use but slippage-prone “large” clutch, were tuned to produce less power. The September, 1971, edition of Modern Cycle references Maico’s policy regarding the 501’s state of tune. Apparently, the magazine was informed that Maico had earlier decided to build two versions of the 501: one an

“ultimate machine” producing fifty-four horsepower, and the other in a milder state of tune, producing forty-eight horsepower. According to this article, the factory ultimately backed away from this idea, and elected to build only the lower-horsepower, large-clutch version. But Maico didn’t abandon the high-horsepower idea entirely: Modern Cycle passed-on Maico’s promise that

“owner’s manuals and bulletins” delivered with the 1971 501 would describe how the owner could, through some machining of the piston and cylinder, take the machine to the higher state of tune, if desired.13 Rick Sieman likewise tells that the first step in reviving the storied performance of the 501 is to return the engine to these original factory porting specifications.

This process involves removing several millimeters of metal from the piston, head, and exhaust

13 Modern Cycle, “The Maico K-501,” Modern Cycle (September, 1971), 17-21. 131 pipe to increase gas flow.14 Even greater power could be accessed through more aggressive porting; Sieman stated that his own 501 attained nearly sixty-three horsepower after this

“second-stage” tuning. The moderately tuned variant was the mass-market edition of the 501, at least initially. Appearing in early 1971, this variant as tested by Modern Cycle was said to produce forty-eight horsepower at 7,000 rpm. A factory owner’s manual of several years later, in

1974, quotes fifty-one horsepower at 6,900 rpm; which figure was more accurate is open to speculation.15 Fuel was metered, mixed and delivered by a large 38 mm Bing carburetor, with the gasses ultimately being compressed to Maico’s standard 12:1 compression ratio (with the piston at top dead center). Primary drive on the 501 was initially by double-row chain, upgraded soon after (along with the 400cc and 450cc bikes) to triple-row chain, beginning in 1972. As with most Maicos, a close- or wide-ratio gearbox could be specified by the buyer. In actuality, however, most buyers probably purchased the more commonly-shipped close-ratio motorcycles for general riding and motocross.

While Maico certainly succeeded in making the big machine go fast, slowing it down was another thing—and a festering example of the German company’s occasionally odd production values. Maico brakes were rarely considered excellent, especially as compared to Japanese units.

Braking on the first 501s, equipped with the earlier full-width hub, was rated as “poor” by

Modern Cycle in 1971 and remembered as setting “new standards for shitty” by motor journalist

Mark Firkin, although Rick Sieman gave the later conical front brake a “decent” rating in 1973.16

Overall, Maico braking left much to be desired; especially when slowing a hurtling 501.

14 Sieman, “In Defense of the 501.” 15German Maico likely did not alter the performance of the 501 from its introduction in 1971 through later editions, due to the factory’s limited interest in the model. Furthermore, horsepower figures often vary from dynometer to dynometer. Lastly, figures may be taken at either the countershaft (direct engine output) or the rear wheel (power loss due to system friction), which will result in different figures for the same engine. 16 Modern Cycle, “The Maico K-501;” Mark Firkin in “Too Much Just Ain’t Enough.” Vintage Motocross and Dirt Bike Quarterly, No. 9 (2000); and Sieman in “Maico’s Earthquake Machine.” 132

Figure 32. 1974 ½ 501, showing large alloy gas tank fitted from the factory, and in the uncommon white paint

scheme. (Photo: the author)

The Maico 501 in popular American motorcycle culture

Owing to its power (and the myth of its power), the Maico 501 became a legend in

American motorcycle culture and folklore. Perhaps this was part of Maico’s rationale in agreeing with Cooper and Wheat to go to the effort to manufacture such an over-powered machine in the first place. Austrian KTM went a step further in the late 1980s, building the KTM 550, another huge-displacement two-stroke single of questionable usability. The KTM may have been built for publicity to a greater extent than the Maico, since KTM was then able to assume (from

Maico) the cloak of making the largest-capacity single-cylinder two-stroke motorcycle.

Confronting this challenge to the 501’s long reign, some motorcycle magazine editors in the

1990s decided to compare the mythic Maico 501 to the new KTM and to the other large- displacement dirt bikes of the past. In the course of the comparison, all the motorcycles were placed on a dynometer to record horsepower and torque outputs. The Maico 501 being tested, perhaps suffering from clutch slippage and incorrect carburetor jetting, recorded an unimpressive

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33.1 horsepower. This embarrassment to Maico fans, as well as the article’s assault on a sacred article of faith in motorcycle culture, was enough to make writer Rick Sieman respond with his

Old Bike Journal essay in 1997. In it, Sieman explained the probable reasons for the test 501’s mediocre performance, and then told the story of the real power historically available in the

501.17 Sieman’s defense in the then-popular Old Bike Journal struck a chord in elder motorcyclists, and succeeded in re-invigorating the 501’s status and recognition; the essay has since been posted to the internet, and remains several clicks away for those desiring Sieman’s history lesson.

Ultimately, by building this behemoth in response to American suggestions, Maico did more than produce a powerful motorcycle. They contributed to their image as a responsive company who knew and trusted their American market, and additionally created the armature about which an element of motorcycle folklore could be constructed. Every enthusiast, whether or not they had ridden a 501, knew about the motorcycle and embellished the legend. The 501 became iconic.

Whether more powerful dirt bikes have been made or not, the big Maico still retains its status among older riders. Lasting fame for original record-breakers is often the case with such extreme machines. A comparative American example is the SR-71 “Blackbird” strategic reconnaissance aircraft, built by Lockheed during the 1960s. Its specifications and unique design remain the stuff of endless conversations, not just among pilots, but also among the general populace. Like the speed of the Blackbird—or the horsepower of the Shelby Cobra racing car,

Jimi Hendrix’s guitar dexterity, John Henry’s strength, or Daniel Boone’s marksmanship—the

501 is a folk legend. And, many legends suggest not simply great, but unlimited potential. As with the SR-71, which when challenged by its Soviet rivals for speed record dominance always

17 Sieman, “In Defense of the 501.” 134 seemed to marshal even more velocity, the 501 is always felt to harbor just a bit more power: its upper limit is imagined to be just beyond whatever has been thus far achieved. As with other legends, the story of the 501 still evolves among motorcycle historians, and sometimes with even greater power and performance.

Given the 501’s creation in the early 1970s, is it related in any way to intellectual or popular ideas from that era? American cultural observer Will Kaufman notes that the 1970s in the United States are much more than simply the Me Decade or the “un-decade,” sometimes suggested by dismissive historians. While these years might be aptly, if simplistically, described as individually hedonistic for a variety of reasons, the decade was also noted for other excesses.

The country was absorbing other extraordinary inputs: the political abuses of President Nixon and Watergate; the evolution from an industrial to a “post-industrial” nation; extensive racial, sexual, and feminist progressivism; and a national response to the new conversation on the apparent limits of American power, brought into focus by the Vietnam experience, the never- ending Cold War, and the 1979 OPEC oil embargo.18 If these combined forces were, as Kaufman describes, an “overspill, or an avalanche, of cultural energy pouring into the American landscape,”19 then the creation of an excessive, over-the-top machine like the Maico 501 is entirely to be expected in the context of such times.

More so than any other Maico motorcycle, the 501 was considered by riders in the United

States to be an American creation, and this was an accurate characterization. Like the groundbreaking 1968 Yamaha DT-1 motorcycle, designed and built to the standards of

Yamaha’s American consultants to meet the local needs they perceived, the Maico 501 was an

18 OPEC: Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. 19 Will Kaufman, American Culture in the 1970s (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 26. 135 answer to a precise American specification. 20 It further showed that Germany (and not just

Japan) could respond to American market conditions and consumer interests. Frank Cooper and

C.H. Wheat were certainly the instigators for its creation, and German Maico had little reason to make the 501 without their insistence. That the small company diverted the necessary engineering and production resources for the 501’s creation is testament to the factory’s positive attitude toward its American customer base. German Maico leadership admittedly saw minimal sales worth in developing the machine, and European riders never did take to the 501 for reasons of its vibration, according to Wilhelm Maisch Jr.21 Even so, the 501 continued to be marketed in

Europe as the GS501 (an enduro version with lights) throughout 1980, long after it was no longer imported to North America. Given Maico’s economical standard practice, these sales were most likely a way to use up extra 501 engines.

An extension of the 501 story is that of the Maico 760. In a similar vein of thinking as

Cooper and Wheat, Egbert Haas, a Maico employee and German enduro enthusiast, imagined a lightweight two-stroke motorcycle that would be eligible to compete in the above-750cc class in his native Germany. This class was, in effect a “protected zone” for BMW 750cc twin-cylinder four-stroke motorcycles (and similar to the situation in American racing which spawned the

501). Approaching director of engineering Wilhelm Maisch Jr., other Maico engineers, and the

Mahle piston company, Haas determined that a single-cylinder engine of this size could, in theory, be built and run. Utilizing an existing Maico engine, Haas managed to construct the “760

Maico” and thereafter campaigned the machine quite effectively (and apparently embarrassing

20 Colin MacKellar, Yamaha Dirt Bikes (London: Osprey Publishing, Limited, 1986), 14-19. 21 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded), 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 136 the much larger BMW corporation).2223 Several versions of this machine were produced and are known to still exist, and American racer Barry Higgins described using the machines in

International Six-Days Trials competition.24 An associated American folktale states that the pistons for both the 501 and the 760, being huge, were made from existing Porsche automotive pistons. While perhaps partially true (Mahle, as noted, did make pistons for Porsche) we know that all Maico/Mahle pistons, from the smallest through the 501, were specific design applications for Maico motorcycles, following the direction of Maico engineers.25

As a collectable and commodity, Maico 501s are today a “Holy Grail” to vintage motorcycle enthusiasts. Along with early CZ twin-pipe motocross bikes, the rare 501 consistently brings very high sales prices for production motorcycles at auction. Up from bringing an unimpressive several thousand dollars a decade ago, an un-restored but pristine 1971

MC501 was sold for $15,000 on eBay in November of 2013.26 While factory racing machines and certain other limited-edition motorcycles, such as the circa-1975 Puch twin-carburetor racing bikes, do bring even higher amounts, the Maico 501 remains a highly-desired commodity by virtue of its rarity and legendary status. It is, generally speaking, the most sought-after and the most highly-valued production off-road motorcycle of the classic era.27

Power, Speed, and America

22 Ibid, and Leo Keller, “The German off-road legend: A ‘Maico Motocross’ exhibit in Germany,” Vintage Motocross and Dirt Bike Quarterly, No. 55 (2013), pp. 24-7. 23 BMW would have the last laugh, however. During the global economic crisis of the early 1980s, the West German government would come to BMW’s aid as a company ‘too big to fail,’ while ignoring smaller Maico’s plight. Maico may have had iconic appeal to a niche American subculture, buts it was of minimal concern to Bonn macroeconomists. 24 Interview with Barry Higgins by David Russell, January 8, 2014, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 25 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, 26 Source: the author. Individual eBay completed sales records are obtainable for a limited time following the sale. 27 Interviews with Dennie Moore by David Russell. 137

What might this unusual motorcycle tell us about America during the early 1970s? Motor racing was firmly established as an American passion by this time, as it had been for the entire twentieth century. The appeal of fast motor vehicles was not limited to the United States, as the popularity of automobile racing around the globe attests. Yet, perhaps it is the extent to which

Americans pursued maximum power and speed through their total life experiences, which separates Americans from peoples elsewhere. While automobile racing and motorcycle racing are generally common throughout the world, drag racing (both car and motorcycle), land-speed record pursuits, and motorcycle hill-climbing—all events requiring maximum power—are peculiarly American inventions. Drag racing is a post-World War II phenomenon incorporating fairly simple concepts: produce the most horsepower in one’s vehicle and go the fastest in a short, straight line. Known originally for its often illegal practice on public roads, drag- racing/“hot-rod” culture gave American young men the chance to parade their powerful, loud cars and motorcycles in rebellion against the cautious, conservative ideals of their Depression- era parents.28 The first legal, organized American drag strip was opened on Sundays in Goleta,

California, in 1948, and others were soon to follow. These tracks were memorialized in popular song by such Beach Boy titles as “Shut Down (1963),” “Little Deuce Coupe (1963),” “Custom

Machine (1963),” and “This Car of Mine (1964).” Mark Foster notes that drag racing and hot- rodding in the evolving years was very much a blue-collar activity; an alternative response to the prohibitively-expensive auto racing of more affluent Americans.29 Motorcycle riding and racing were certainly in the same counter-elite category, if not more so. And, like drag racing, they were the least expensive entry portal into motor racing as a whole.

28 Mark S. Foster, A Nation on Wheels: The Automobile Culture in America Since 1945 (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002), 75-8. 29 Ibid, 77-82. 138

The 1960s and the early 1970s were also the initial manifestation of the “muscle car,” loosely described as an American car, upgraded with engine options enabling much greater horsepower. Muscle cars became enormously popular, and brand/model names (such as the

Plymouth Barracuda, the Pontiac GTO, the Ford Mustang, the Chevrolet Corvette and Camaro) became cultural markers for Americans’ desire for horsepower, whether it was really needed or just excessive. It is important to note that America is the sole country where the muscle car was produced and priced to be available to the common man; an American worker was very much able to finance a 400 horsepower automobile. In other areas of the world, the quest for similar power necessitated the purchase of a very expensive, exotic sports car; not a purchase for the masses.

The drag-racers, hot-rodders, and muscle-car owners reveled in excess: the largest engines, the most noise, and the quickest elapsed times and top speed. They intended to squeeze the most power out of the engine and the highest speed out of the vehicle. Power and speed were likewise the passion of motorcyclists. The 1960s and 1970s were decades when motorcycle performance was the key to sales. Manufacturers like Honda, Kawasaki, Norton, and Triumph stressed the performance of their motorcycles to Americans as the machines’ key attribute, developing escalating engine displacements on their street motorcycles to achieve the needed power: 750cc, then 850cc, then 900cc. The 501 Maico became another expression of this

American penchant for extreme horsepower, and it is often mentioned along with the old

American racing axiom: ‘There’s no substitute for cubic inches [of engine displacement]!’

This excess held little negative connotation in 1970s American culture. Nothing was subtle. In fashion and furnishings, the aesthetic was outsized and bold. The same was true in motor culture. Cecelia Tichi notes that when speed, movement, and power were new in the

139 emerging industrialized United States half a century earlier, they were universally and without a doubt considered positive values.30 Nor had this thinking changed by the 1970s. Speed, and the power to achieve it, contributed to an American belief in these attributes as enabling qualities, and as evidence of a modern America. The fastest express trains and airplanes; the largest automobiles, pulsating with eight-, ten-, and twelve-cylinder engines; these constituted the hard evidence of American progress and superiority. America conceived of its engines in much the same way as it waged its wars, which were (ideally) quick, decisive, and conducted with unchallengeable and overwhelming force. American servicemen in World War II, Korea, and

Vietnam witnessed the immense power of the “American way of war,” wherein massive, irresistible power was brought to bear on the county’s enemies. Returning home to the most powerful country in the world, they continued in the knowledge that bigger and stronger and faster was positive and life-sustaining. Power seemed good and necessary; to imagine that even more would be somehow better, was a logical step from everything Americans had learned to that date.

30 Cecelia Tichi, Shifting Gears: Technology, Literature, and Culture in Modernist America (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 30, 232-3. 140

Figure 33. 1974 advertisement run by Maico East in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, offering individual 501

engines for sale. Such a purchase would certainly have allowed a rider to put new life in a tired motorcycle.

Like German Maico’s marketing of 501-engined machines in Europe through 1980, this advertisement

suggests that the company had an excess of 501 engines. (Source: Cycle News)

Like Jack Kerouac’s crazed Americans, driving cars too fast and longing to be drunk with speed and movement and excitement, the 501 owner likewise sought that power-mad trajectory.31 The machine held unlimited potential (at least in the minds of its admirers); it could produce more power than the most skilled riders had yet mastered. This was the magic of its myth. It had latent possibilities, and no doubt amateur tuners dreamt of being the one to take the machine to the next level, if not actually tame it. Perhaps they could be the kind of rider who could harness the 501’s tremendous power output. Who knew? They had been taught that anything was possible in America. Deep down, they must have known that not a rider existed

31 Jack Kerouac, On the Road (New York: Viking Press, 1958). 141 who could successfully channel all the power, being churned by that mammoth piston to the ground, but that only made the fantasy more enticing. Yet being able to literally use and tame this energy was always an anciliary goal. The real goal was to touch it and experience it; to have achieved access to the omega of thoroughbred dirt bikes; this was the point. That you might, that it could, that maybe . . . these were the real issues. The 501 connected the steamfitter, the upholsterer, and the autoworker to the infinite power of the Saturn-V rocket of dirt bikes, and placed him squarely in the American onslaught into the future. They, too, could have power to burn, power unchecked, power that they had just as much right and access to as the rich man.

This was America, and believing in the 501’s myth was their prerogative as well.

To the riders of the era, both America and the Maico 501 were synonyms for strength, movement, and un-tapped potential. The motorcycle was really a reflection of the America they had grown up to value. Power and speed and possibilities and America were good, and the 501 exemplified this belief.

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2.3 SMALL MAICOS: THE 125s

Although known primarily in the United States as a producer of large, powerful, off-road motorcycles, Maico was certainly no stranger to smaller bikes and road motorcycles. As we have seen, the company began by manufacturing small motorcycles, 200cc-and-under, which were used as personal transportation in post-war Germany. Later, Maico gravitated to the off-road motorcycles which built its American reputation. Still, during its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s,

Maico’s line-up included small motorcycles and also an array of 50cc mini-cycles and mopeds for the European market. Since the large off-road motorcycles made the Maico name so well- known in American racing circles, it is not surprising that some of these riders sought out the smaller bikes as well.

The company made a 123cc K125 model as early as 1939, introduced the M125 in 1948, and followed these with the M126 in 1951. All these models were simple 52 x 58 mm

(bore/stroke), piston-port two-strokes. A variety of follow-on and larger two-stroke models followed, all piston-port induction, to include Maico’s successful 175 and 250 Scramblers and enduros, and the 250 Blizzard. The Maico 125 that Americans would come to know best was introduced the United States in 1968 as the MC (or GS, if equipped with lights) 125. The MC125 featured a distinctively tiny cylinder and head sitting atop squared-off cases, appearing diminutive in the big Maico chassis. Also, for the first time, Maico incorporated rotary-valve induction directly into the crankcase from the carburetor, mounted low on the right side. The engine produced more pure horsepower than nearly any other 125 of its period. Housed in the rugged, proven full-size Maico frame, it should have been exceptional. It was and remains a curious, fascinating, and often frustrating motorcycle.

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The three men interviewed here for their knowledge of Maico 125s had different experiences with the machine. One owned a Maico MC125 as a youth, and only briefly; one first dealt with Maico as a young German, later competing with road-racing RS125 Maicos after immigrating to the United States; and, one gravitated to MC and GS125s very early and stayed with them for nearly fifty years. One of the three had a difficult relationship with his machine (as did many owners of Maico 125s) while the other two learned to understand their machines’ weaknesses and strengths, and succeeded notably in their competitive riding. In all three cases, the Maico motorcycle held considerable meaning for its owner.

Each of these men came from working-class backgrounds. Two continued in blue-collar careers (masonry and auto mechanics) while one founded his own engineering firm and retired, following the firm’s sale. All three broke from staid society in at least one way (choosing to race motorcycles) but can at the same time be considered generally conservative in their world views, and are hard-working Americans by any scale. This is their story, as it is reflected in an uncommon motorcycle.

Craig Shambaugh was a fifteen-year-old boy in rural Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when he obtained his 125 Maico. The acquisition was by chance, after a family friend put one up for sale in about 1973. Shambaugh endured a long period of frustration with the machine, but also gloried in owning his first big, serious dirt bike. Reminiscing, he stated “The looks . . . were so appealing at the time. There was just something raw about them; something very business-like.

Efficient, no-nonsense. For me, to be able to own a Maico—it was just cool!”1 Shambaugh dealt with the machine’s difficult transmission for two years. “I missed shifts quite a bit. . . . I never really knew what that bike was going to do in competition.” When the opportunity presented

1 Interview with Craig Shambaugh by David Russell, September 11, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 144 itself, he sold the exotic machine and progressed to a proven, reliable “start it up and go” motorcycle, a Yamaha YZ250.

Figure 34. Craig Shambaugh (right) with former world motocross champion Roger DeCoster, circa 1978.

(Photo: Craig Shambaugh)

Eric Bley grew up in post-World War II East Germany. Bley came of age riding small street motorcycles for transportation, and eventually road-raced many German and foreign-made motorcycles.2 A tool-maker by trade, he was accepted into engineering school and graduated.

Soon after, and along with his sister, Bley escaped communist East Germany through Berlin in

1955.3 After arriving in the United States, he founded Bley Engineering in LaGrange, Illinois, which prospered. Bley’s financial success and engineering background enabled him to road-race again in America, and among the classic and exotic motorcycles he rode was the rare RS125, the road-racing-only Maico 125 variant. In more recent years, he and his son, Sven, were widely- known in the vintage motorcycle community for their pair of winning RS125s. He recalls, “I had two Maico RS125s; my son raced one and I raced one. One we converted to 175cc; it was fast . .

. super fast! We made it ourselves, starting with a 125 and fitting it with a bigger bore and

2 Interview with Eric Bley by David Russell, March 21, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 3 “Berlin Wall Retains East Germans,” The Bryan Times, November 28, 1970. Eric Bley arranged for the escape of his younger brother as well, in a complex jump into the sea in 1970 off the coast of Florida. 145 cylinder, different valve timing, and a different crankshaft. It was so fast that my son rode it and he was disqualified! He was a [full] lap ahead of the number-two rider at the end of the race at

Daytona! So, the motorcycle was disqualified. It was perfectly legal, but it was simply too fast for them!”

Figure 35. Eric Bley road-racing his RS125. (Photo: Eric Bley)

Charles Schank began riding larger Maicos in the early 1960s.4 He competed in both enduros and motocross events around his mid-western home in Flint, Michigan, in succeeding years. Mr. Schank was very competitive on what was likely the very first X-4A 360 square- barrel Maico in the United States, winning thirteen straight races with it in 1968. He also rode against the European pros in the early Inter-Am North American motocross series, and finished first-American and “thirteenth or fourteenth overall” at the New Philadelphia, Ohio, Inter-AM in

1968; impressive results for “just a weekend rider,” as he described his riding. Then, Schank recalls a friend bringing two new Maico 125s to his home in the summer of 1968, a GS and an

MC. Something about the machines caught his attention, and he arranged to buy both of them; no small purchase for a young auto mechanic. Schank’s attraction to the 125s was thereafter

4 Interview with Charles Schank by David Russell, October 6, 2009, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 146 continuous, and he is today an authority on the Maico 125 (and his extensive knowledge made possible the majority of the technical analysis of the 125 Maicos which follows).

Figure 36. Charles Schank on his MC125, Michigan, 1968. Schank was a notable motocross racer this year,

finishing “first American” behind the European professionals. (Photo: Charles Schank)

Observing the 125 Maico engine (I will analyze an early 1968 five-speed) we can see that it is unlike all other Maico dirt bike engines, in that they share similar lower-end case assemblies with one another. The cylinder and head form a squared, squat little finned protuberance atop the cases. The cases themselves are rounded on top and squared at the sides, are overall unfinished, and the pebbled surface shows evidence of sand-casting. Inside the cylinder is a 54 mm diameter

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Mahle piston, moving in a 54 mm stroke, and thus achieving a perfect “square” bore/stroke.

Designed with a rotary-valve induction system, no carburetor is visible aft of the cylinder; it is hidden beneath the right outer case, with the top extending through a hole just beyond the case cover. A rubber “accordion” tube caries clean air from the air-box/air filter assembly under the seat to the right side outer case where the carburetor is housed. Between the little German Bing carburetor outlet and the crankcase inlet is a thin fiber disc, the rotary valve, splined to and spinning with the crankshaft. The “cutaway” in the disc permits the fuel/air mixture to be drawn into the crankcase by piston-induced vacuum. The size of the cutaway thus determines gas inlet timing, in conjunction with the two transfer ports and a third, large “bridge” port in the cylinder.

The unusual bridge port is not a transfer passage, but rather a chamber cut into the aft of the cylinder. This chamber traps an additional fuel charge, passed to it through a hole in the back of the piston, and then adds this extra potential energy to the total combustible charge. Eric Bley notes that this unique design feature was key to the small Maico’s surprising power output. The little Maico creates a 10:1 compression ratio, and creates maximum power at a rather high 8,200 rpm. The higher-tuned road-race RS125 versions create maximum power at a very high 14,000 rpm.

The very long crankshaft initially could be a cause for problems, as Schank found out after an early race, when he discovered the left end of the crankshaft had broken off at a bearing support. This system used an adjustable ball-bearing to support the magneto mass on the far end of the rotating crankshaft, but the bearings were set overly-loose at the factory, inviting more play and eventual failure. Schank diagnosed the problem and affected a solution. “After this,” he noted, “I always disassembled my new 125s and tightened up the pre-load a bit on that bearing. I never had a crank failure after that. The five-speed engines all used Bosch magnetos with

148 lighting coils built-in. The enduro models had the wires hooked up for the lights, and the scrambler/motocross models just had the wires cut off. When they went to the six-speed version, they offered two different crankshaft designs: the enduro model still used the long, tapered end so that is could use the Bosche magneto with lights. The motocross model used a shortened taper; a cut-down version with the APPT magneto, the same as on the bigger bikes.”

Figure 37. Maico 125 engine. Note the triangular gear-change mechanism on the left, and the rotary-valve

and crankcase inlet visible just below the finned cylinder, middle. The carburetor (hanging free in the

picture) would mount to the plate covering the rotary-valve. A dial indicator (to determine piston position)

has been placed in the spark plug hole. (Photo: Eric Bley)

Moving aft of the carburetor, inside the right case, is the gear changing assembly.

Contrary to the convention of placing the transmission selector linkage inside the inner engine cases, Maico engineers placed the 125’s linkage outside the right inner case. On the positive side, the assembly could then be worked on without splitting the cases. Unfortunately, Craig

Shambaugh remembers, to get it working correctly “. . . you had to work on it quite often!” This

149 linkage was the Achilles’ Heal of the little Maico. The exposed system is imprecise, tends to come out of synchronization, and is exposed to potential damage in the event of a right-side impact. It is, as Eric Bley stated, “extremely touchy.” Even Wilhelm Maisch Jr. concluded that the 125’s shifting was the reason for its low acceptance in America.5 Moving the shift lever

(mounted on the left side of the engine, per German and American practice) up and down, with the actual selector assembly located a good eight inches away, one senses unsure resistances and imprecise reactions. While total lever “throw” (or, distance) is not extreme, the overall sensation is far from that of the clean-shifting and low-effort contemporary Japanese machines.

Figure 38. Eric Bley’s RS125. Note the low handlebars, rear-mounted seat and foot controls, and smooth tires—all identifying features of road-racing motorcycles. The fairing and windscreen (which cover the rider

and front of the motorcycle from the wind stream and reduce drag) are removed in this photograph.

(Photo: Eric Bley)

5 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded) 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 150

Figure 39. Craig Shambaugh’s modified MC125. The rear shocks have been moved forward (towards the engine) about four inches, to permit increased ‘long travel’ suspension, the innovation pioneered by Maico in

1973 and 1974. The motorcycle has been repainted white, and a foam disc around the gas cap helps absorb

leaking fuel. (Photo: Craig Shambaugh)

Charles Schank was able to live with the Maico 125’s transmission. He had learned to make the five-speed models shift by employing a bit of patience, along with some adaptation to its foibles. When the “more positive-shifting” six-speed transmissions were introduced, Schank felt the 125 to be trouble-free, at least for him. He notes that many other European engine makers, notably Sachs and Monark, and even the Japanese Hodaka, had similar shifting mechanisms with problems, especially “false neutrals” (where the transmission fails to engage, between gears). Clearly, this was an intrinsic problem for a number of manufacturers. For some reason, however, Maico was the brand to receive a lasting, damning reputation for their problems. “Over the years,” he noted, “that early crankshaft bearing problem was the only real trouble I ever had with the 125 Maicos.” The reasons for the 125’s bad reputation were varied,

151 but certainly have to do not only with the transmission, but also with the fact that Maicos were finicky, maintenance-intensive motorcycles.

Moving around the engine to the left side, the kick-starter lever and gear shift lever can be seen, located on what appears to be the same shaft, entering the engine. The assembly is actually two shafts, with the smaller-diameter shift shaft riding within the larger, hollow kicker shaft. The shift shaft continues through the engine, connecting to the gear change (selector) mechanism on the right rear of the engine cases, behind the carburetor. A fork or “pawl” is activated by the gear change assembly, and pushes and locks in place the five gears on the output shaft individually and sequentially, meshing the output shaft gears with the constantly-driven and fixed main shaft gears. When in gear, the appropriate drive gear on the main shaft connects with a fixed gear on the output shaft. The two meshed gears, operating at their set ratio, turn the output shaft, onto which the countershaft sprocket is splined, outside the right-side inner engine case. The countershaft sprocket is connected by relatively light-duty #428 drive chain to the rear sprocket, which turns the rear wheel through a “cush-drive” design (as in cushioned, with hard rubber between the steel sprocket and hub drive lugs to reduce shock). It is an intricately designed and fragile system.

The complex rear hub assembly, directly off a 1950s street bike, is connected to an 18 inch chromed steel rim. The rear sprocket appears very small; barely projecting beyond the hub.

The entire rear hub and wheel assembly are visibly different from the larger Maicos. The 125 engine mounts to the frame using different mounting points than the other engines, which share the same bottom ends and engine mounts. This makes the frame of a 125 Maico easy to identify.

Otherwise, the 125 frame is mostly identical to those of the larger Maicos. Using a frame suitable for a 400 or 501’s performance ensured that the Maico 125 was indeed a stable, non-flexing

152 platform. Nestled between the frame rails, under the seat, is an air-box of the same dimensions as the larger machines. It differs only in having a smaller inlet hole, accommodating a smaller- diameter rubber accordion air tube connecting the carburetor cover to the air-box inlet. The air- box on the early five-speed 125 is formed from black ABS-type plastic panels; later models incorporated fiberglass.

Figure 40. 1974 Maico advertisement, featuring MC125. Note the skinny tires and new radial cylinder and

head. In the advertisement (this one coming from England, given the “500 pounds plus VAT” stamp in the

left upper center) racing success and the quality of the components are emphasized in the simple, halting

verbiage. The rigidity of the text and treatment of “Moto-Cross” (rather than “Motocross”) and other

spelling choices (“Manuf.” And “Vice”) in the copywriting suggests German origin.

(Photo of advertisement: the author)

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Preparation: Getting Ready to Ride

When Charles Schank prepared for competition, he first ensured that several basic maintenance tasks were accomplished on his 125s. As previously mentioned, Schank disassembled the engine of every 125 Maico he obtained, new or used, and ensured that the outer left crankshaft bearing was properly adjusted. With this central issue addressed, Schank’s 125 engines lasted for years, even when ridden hard every weekend. The external shifter selector mechanism needed to be greased after every use. Ignition points were cleaned with emery cloth before being set, then cleaned with paper. The use of a Delco automotive cam lubricant on the breaker and crankshaft cam helped to keep the cam from wearing down the breaker composite material too quickly, and also helped to keep the cam itself from wearing. “I’ve noticed that a lot of used engines have the [cam lobe] chrome completely worn off,” Schank remembers.

Schank competed in both motocross and enduro events, and was not above looking for extra horsepower from his 125s. He went about his quest this way: First, he cut the rotary-valve disc on his motocross mount down to timing specifications “in-between” that of the highly-tuned road-racer and the stock MC/GS model. For both his motocross and enduro motorcycles, he cut the stock cylinder ports exactly like those of the road-racer. Seeing that the road-racer’s low-end torque was not sufficient for his needs, he added length to the initial length of exhaust pipe, coming from the cylinder (called the “header pipe”).6 Schank used the stock muffler for noise reduction, but usually “opened up a hole in the middle.” This entire process, for the enduro bike, resulted in a machine which “. . . had a nice broad power-band, which, when I needed speed on the road, would rev like a road-racing machine! It definitely had extra power, when wide-open.”

Thus, like many 125 Maico tuners, Schank used 125 Maico road-racer porting. But he did so

6 Adding length to the header pipe is a traditional method for improving low-rpm performance (while decreasing high-rpm power output) in two-stroke engines. 154 with two additional precautions: he corrected the bearing issue which affected the early 125s, and added length to the exhaust header.

Gig Hamilton, a Pennsylvania Maico dealer and racer who counted upon racing winnings to help support his family, was not content with moderate engine performance increases.

Desiring still more power from his 125 (used in both flat-track and motocross events) Hamilton, like Schank, used road-racer porting and rotary-valve timing. Hamilton, however, incorporated extreme factory road-race specifications; he estimates the power output of his modified motorcycles as being in excess of thirty-two horsepower. This was phenomenal power from a

125cc engine, especially a single-cylinder one, but was also proportionately harder on the engine’s dynamic components. Unfortunately for Hamilton, the regularity of twisted, broken crankshafts, brought about from careening around dirt tracks with the little engine screaming in excess of 12,000 rpm, negated any benefit from the extreme power. Within several years he removed the 125 Maico engine and replaced it with a 125 Yamaha engine; admittedly slower, but infinitely more reliable. Hamilton raced the hybrid Maico/Yamaha for years after, with great success.7

Engine lubrication for two-stroke engines is critical, and is often debated among riders.

Schank used regular organic (non-synthetic) two-cycle oil, mixed at 24:1 (parts gas/oil). He feels to this day that non-synthetic oils, though relegated to a primitive connotation in light of today’s advanced synthetic lubricants, provide perfectly adequate lubrication. He also contends that mixing at higher ratios (such as the 40:1 or leaner mixtures now recommended by synthetic oil producers) tends to develop crankshaft wear on Maicos. On the older iron-barrel Maicos, Schank mixed oil at a richer 20:1.

7 Interview with Gig Hamilton by David Russell, November 14, 2013, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 155

Schank’s other modifications to his 125s were minimal. Dry air filter elements were changed to wet, oiled filters. On the front end, he ensured that the forks had the new, longer- length damping rods. Schank notes that early Maicos from 1968 to 1971, and all the 125s through 1973, came equipped with older rods, which yielded only six inches of travel. The later rods allowed a full seven inches or more of fork travel. No other modifications to the forks were done, and Schank used a fork fluid mixture of half ATF (automatic transmission fluid) and half

Marvel Mystery Oil (a folkloric commercial lubricant sometimes reputed to have near-fantastic qualities). Schank concurs that Maico likely used all existing parts before fitting newly-designed ones, where possible, especially on the lower-performing and less profitable 125s. “You know, they made so many of these parts and just used ‘em up. They probably said, ‘Those 125 guys won’t know the difference!’” Schank’s comment here reinforces the idea that Maico continued using old parts on new models (which accounts for the sometimes disparate combination of parts on apparently stock Maicos).

Schank addressed the under-performing Maico front brakes by often replacing the whole wheel with a Yamaha unit. He believes the reason for the lack of stopping ability was one of excessively-hard lining compound in the Maico brakes. Maico parts creator and marketer Greg

Smith would eventually discover another reason: that the drums and shoes were bored out-of- true during manufacture. Later, after Schank noticed long-travel suspension on Maicos being raced in Canada, during the 1973 Trans-AMA series, he began to modify his rear suspensions as well. He estimates he performed at least twenty of these modifications to his and acquaintances’ motorcycles.

125 model differences

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The exterior and interior case dimensions of the five-speed and six-speed engines are identical, as are the bearings. Schank has personally installed six-speed gear clusters in older five-speed cases. This procedure requires fitting the six-speed shifting mechanism and shift shaft.

All five-speed cases and the very-early six-speed cases were a heavier sand-cast aluminum, a laborious and costly procedure. Later cases were a more easily-produced die-cast aluminum. In

1973 Maico changed the shift pull-key (the part which locks the rotating gears) from a “straight- across” design to a cross-shaped key. This later key creates a more robust shifting mechanism.

I asked about the presence of the numerals “1-2-5” on 125 Maico forks. Schank responded that he was not aware of any such markings, in his experience. He has seen varied numerals such as “1-2-3” or “1-2-4” on upper and lower aluminum fork clamps, but recalls this marking being a confirmation of simultaneous line-boring at the factory, to indicate matching units.8

Maico frames are generally identical across all models. The only major differences between 125s and larger Maico chassis are the locations of the motor mounts and the rear wheel design. Prior to the 1977 Adolf Weil (AW) model series, frame dimensions and tubing diameters among all off-road Maicos are absolutely the same, despite a common belief that 125s utilized lighter-weight tubing. Beginning in 1977, according to Schank, Maico 125s do incorporate slightly thinner diameter tubing (Figure 41). This practice is believed to have been followed through 1983. The factory used the 1950s-era symmetrical rear hub with cush-drive assembly until 1975, when a conical, non-cush rear hub was incorporated on the 125 Maico. These conical

8 A set of forks removed from a 125 Maico by the author in the 1990s had the numerals “1-2-5” stamped on the alloy fork sliders. While the assumption that the numerals were applied at the factory to mark 125 units (perhaps in the course of using up stocks of older, shorter-travel internal parts) is a reasonable assumption, Schank’s recollection suggests that Maico historians should stop short of designating this assumption as a fact. 157 hubs differ in size from those on the larger Maicos, but use the same brake linings as are used in front Maico conical hubs.

Figure 41. 1977 AW125. Note the external carburetor mounting, allowing a much narrower engine case. This

1977 motorcycle has the thinner wall tubing. (Photo: Bill Eyler)

Engine outer cases were redesigned with more streamlined contours in 1972. A larger aluminum access plate replaced the small steel plate on the left (points and timing) side, with the right side being given a form-fitting case. Both sides feature the “MAICO” imprint.

The 125 Maico received radial-style cooling fins on the cylinder and head in 1974. With the introduction of the redesigned Maicos of 1976 and 1977 (the Adolf Weil, or “AW Replica” line, although the very similar 1976 models were not yet referred to as AWs), the 125 engine was likewise refined. The carburetor was removed from under the right outer case and mounted outside the engine on an alloy manifold tube. This allowed the carburetor to be serviced and adjusted without removing either the outer case or the carburetor itself, when altering jetting.

Another modification incorporated into the 125 that year was the replacement of the old

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“adjustable” ball-type crankshaft bearing with a roller bearing, similar in design to the larger

Maicos.

The earliest (1968) 125 Maicos came with the original small fiberglass tank finished in blue, according to Schank. Aluminum-alloy fenders were used, along with the black ABS-type plastic air-box. In subsequent years, paintwork and fender/air-box material echoed that used in the rest of the Maico line.

Schank provided several observations and conjectures about the acquisition and fate of many of the 125 Maicos. “I found that after a 125 Maico sat on the showroom floor for a couple of years, you didn’t have to pay the suggested retail price. The 125s didn’t sell well . . . and the dealer would want to get rid of them. The suggested retail price on a 125 Maico was $1000. You could buy a Kawasaki for $650; that was about the price difference. And the 125 really wasn’t that much less than the 250 or 400 Maicos; the 400 was usually $50 more than the 250, and the

250 was $75 or $100 more than the 125. . . Basically, everybody who was buying one, was buying one for their fifteen- or sixteen-year-old, and buying a 400 for themselves. Most of the

125 riders were younger. Perhaps they weren’t as careful. I’ve seen kids destroy one in a weekend. . . .The rest of [the 125s I bought] were used ones with the engine problem; mostly the transmission linkage. One had been disassembled for more than twenty years.”

These observations contain important insights. First, Schank brings out a universal fact in motorcycle marketing: a smaller-capacity motorcycle is not necessarily any cheaper to manufacture than a larger-capacity one, but the consumer still expects to pay less for the smaller- capacity (and lesser powerful) machine. Thus the 125 Maico (which, given its complex engine and lower production figures, may have actually been more expensive to build than the larger- capacity machines) still had to sell for less than these larger bikes. The product was thereby

159 forced to carry a lower retail price tag than all the larger Maico motorcycles (yet still at a price that ensured profitability) even as ever-higher-quality and far less expensive Japanese motorcycles caught the consumer’s eye. Schank further notes that 125s tended to be owned by younger riders. These young men likely had the machines purchased for them, thus feeling less personal responsibility for the motorcycles. We might then assume that these younger riders would have also been less likely to properly maintain a motorcycle or ride it in a manner that would have preserved it. This situation likely resulted in more of these motorcycles being put out of operation, earlier in their service life.

Lastly, we see from Schank’s statement that many of the 125s he purchased were non- running machines, likely incapacitated by the common transmission problems. In terms of the preservation of such a rare machine, such a design weakness may have actually helped to leave more Maico 125s to posterity. Occasionally, mechanical devices of high cost will incorporate a mechanical weakness in a sub-system which can prematurely incapacitate the entire machine.

This early failure may put the device out of commission before the overall item is considered

“worn out” by the owner; this would have been the case with a Maico 125 which would not properly shift gears. The problem may have been too expensive to fix or too annoying for the owner to continue regularly riding the bike. Yet for various reasons such dysfunctional high-end machines (like the example of a relatively new but troublesome 125 Maico) are retained by owners, while others are discarded. The reasons for owners’ retention of old industrial objects vary, but might include the initial cost of the item (such as an expensive motorcycle or watch); perceived future value, including both financial worth and utility of the item (such as guns and old tools); aesthetic qualities (attractive objects), and the relative ease of storage (such as a small item or a lightweight bicycle, easily hung in the rafters). An expensive, exotic, shiny-yellow but

160 broken Maico 125 might thus have been more readily retained, shunted to the rear of a dusty garage or shed, but at least spared the junkman.

Having accounted for why the owner elected to save an old motorcycle, did he then plan to ride it again someday? Was the machine meant to be an icon to good times and former youth?

Certainly, any broken motor vehicle can be brought back to life with sufficient investment of time and money, and any competent motorcyclist was enough of a mechanic to know this. Most likely, however, the motorcycle served the owner as a monument to his achievements and times past. Like a mounted game animal, an old sports object, or a war trophy, the item is symbolic of the circumstances in which it and the owner interfaced. In the case of a motorcycle, the object likely recalls not only fun and competition, but also some element of danger and perhaps the sacrifice required to originally purchase the object. Most riders, usually not wealthy men, could not afford to keep their old motorcycles, and sold them in time to help finance their next mount.

Whether, proportionally, more Maicos were saved by their owners than other makes is not known, although this does seem to be the case with other particularly attractive or renowned motorcycles.

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Figure 42. Charles Schank finishing the brutal Jack Pine enduro on a 360 Maico, 1966, Lansing, Michigan.

Completing the two-day, 500 mile Jack Pine event was one of the most significant motorcycling achievements of the day. Schank is looking down at the route sheet (the paper which shows checkpoints and arrival times)

mounted on the gas tank of his Maico. Schank’s street-legal endure machine has no lights; motorcycle registrations in Michigan at the time required none. The only evidence of wear on the bike is the broken front

fender. The cylindrical device, mounted horizontally atop the front fender, is a carbon-dioxide compressed

gas bottle, in case of a flat tire. (Photo: Charles Schank)

Following his racing days, Eric Bley took his motorcycles to Florida, after selling his engineering company and retiring in 2003. But he concedes, “I don’t think I’ll race again, though. I don’t have a helper anymore. I’m downsizing. Our Maicos are in a museum, now.”

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Craig Shambaugh encountered his “first case of burn-out” after becoming a professional- level motocross racer in 1982. Racing had been his passion and priority since his early teenage years, but the realities of its expense and the remoteness of his being able to earn a real living from it had become clearer. And, there was other work to be done, and a family to support. “I grew up in the 1970s. There was a lot of freedom to try different things . . . but, you know, everybody worked. Nobody loafed between fifteen and twenty-two years old, which I think has changed between then and now. We tried all different jobs back then. I became a brick-layer.”

Shambaugh graduated from vocational-technical school, worked in his father’s masonry business, and then continued as a mason by himself, easing out of motocross. He gravitated to motorcycle road-racing, excelled in it, and become a nationally-known finisher. An old but road- worthy Ducati 750 street bike sits in his garage. He still runs his masonry business, and talks about his daughter Katelin and her current life as an inner-city teacher. Whenever able, he pursues his passion of the last twenty-five years, bicycle riding.

Charles Schank first worked as a foreign car mechanic, later became a beef and hog farmer in Ohio, and now does landscape maintenance in semi-retirement. “My ‘machine’ is a shovel and a pair of hand-pruners, now,” he laughs. “It’s enjoyable work.” Now in his seventies, he still rides his many Maico 125s in the woods behind his rural home in Washington state, where he lives with his wife, Nancy. “I’ve been happy with Maico. My son will end up with an inheritance of several old Maicos. He won’t get any money, but he’ll have these old bikes. Maico and myself . . . we just fit.”

Shambaugh, Schank, and Bley each began their working lives as blue-collar workers. As young men they were drawn to motorcycles and motorcycle competition. Accomplished sportsmen in a variety of motorcycle competition venues, none of the three ventured significantly

163 into street riding (though Shambaugh and Bley became successful road-racers). Having spent hours speaking with each of them, I see that despite their considerable racing accomplishments, each would be reluctant to invite undue attention to himself; they are modest men. Not one of them can be pictured on a chromed behemoth at a stop light, wearing flashy biker attire. Each of the three possesses an aptitude for mechanics. For varied reasons, each chose the expensive and fragile little German motorcycle as a primary mount: Shambaugh by chance, Schank and Bley intentionally. In the cases of Schank and Bley, these men stayed connected with the small

Maicos their whole lives, not being enchanted and distracted by the myriad of more powerful machines they were certainly qualified to operate and could have ridden. Unlike the men drawn to the 501 and other large capacity motorcycles, Schank and Bley spent their careers investigating potential, rather than reveling in excess. Performance, for them, was more than sheer quantity of power; rather, it was the intuitive process of maximizing to the fullest extent the resources available. They remained devoted to the little Maico 125, enjoying the pursuit of extracting the best possible performance from the motorcycle, and in fully exploring and extending its limits.

Considering all three—Shambaugh, Schank, and Bley—we see Americans who possess an inner confidence and self-assuredness and do not seek accolades or recognition. They are content. For them, making the most of what they had, moving forward, and creatively improving upon their condition, was challenging and rewarding enough. In the next chapter, I will discuss more deeply the meaning of mechanical alterations that men like Shambaugh, Schank, and Bley made to their machines.

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Chapter 3: MODIFYING THE OBJECT

3.1 CHANGE IS GOOD: PERSONALIZATION, MODIFICATION, AND PERFORMANCE UPGRADES

The pick-up truck bounced into an open dirt patch on the Pennsylvania hillside. It came to rest abruptly; a drawn-out scratch of the emergency brake finalized its arrival. As the brown dust cloud cleared, the driver’s door creaked open as the driver took stock of the environment, then was shoved forward, bouncing back a bit from the door hinge stops. A short, muscular man, he jumped out and walked deliberately to the back of the truck; he kept his eyes aligned with his direction of movement and did not acknowledge the slightly interested glances of those parked on either side. The muted sound of un-muffled two-stroke motorcycle exhausts wafted up from the valley.

In the bed of the pick-up was a wooden shipping crate with German markings, which he pried open with a crowbar. Once the top and side of the crate were removed, a yellow motorcycle became visible. Several onlookers stopped to watch. The short man, sweating now, kept tearing apart the slats, still not meeting the interested glances of the gathering crowd. In about 30 minutes he had the forks and front wheel in place, and brought the brightly colored motorcycle down a ramp to the ground. He sloshed fuel into the tank; some spilled over the yellow paint and onto the ground. The bike leaned over at a tremendous angle, straining the long kickstand and threatening to flop on its side. Still ignoring the rapt bystanders, the man checked the oil levels and adjusted the chain. Kick, spin, kick, spin, kick, b-b-b-brRRAAPP! The yellow motorcycle roared to life, then settled down to a bRRAAP-ap-ap, bRRAAP-ap-ap, bRRAAP-ap- ap-ap, as hidden, carbon steel parts warmed up and infinitely-small tolerances changed for the better.

“Whadaya gonna do with that thing?” someone yelled.

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“Gonna race it and kick your butts!” came the man’s reply.

The stocky man was Eastern Maico distributor Dennie Moore, and the motorcycle was a brand-new 1970 Maico 400.1 Normally, no-one would race a motorcycle fresh out of the crate— something the incredulous crowd realized. Yet Moore did successfully race the brand-new motorcycle in that day’s program, completing his promotional stunt and confounding the crowd’s understanding of what was possible. His point was that the Maico was a racing motorcycle that needed no preparation. It was ready to win, as delivered—without the modification required on all the motorcycles the crowd was familiar with. Granted, Moore would later describe the elaborate detail with which motorcycles really should be prepared, by attentive riders who wanted to finish races and have their machines last. But, stunt or not, Moore was correct; the Maico was capable of being ridden and raced successfully, “out of the box.”

This is not to suggest that Maicos were always designed and built with the best care, the most up-to-date technology, or faultless manufacturing practices. These high-performing motorcycles certainly needed dedicated maintenance if they were to last: “Maico-break-o” was already part of the dirt bike community’s lexicon. Maicos were also temperamental and could be difficult to maintain at peak efficiency, particularly with respect to the engine and carburetion.

Still, the Maico was generally well-designed and well-equipped for its purpose, perhaps even incurring some of its annoying operational and maintenance traits as a result of being built to such a higher level of performance (a “thoroughbred, not a plow-horse”?). 2 Like the exotic car or aircraft, higher levels of engineering, design complexity, and performance do not lower maintenance requirements. Such high-performing devices actually demand much greater

1 Interview with Dennie Moore by David Russell, March 27, 2007, Lewistown, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 2MotorCyclist’s Great Bikes of the 70s, “Best of the 1970s,” MotorCyclist’s Great Bikes of the 70s (1981), 53. 166 attention, if the machines are to be kept operating reliably and safely at these higher levels.

Performance comes at a cost, in both monetary expense and maintenance hours.

The motorcycle press during the early 1970s sometimes portrayed the Maico as a very expensive unfinished package, even if one with enormous potential.3 Admittedly, parts such as the slippery foot pegs, the easily-flooded Bing carburetors, minimally-effective brakes, self- loosening engine bolts, and easily-bent steel rims deserved criticism. For a motorcycle costing nearly twice that of the Japanese machines (which, at least, were reliable when ignored) these problems stood out. Was the Maico a superior machine; able to compete and “win, out-of-the crate?” Yes; Dirt Bike Magazine stated (about the 1974 250): “We literally took the stock bike out and raced it without one single modification. Not even so much as an air filter is required on the brand new breed of Maico.”4 Could it be improved and made more reliable, better- performing and easier-to-live with? Again, yes. We will discover that there were other reasons for change, as well.

This chapter discusses modifications and after-market parts and accessories which were employed on Maico motorcycles during the late 1960s through the early 1980s. It provided an analysis of the period practices and habits of Maico motorcycle owners, and the reasons behind what they did. Most of these additive and modification practices were simple, rational responses to mechanical and environmental conditions. The examination of these practices will enhance understanding and awareness of the machines as they were used. At the same time, our examination of these modifications will reveal other thought processes active in the sport motorcycle community; these included expressions about the riders’ personal values and of their attitudes about quality. It is important to note that the riders in the 1970s were taking part in an

3 Motocross Action, “Race Test: Maico 450,” Motocross Action (December, 1974), 40-44. 4 Dirt Bike Magazine, “Maico 250,” Dirt Bike Magazine (November, 1974), 69. 167 older and still-evolving tradition. The changes which Maico users implemented reveal something of who these men were, beyond simply the practical (or other) motivations prompting their actions. We can see by this point in this study that Maico was never a default choice for the average motorcycle buyer; there were many other brands which were cheaper, easier to maintain, and more reliable as an occasional rider. Buying, maintaining, and racing a Maico meant making a series of conscious choices and proclaiming a certain intent—essentially, a public vow to tend to the needs of this thoroughbred machine—which other riders understood by virtue of the machine’s symbolic significance. Modifying the Maico was likewise a conscious choice with underlying meaning. The Maico, as we will see, was a symbol for quality and personal dedication; it was evidence of the buyer’s commitment to the sport and his understanding of its requirements. The man who purchased a Maico was likely a serious motorcyclist.

Throughout this chapter are references to Wheelsmith. Wheelsmith Engineering (later

Wheelsmith Motorcycles) was a Santa Anna, California, company founded originally in 1970 by two unemployed aerospace workers and motorcycle enthusiasts: Sam Wheeler and Greg Smith. 5

Wheeler left soon after the company’s founding, and Smith elected to remain with the business.

While Smith initially produced performance parts for a variety of recreational and sport vehicles, it was the company’s association with Maico motorcycles that was responsible for Wheelsmith’s legacy. German Maico quickly took note of the small company in the early 1970s, realizing that these American enthusiasts were more than flash-in-the-pan opportunists; a number of Smith’s modifications so impressed Maico management that they were put into production on subsequent

Maico models. Wheelsmith, like other companies that will be mentioned, made components for

Maicos which not only worked well, but indicated that the owner of was an “insider” in the sport motorcycle culture; a man who knew what did and what did not work well, and for whom

5 See chapter 4.4 for further discussion of Greg Smith and Wheelsmith. 168 performance was a priority. The ability of these small custom parts makers to add value to a

Maico motorcycle, in multiple ways, was significant.

Aluminum; use and meaning.

Aluminum, as the material from which most of these added-on high-performance items were made, also deserves an introduction. This now-ubiquitous metal is a fairly recent discovery in the world’s industrial history. The extraction of aluminum from the earth only became practical in the early 1800s, and it remained rare, rather expensive, and still in search of an appropriate application in the first half of that century. The curious, relatively soft metal had not the inherent glow and allure of gold or silver, but was noted for its light weight and found several initial niche uses as containers and as military helmets. Aluminum refining was greatly advanced by Henri Sainte-Claire Deville in the mid-1850s, and the metal was initially combined with other, more beguiling metals to further its appeal as a basis for decorative objects. As refining costs continued to drop, aluminum became the material of household accessories for a time; the curious dull silvery substance had still not found a real purpose. It was not until the 1900s and the new age of transportation design that aluminum began to find its place. In this application, aluminum’s light weight, malleability, high conductivity of heat and electricity, low melting point, ability to be alloyed with other materials, and non-corrosive qualities made it an ideal material for many uses in trains, boats—and especially aircraft.6 As World War II dawned and the world rearmed, the need for aluminum for armament production was critical, and all armed states struggled to ensure they possessed an adequate strategic supply. With the end of the war and industry’s refocus on peacetime production, aluminum remained in demand for these same reasons; as well, several decades of its use in aviation had made the metal synonymous with

6 Sarah Nichols, “Aluminum by Design: Jewelry to Jets,” in Aluminum by Design, ed. Sarah Nichols (Pittsburgh: Abrams Publishing, 2000), 13-20. 169 high-end mechanical performance. The prevalence of aluminum in war material was definitely not lost on the young men who returned to civilian life after the war. These were the same men who were fueling post-war automotive, “hot rod,” and motorcycle interest, and were then reinventing American motorcycle culture.

Even beyond its obvious qualities of lightness, strength, and relative resistance to oxidation, aluminum expressed modernity and optimism like no other substance. It had become the material the material of the Space Age, and of unlimited technical possibilities; it was a symbol for what was progressive and on the horizon.7 And, just as the general public associated aluminum with rockets and space capsules, motor enthusiasts had, by the 1960s, adopted the metal in numerous applications in the search for lighter weight and greater performance. Some of the first aluminum-bodied cars came directly from military aviation: war surplus aluminum

“drop tanks” (streamlined long-range fuel tanks for aircraft that could be jettisoned in combat) were purchased by “hot rodders” and used as the bodies of their home-made race cars. Light- weight and spark-resistant fuel tanks on racing cars were another popular use for aluminum.

Motorcycle enthusiasts, facing the same concerns as the performance car culture, adopted aluminum in the same ways. Aluminum was, to the sports car and motorcycle cultures, the visual essence of high-performance.

Analyzing motorcycle performance modifications; techniques and applications

For the motorcycle historian, one key benefit to the knowledge of performance modifications is that these data assist in 1) determining dates of manufacture, and, 2) speculating the probable riding history of a machine. Most parts and modifications are easily linked to specific time periods. A large gas tank and a Webco extra-spark-plug holder may denote a desert

7 Paola Antonelli, “Aluminum and the New Materialism,” in Aluminum by Design, ed. Sarah Nichols (Pittsburgh: Abrams Publishing, 2000), 167-89. 170 racer or trail bike, while a small tank implies motocross use. The presence of multiple modifications may indicate extended use over time and may also contribute to the historical interest and monetary value of the machine. Finally, familiarity with modifications helps in determining the motorcycle’s originality. The historian can learn to de-code the symbols and meanings of these alterations, once provided with a bit of background explanation.

We might also remember that while modifying motorcycles and automobiles has been a world-wide practice since motor vehicles were invented, motor enthusiasts in the United States have certainly been among the most noted customizers. This practice continues today and is especially visible, broken down by modification-specific groups. Among the more famous is the

Chicano-American “low-rider” culture. “Rodders” exist in several varieties, attuned to different types of cars and preferred modifications. Motorcycle chopper and custom bike builders construct concept motorcycles, and “art-car” devotees lavish decorative paint schemes on their cars in the process of constructing aesthetic statements.

Thus when considering the modification of a Maico or any other industrial object, in this

American context, we should remember that we are speaking of a nationality with a seemingly innate tendency to change and re-create not only their motorcycles, but also themselves and their environment. Tocqueville already noted this propensity of Americans to modify machines while observing the young United States in the 1830s.8 Americans cannot seem to sit still or let anything alone; we see move and change as good, as we ourselves work hard and move incessantly forward.9 Even today, many Americans purchase a new motorcycle, and immediately after pay hundreds of dollars more for after-market “high performance” exhaust systems and

8 Alex de Tocqeville, Democracy in America (New York: Bantam Dell, 2004), 366. 9 David Morris Potter, People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), 55-60, 88-90. 171 other major parts. 10 They appear to be stating that either the part already on the bike (designed and placed there by specialized engineers) is inadequate for their needs; or perhaps they just cannot be content to leave things the way they are. The motorcycles of these riders need to look different from those of others; they enjoy conveying to onlookers that this is not just any machine, but their personal machine and an extension of themselves. In the 1960s and 1970s, the hop-ups and alloy pieces Americans added to their cars and motorcycles might not even greatly improve performance, but they certainly conveyed meaning. Observers within the culture considered a hopped-up car or motorcycle as necessarily better than an unmodified one

(assuming the work was done properly, and conveyed a good visual appearance and quality workmanship). We will see that performance and aesthetics were equally important to American motorcycle enthusiasts.

Modification, Personalization, and Meaning

Americans riders personalized their motorcycles from their first exposure to the new invention. In the early years of the motorcycle (from about 1903, on) this was a response to rapidly advancing technology, and also an acknowledgement of environmental conditions or their particular expectations for the machine. That is, as the motorcycle industry developed new accessories such as brakes, better carburetors, clutch drives, lighting, and electrical generating systems, motorcyclists added these to their older motorcycle. They also modified the motorcycle to suit their use: Would it be carrying passengers, and need an extra seat or sidecar? Perhaps it would be raced, and therefore be lightened by removing fenders and any other unnecessary parts.

Other than the decorative attachment of extra lights, leather fringes, and the like, these changes were almost always functional in the pre-World War II period. Immediately after World War II

10 This statement is readily confirmed by observing any gathering of motorcyclists, and examining the myriad of aftermarket exhaust systems by firms such as FMF, TwoBrothers, Screaming Eagle, Vance & Hines, etc., on the motorcycles. 172 and along with the tremendous newfound interest in the motorcycle, modifying one’s machine in the pursuit of higher performance became much more common. The practice of “bobbing” one’s motorcycle, attributed to returning American servicemen, became fashionable.11 Making a

“bobber” was mostly a subtractive practice: removing excess metal and parts to reduce weight and better avail the bike to what power it could at present produce. Adding other, better performing parts immediately followed. The idea of performance became a fundamental aspect of motorcycle culture, if not the imperative.12 The ex-servicemen’s modified motorcycles were similar to the airplanes, vehicles, and other military hardware they had operated for the past several years; stark and functional. These stripped-down machines were highlighted by the natural attributes of unpainted raw metal alloys and the warm glow of exposed brass and copper.

A visual aesthetic for the pursuit of high-performance was simultaneously coming into being. Before World War II, a “nice” motorcycle was one in good condition; perhaps even with extra horns, lights, or other accoutrements. After the war, the appearance of the leaner, modified,

(and apparently higher-performing) motorcycle attracted the attention of both riders and non- riders. The removal of unnecessary parts and the fitting of new performance parts was visually synonymous with this new performance ethos. Whether the work done and parts added actually did improve performance in any significant way was another thing; appearing like it did mattered at least as much to the machine’s owner.

At the same time in Britain, a culture reflective of the United States in many ways

(including the passion for motorcycles), post-war biker culture likewise coalesced into a more distinct, performance-oriented community. Young British motorcyclists in the 1950s, to their good fortune surrounded with lighter and better-performing native bikes than their American

11 Alford and Ferriss, Motorcycle, 174. The term “bobbing” refers to cutting off much of the heavy steel fenders, then bending the cut metal edges up slightly, in a “bob.” 12 Mathew Drutt, ed. The Art of the Motorcycle (New York: The Guggenheim Museum, 1998), 198. 173 compatriots, nonetheless modified their Royal Enfields, Nortons, Triumphs, and BSAs.

Longtime British motorcycle culture participant/observer Mick Duckworth describes this process, in its outermost, most superficial layer, as a desire for increased speed and performance, but also as a quest to create a “personal stamp;” to establish an identity for oneself, in conjunction with the machine’s appearance.13 In Great Britain the “Rocker” culture of low-slung, high-performance “café racers,” equipped to do the “ton” (achieve 100 mph on public roads) proliferated. The desire for an outward appearance of performance remained, but was highly integrated with the innate quest for self-expression on the part of the builder. For most motorcyclists these desires are still inextricably entwined, and became hallmarks of motorcycle culture.

The value of the modified motorcycle

Beyond actual performance, we can now appreciate all these period alterations for their own inherent creativity, beauty of execution, and historical context. Although antique automobile and motorcycle restorers historically have avoided and “corrected” non-stock modifications to their machines, there are good reasons to retain and appreciate these modifications. Keeping the modified machines in their altered condition encourages a deeper insight into the machines’ design and limits, and also grants an understanding into the way men in a pre-computerized world responded to challenges and problems. In the particular case of Maico, suspension changes made to the early-to-mid-1970s models, when Maico pioneered long-travel suspension, and improvements appeared monthly on the international stage, can be particularly interesting.14

13 Mick Duckworth, Ace Times: Speed thrills and tea spills, a cafe and a culture (London: Redline Books, 2011), 124-41. 14 Maico’s role in the development of long-travel rear suspension, beginning in 1973, is detailed in several later chapters. Along with Yamaha, Maico shares the distinction of being the original test-bed for long-travel suspension. To Maico’s credit, however, the trickle-down flow of advanced rear suspension technology from the factory to the individual owner, both in the United States and around the world, happened almost immediately. 174

Maico owners were among the first riders to experience and benefit from this new concept in suspension. Since many Maicos in the early 1970s were modified to long-travel suspension configuration, either at home or professionally, motorcycles of this era are ripe for study by motorcycle historians.

Origins of Maico performance parts

Most aftermarket parts applied to Maicos were manufactured by specialist companies, and then purchased and installed by the owner. Although some modifications were home fabrications by the owner/builder, this was not the norm. Maico, like most other motorcycle manufacturers of the day, did not venture far into the production and sale of accessories for its own motorcycles. The Yamaha company was a notable exception, producing its own line of higher-performance parts (the G.Y.T. or, “Genuine Yamaha Tuning”) line for Yamaha machines.

Through the provision of these “hop-up” items, Yamaha recognized and moved to meet

American consumers’ desires to customize. In the process they also countered some of the attractive reputation of the European brands like Maico, CZ, and Husqvarna, for being blank canvasses for the many custom options available. Yamaha aside, the ability of the independent parts builders to dominate the custom parts market was due to the coalescence of the motorcycle community, bound together by the many motorcycle magazines which emerged in the 1960s.

This print media network enabled small companies like Wheelsmith to communicate with customers, and then deliver the products via the United States Postal Service or from the stock of a local dealer/distributor.15 In the pre-digital age, the worlds of publishing and surface mail allowed for a tightly-knit but widely-distributed national community. Thus, when the motorcyclist saw the need for a better part, he had the choice of whether to fabricate the part

15 In the early 1970s, most interstate parcels were delivered by the US Postal Service. Though United Parcel Service (UPS) had long been in business, interstate commerce regulations still presented significant restrictions for the company. Federal Express, founded in 1971, had yet to challenge the US Postal Service. 175 himself (as in the early days), or to simply buy the shiny new good-looking and peer-accepted creation in the ads, either from a retail motorcycle shop or by mail order (usually the preferred option).

The parts suppliers directly advertised in periodicals such as Dirt Bike, Popular Cycling,

Big Bike, Cycle World, and the rest, and also advertised indirectly by ensuring star riders and teams were photographed and seen using their products. The special brake pedals, gas tanks, shock absorbers, or suspension modifications used by the winning riders were naturally taken by observers as being performance-enhancing objects. With the presence of a peer community of sports riders, connected by the motorcycle media, a new specialty part from a certain maker

(attached to a star rider’s bike) had a good chance of being seen, analyzed, and desired by readers across the entire country within the next month. The cycle newspapers and magazines were in fact very focused on the alterations and performance parts added to the winning bikes; these were called “trick” parts in the vernacular, and were always of great interest to readers and riders. If a star rider went fast using the part, readers reasoned that it must be good. Buying the brand-name part (as opposed to the fabricating it themselves) was often preferable, as installing the bought name-brand item immediately carried with it the cachet and elan of the manufacturer and its star users. This option resulted in likely as good a part as what the individual could have made himself, and, perhaps more importantly, came with immediate name-recognition credibility. Certain heavy modifications, notably frame alterations, were performed by owners, according to guidelines publicized in the magazines or (in the case of Maico) as instructed by

176

Maico employees.16 The majority of Maico modifications, however, were additive, and not of the individual builder’s manufacture.

Figure 43. Mike’s Racing Center advertisement, circa 1974. Not only does the ad mention highly-desired

items for the Maico rider, but the address and sunny imagery further enticed the reader with southern

California allure. (Source: Dirt Bike Magazine)

Modification and the aesthetic component

The impetus for these riders to modify and improve their motor vehicles, as we have noted, is rooted in two closely-entwined motives: to improve the machine’s performance, and as a forum for the machine’s owner to express his understanding and discernment. These two desires may originate independently, but coincide and re-emerge in complex reflections and refractions of one another. Steven Alford and Suzanne Ferriss confirm that customizing, as it

16 Interview with Dennie Moore by David Russell. Maico factory riders, travelling the United States racing circuit, also served as conduits for the latest performance information and techniques from the factory in Germany or the racetracks in Europe. 177 pertains to the motorcycle, has existed from the sport’s beginnings.17 Alford and Ferriss also note that whether the modification of the original machine is performance-focused or aesthetically- oriented, the rider is still creating an “image of himself” with the modifications. To this end, he can express himself as the rider/builder of a fast motorcycle, the rider/builder of a beautiful motorcycle, or both. The rider/builder is, besides affecting material change for increased performance or enhanced aesthetic value, proclaiming that he knows how to affect this change.

To be successful (that is, to be accepted and approved by the cognizant observers within the culture), the owner’s speed- and performance-directed alterations must function simultaneously as both performance-enhancing and be aesthetically-enhancing (well executed) to the overall machine; if not, the changes will appear superfluous or ugly, and the builder rendered out-of- touch. There is at work an unspoken, but yet strict and results-based judgment process. That is, the mounting of a high-performance head or brake pedal should perform its function at least as well as the old head or brake pedal; and must also perform aesthetically, within the overall form and visual statement of the motorcycle. Effective, successful modifications are defensible and stand as the self-expression of the builder/owner, and represent a rationale attempt at better performance and skill on the part of the builder.

17 Alford and Ferriss, Motorcycle, 173-4. 178

Figure 44. Mid-1970s advertisements by Aaen Engineering (left and right) and Honda of Piqua (center).

These advertisements promoted additive modifications which were performance-enhancing and carried with

them a cachet of knowledge and commitment to the sport.

(Sources: Aaen advertisements: Cycle News; Honda of Piqua advertisement: Dirt Bike Magazine)

Changes wrought to a motorcycle are likely more closely scrutinized than fanciful modification to a car, where a greater degree of frivolity is accepted. As I noted, not every automobile “performance” alteration reflects does actually increase performance, if better speed, power, cornering ability, and the like comprise our criteria. A modified car, such as a low-rider or “art car,” might actually lose some aspects of performance in the process of becoming more attractive to its audience. Examples of this inverse relationship in cars include the fitting of excessively wide or narrow tires, extreme suspension modifications, and some engine treatments;

179 the presence of which all actually degrade the machine’s performance as we normally define the term. Usually, this is the exception. The modification is nearly always meant to make the car better at something, even if that something is bouncing up and down (as is the case with some customized “low-riders”). We do, generally, expect change to be good, and to be of value; and, the most good value would be the observation that the modification is doing its job: carrying and moving, going faster and higher, and so forth, better. As Lewis Mumford quoted Ralph Waldo

Emerson about aesthetics in the machine age, “Beauty rests on the foundations of the necessary.”18 To apply this analogy, any modification that does not result in some degree of betterment to the motorcycle, is unnecessary; it is, therefore, not beautiful. Mumford invoked part of Louis H. Sullivan’s earlier dictate, for his own rule on aesthetics: “Form follows function; underlining it, crystallizing it, clarifying it, making it real to the eye.”19 Design historian Arthur

J. Pulos makes much the same argument when describing beauty as “the natural by-product of functional refinement.”20 Aesthetically pleasing modifications will be effective, performance- enhancing modifications, and vice-versa.

Communication, meaning, and risk

We have established that the rider who customizes a motorcycle for performance is also expressing himself and some of his values. While outwardly building for performance, he enjoys the reflected idea, coming back to him (assuming the customizer truly seeks performance and is not just showing off): “This is what I feel about power and speed.” Yet the idea is secondarily available to (and usually also directed at) others who are cognizant of what is being done and why: the builder has expressed what he feels, and will then look for response and affirmation

18 Lewis Mumford. “The Esthetic Assimilation of the Machine,” in A Modern Book of Esthetics, ed. by Melvin Rader, (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1973), 481-90. 19 Louis H. Sullivan, “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered,” Lippincott’s Magazine 57 (March 1896), 403-9; and later published as “Form and Function Artistically Considered” in The Craftsman 8 (July 1905), 453-8. 20 Arthur J. Pulos, American Design Ethic: A History of Industrial Design to 1940 (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1983), 7. 180 from others.21 In short, the rider/modifier knows that other motorcycle people recognize and levy judgment on what has been done to his vehicle, and he in turn conforms to expected norms. By this we mean that even the most purely performance-driven builder still desires the approval of others in his community. Even grandfatherly Burt Munro, played by Anthony Hopkins in 2005’s

World’s Fastest Indian and marching to his own drummer, is still personally concerned, in at least an ancillary sense, with creating an end result which meets the quality expectations of others within his culture.22 Hopkins’ Munro may shave down old worn street tires for his

Bonneville Salt Flats record attempt, or cast his own pistons in his shed, but he in no way wishes to be seen as an amateur or slacker by the American speed enthusiasts he encounters. He may not have money, but, as indicated by the blown-up engine parts on his shelf, labeled “Offerings to the god of speed,” he is not fooling around, either. He is creating his own machine for his own purposes, yet at the same time cognizant of and communicating to others something about both the machine and himself.

Perhaps the builder is not completely aware of what he is trying to communicate. He might even deny that communication is his intention; that he “doesn’t care” what others thing.

But, this communication happens anyway: symbols are presented by one person and decoded by another. The modifier of a racing motorcycle would probably state that he is primarily, or even exclusively, interested in improving the performance of the machine; knocking seconds off a lap time. He might laugh at the idea that he is in any way trying to impress anyone with his handiwork. Yet, at the same time the builder is indeed very conscious of which parts are added, how they are constructed, and the skill and attention to detail with which he will attach the part.

21 R.G. Collingwood, “Art as Expression,” in A Modern Book of Esthetics, ed. by Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1973), 90-100. 22 World’s Fastest Indian, dir. by Roger Donaldson (2005; Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2006 dvd). Burt Munro (1899-1978) was faithfully portrayed in the movie, and still holds several land-speed records. 181

These factors may be important “only to him,” but they are important also in their ability to convey to any onlooker that he has really solved the problem; that the work is done in a craftsman-like manner. After all, he will likely be competing against others like himself who appreciate and value the same considerations. Because the motorcycle customizer is taking some degree of a gamble in his alterations, his work is, as David Pye describes it, something of a

“workmanship of risk.” Production-type, pre-determined work does not involve this risk; Pye calls this the “workmanship of certainty,” free from most risk but less likely to reward the worker (an example of which, as applied to motorcycle work, might be the replacement of a simple, original equipment item).23 The customizer’s work is not only at risk in the creative and building process, but also in the continued performance of the part and the entire machine. Even when incorporating a mass-produced item into the motorcycle, the builder may be seen as working in [Pye’s definition of] an “unregulated” fashion, since the responsibility for proper attachment of the part and the ultimate performance of the machine rests on the builder, and neither, now, on the original motorcycle manufacturer or on the maker of the custom part. The customizer is taking some amount of risk: he stands to be contented personally by its functional performance, as well as being recognized (or rejected) by knowing observers, who will judge his success in defining and solving a problem.

Besides performance enhancement and self-expression, there is another reason which causes motorcyclists to modify their machines. To some degree, it is because the motorcycle builder and his altered machine are analogous to the attraction of the artist to his creation; that quality which Clive Bell calls the pure “material beauty” of the new creation. This is the object as seen by the artist in its simplest form, before the object is re-interpreted by others and

23 David Pye, The Nature and Art of Workmanship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 9, 34-45. 182 becomes what we pronounce “art.”24 The artist (in our case, the artist-builder) sees this pure form as an end in itself, but in presenting us the form in a revised context, he consciously (or unconsciously) invites our appreciation of the object as well. The young man who puts too-large tires on his truck knows they are not really a performance upgrade, and will not help the truck’s performance at all; still, he is executing his idea of “material beauty” for his (and thereafter, our) contemplation. The arrangements and combinations by the artist-builder cause the viewer to react emotionally. The modified car or motorcycle was not meant to rest in isolation, hidden in the builder’s garage. Ideas require a receiver and well as a sender. The creation is intended to be brought forth into the world, onto the road or track, where its beauty and meaning will be realized in the sight of its viewers.

Ultimately, we can say that the material beauty Bell spoke of, in the case of a true performance part or a high-performance motorcycle, is dependent upon the part fulfilling

Mumford’s expectations that it be functional, lightweight and minimally complex. A successful performance part is engineering haiku: the smallest, simplest arrangement necessary to perform the required function. Ultimate examples are the delicate parts made for Suzuki’s incredibly light

RH72 250cc factory racers, circa 1972. The components created for the 168 pound machines were critically designed for light weight, and given no more structural mass than absolutely necessary to last the two forty-minute heats.25 The parts were replaced after each race; they were expected to fail if used beyond this period. Success and beauty were directly linked to functionality.

Having discussed general aspects of motorcycle modification, I now move to the specific.

In the following sections, original Maico equipment is explained, followed by discussion of

24 Clive Bell, “Significant Form,” in A Modern Book of Esthetics, ed. by Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1973), 228-37. 25 Terry Good, Legendary Motocross Bikes (Minneapolis, MN: Motor Books, International, 2009), 28-30. 183 period modifications relating to these parts. We will encounter some of the challenges facing

Maico riders, and solutions and modifications with which riders in the United States responded.

Recognizing the original owners’ craftsmanship, ingenuity, and transmitted meaning will assist in understanding the backgrounds and values of these men.

Owner modifications to Maico motorcycles

The frame, suspension and wheels of a Maico were well-designed and executed, and (up until the advent of long travel suspension in 1973) usually were not in need of significant maintenance or changes. Breakages could be fixed by mechanically-inclined individuals with the right welding equipment, and this was an accurate characterization of the type of American who rode Maicos during this period. To be a competitor meant to take responsibility for one’s self and one’s bike; being a Maico owner implied the same.

The frame itself was constructed of welded and brazed thin-wall chrome-moly steel.

Maico frames are very strong, relatively light, and utilized geometry that is considered classic.

The swing-arm pivot assembly was brilliantly executed, consisting of a hard rubber bushing carrying an inner steel tunnel, through which the swing-arm bolt would pass. Despite the fact that the rubber bushing required no lubrication (and the swing-arm bolt likely never received any) failed or even excessively worn assemblies are rare.

As I have noted, Maico frame geometry was excellent. However, racers sometimes changed the steering-head angle to suit riding style or conditions by cutting and then adding or removing a short length of tubing at the upper frame back-bone, thereby increasing or decreasing rake.26 Ake Jonsson was known to modify all his racing bikes in this way, and might cut and re-

26 Rake on a motorcycle can be described as fork angle, relative to the vertical. Rake affects several aspects of a motorcycle’s handling. (Bicyclists consider rake as fork angle relative to the horizontal.) 184 weld them back the other way, in the limited time between motos, if he felt track conditions warranted it.2728

Figure 45. 1973 frame modified by Eastern Maico to LTR specifications. The upper shock mount (to the right of the shortened orange air-box) has been moved inboard towards the air-box to facilitate greater shock

travel. Note the precision with which the cut air-box has been made to conform to the vertical sub-frame

struts (just to the right of the air-box). (Photo: the author)

Almost as soon as the first forward-mounted, long-travel rear suspension (LTR) motorcycles were seen being campaigned successfully by the factory team in Europe, Maico pushed the technology downward to dealers and users. Factory racers and engineers were tasked with instructing distributors and dealers on how to properly accomplish the same modification on their pre-long-travel 1973-and-earlier frames (note in Figure 45 the new old-stock 1973 frame modified by Eastern Maico, to factory team specifications). Individual owners wasted no time in attempting to copy these modifications, whether crudely re-configuring the frame in the barn with an arc-welder, or by sending the frame to Wheelsmith Engineering in California or other

27 A moto is one of two or three heat races from which the final standing in a motocross race is calculated. 28 Interview with Dennie Moore by David Russell. Swede Ake Jonsson was a graduate engineer who employed not only extreme physical conditioning, but also no small amount of science in his quest to win. 185 shops for an expert job. This modification required shortening the existing air-box or fabricating a new one.29 Owners’ answers to LTR modification ranged from the merely functional to beautiful, finely-executed metal and fiberglass work. LTR-modified pre-1974 frames can usually be differentiated from production LTR frames by a well-pronounced sharp bend in modified frames (as opposed to a more rounded rear sub-frame strut in the production versions).

In addition to the services offered by various companies to alter the stock steel swing-arm for LTR suspension, several providers offered entirely redesigned alloy swing-arms for all years, from the early LTR days, through to the end of Maico. These units were lighter and more rigid than the stock units, and were produced by Thor, Aaen, ProFab, and others (Figure 44). Chain- guide and chain-tensioner systems engineered into these arms sought to mediate the chain- tension problems brought about by LTR. These swing-arms are beautifully designed and constructed, and are highly prized by vintage racers and collectors.

Rear shocks would fail, and were usually replaced periodically in the course of an off- road motorcycle’s career. Thus, shocks were considered a consumable item, like grips and cables. Stock Girling, Koni, and Bilstein shocks (in the early-LTR era) tended to overheat and could be equipped with slip-on aluminum finned “coolers,” a heat-sink machined by owners or purchased from suppliers. Soon the original steel shock body itself could be replaced (as in the case of steel Koni units) with the “Poppy” brand one-piece aluminum-finned body, early in the

LTR era. In later months, Koni marketed its own aluminum-bodied shock. Of course, all manner of aftermarket shocks are found on well-used and un-restored Maicos of all years. Factory racing

Maicos were using hand-machined aluminum shock bodies even before the LTR era (Figure 46).

29 Wheelsmith apparently supplied a kit featuring a new air box back-section, which the buyer could adapt to his shortened stock air box. Figure 45 shows a modified air-box incorporating this kit. 186

Figure 46. Prototype aluminum-bodied shocks. The fine fins were hand-machined from solid aluminum in

this case. The plastic shield on the top unit was protection against drive chain contact.

(Photo: the author)

Maico forks were long considered an industry standard and tended to be left alone. The

36 mm external-spring-type tubes, standard through the 1974 four-speed and 125cc 1975 models, were made 1 mm wider than the industry 35 mm norm at the time, and the extra width significantly improved the strength of the fork tubes. The upper area between the triple clamps on these forks was always prone to rust, leading one to wonder if these tubes were ever plated at all. Wheelsmith offered an in-house extension to the lower aluminum slider and an accompanying damper-rod assembly modification (Figure 48), which increased travel by about an inch beyond the standard 7.5 inches, and was claimed to both aid in cooling and improve damping. Wheelsmith also offered replacement springs, claimed to be more resistant to sacking and with superior rebound characteristics to the standard springs. Aside from these, and oil viscosity or spring changes, the only other modification one might attempt was to alter the profile of the two-piece aluminum block valve in the damper (Figure 47). This modification

187 provided a more constant oil transfer over time, and minimized hydraulic-lock upon extreme fork compression.

Figure 47. Fork damper units, showing alloy end caps hand-modified by early 1970s Maico factory riders,

and found in the old Eastern Maico warehouse. Note the subtle alterations to the inner-three caps, which

changed the hydraulic flow characteristics and lessoned the shock of full-compression landings. The outer

units are stock. (Photo: the author)

Figure 48. Wheelsmith-modified fork slider (bottom) and damper (middle); note cooling fins welded to the

slider. The aluminum-welding here is exceptionally well-executed; this type of low-heat welding is difficult,

and an excellent job is recognized and appreciated by metal craftsmen. Stock damper is at top. The

modification increased travel by one inch. (Photo: the author)

Fork damping fluids were sometimes a unique blend of ingredients, arrived at by the rider. ATF (automatic transmission fluid), actual fork oil, and other liquid lubricants (like Marvel

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Mystery Oil) were used straight, or mixed together. Riders took pride in novel fork fluid mixtures and passed on these recipes to others in the community; whether these blends actually worked better than standard fork oils is subjective. ATF, able to absorb dissolved water, may have unintentionally helped to corrode ferrous fork internal parts. These “home brews” of fork oil helped to personalize the motorcycle, as they altered fork performance. The practice was not particular to Maico riders, but was a modification that a true enthusiast would make.

Early Maico foot pegs, both the initial non-folding design and the later folding, pre-1975 types, were slippery and dangerous (particularly when wet). Since German weather can be even wetter than North American conditions, this was an odd design oversight. Some owners welded more pronounced “dimples” to the existing pegs, while others welded a serrated U-shaped cleat to the peg for additional friction. Wheelsmith offered its own solution to the problem, selling a beautifully-made, folding assembly utilizing a hardened bronze mount with a chromed, open, U- shaped serrated steel cleat (Figure 80). The Wheelsmith foot pegs were a beautifully-executed answer to a potentially dangerous failing, and were highly valued.

Maico air boxes, like the forks, were considered an industry standard. Other than those modifications necessitated by suspension changes, or additional sealing done for wet weather, no changes were usually made. Before the factory began fitting oiled-foam filter elements to new bikes, this upgrade from the stock paper filter was common. Aftermarket or homemade aluminum air boxes were sometimes constructed, replacing broken fiberglass units or as an opportunity to display additional aluminum work.

In the event that the motorcycle would be run in extremely wet conditions, the owner might go to great lengths to further keep water and mud out of the system. Duct-tape was used to cover much of the top of the box, and silicone sealant was effective at closing small gaps around

189 the air box and intake hose. Other mud and wet-weather precautions included silicone-sealing around the points cover and taping between the frame down-tubes, in front of the cylinder, to avoid mud build-up in the fins and over-heating. This process was not attractive, but it was functional.

Fenders on Maico off-road and “Scrambler” models prior to 1970 were of a rounded aluminum or steel (dependent upon year) style. Aluminum was acceptable (being light and able to be re-bent in the case of damage), but heavier steel items would have been a target for replacement by serious riders. From 1970 until the introduction of the new 1975 GP line, the beautiful, classic Maico fiberglass design was used. Extremely lightweight for its time and somewhat flexible, these fenders were still too prone to breakage. One magazine wrote that

Maico fiberglass would “break if you look at it funny.”30 When flexible plastic aftermarket fenders were released in the early 1970s by Preston Petty, Webco and others, these items became popular and practical replacement items. 1975 and later Maico original equipment designs were plastic by Falk of Germany, and were nearly indestructible. Period replacement fenders for the classic pre-1975 type were available in both flexible plastic and a thinner fiberglass.

Handlebars, hand controls, and grips were of excellent quality. Maico original equipment handlebars were a conventional chromed steel, cross-brace design on off-road models. Owners would have replaced bent bars with whatever brand and bend they preferred, probably opting for the least-expensive steel items. Occasionally, solid aluminum bars were selected for dirt track use, but most riders considered these un-braced bars inadequate for the rigors of motocross.

American Sport Racer (ASR, a subsidiary of Eastern Maico) marketed an “Ake Jonsson bend” steel bar, formed to the champion’s specifications (which can possibly be identified by a small white label affixed to the cross-bar). Handlebar grips originally fitted to Maicos, at least through

30 Motocross Action, “Race Test: Maico 450,” Motocross Action (December, 1974), 43. 190 the mid-1970s, were the thin, hard, black rubber Magura items. Being uncomfortable for some riders, in addition to being prone to normal wear, the Magura grips were commonly replaced with softer and patterned aftermarket grips. Throttles and levers were by Magura, top-quality pieces usually replaced only when they broke. The fitting of quicker-turning and straight-pull

(ejecting the throttle cable parallel to the handlebars, not straight out) throttles was common.

Seats through 1972 were less-padded and lower than the 1973 and later items. During this time and prior to the implementation of the more heavily-padded seats, several United States companies sold “GP seat foam kits” to provide greater comfort on these earlier machines. Other than this, Maico seats were again considered among the most comfortable in the industry, and replacement with a different item or modification made little sense.

Gas tanks used on Maico motorcycles, original equipment and aftermarket, varied greatly. Prior to 1968, stock Maico tanks were made of steel and were of a nondescript rounded shape. Original equipment Maico gas tanks from 1968 through 1974 were the “coffin” fiberglass design and could be plagued by leakage. These tanks came in two sizes, might be originally fitted by the factory to any size Maico, and are commonly referred to as simply the “small” and

“large” fiberglass tanks. As even the large tank held scarcely forty-five minutes worth of fuel for a thirsty big-bore engine, replacing Maico tanks was common. Several very well-made American fiberglass and plastic tanks were available from The Fiberglass Works, Mom’s, Cycle Craft,

Superstar and Cole Brothers, to name several specialist firms. These tanks usually approximated the original factory angular design, more or less, but in a few cases bore little resemblance to the factory tanks (particularly the very large replacement desert tanks). A small coffin-type, nylon/ABS-like plastic tank, bolted to the frame via an up-through-the-tank bolt, was a cheap and indestructible replacement for the smaller bikes. This unit was referred to in period

191 advertisements as the “CZ-Maico type” tank, not marked with a manufacturer name, and sold by

Superstar and Cycle Works (Figure 51).31

Figures 49 (left) and 50 (right). Aftermarket fuel tanks. The red Fiberglass Works tank is nearly

indistinguishable from stock. Below it is 1973 Bondurant tank in yellow, created by Eastern Maico and

modeled after Ake Jonsson’s alloy tank, in response to the leaking fuel tank problem that Maico initially

would not acknowledge. Figure 50 shows one of Jonsson’s original handmade alloy tanks, upon which the

Bondurant tank is based. The dent at the rear of this tank occurred in a crash, with Jonsson being injured.

The quick-release spring-loaded cap, made in England, was popular with racers. While the reason for the

placement of the Maico emblems and (sponsor) “Bell Helmets” stickers on Jonsson’s tank are somewhat

obvious, the presence of the American flag on the Swede’s tank invites questions. (Photos: the author)

The large fiberglass tanks attached to those Maico motorcycles imported by Eastern

Maico Distributors from Germany in 1973 nearly all leaked when new. The problem was due to

31 Maico and the Czechoslovakian CZ were developed in neighboring countries and came to share several similarities. Not only did later CZs incorporate a coffin-like fuel tank design very much like Maico, but the two companies’ machines evidenced a similar rough, utilitarian look. CZ is given credit, along with Maico, of being the first two-stroke off-road motorcycles to displace the large, heavy four-strokes in the mid-1960s. CZs were heavier than Maicos, but have similar engine characteristics and were well-machined and known for their strength and reliability. CZ, like BSA and Husqvarna, was originally a weapons manufacturer. 192 bad quality-control at the factory, which might have been a function of poor labor relations or systemic oversight. These motorcycles were all retrofitted at Moore’s distributorship with fiberglass tanks manufactured by Bondurant Products to Moore’s specifications (Figure 49).32

The Bondurant tank’s shape was a synthesis of that of the stock Maico units and of Ake

Jonsson’s alloy 1972 works tanks (Figure 50). Jonsson’s tank is representative of the units that most Maico factory riders of the period 1970 to 1974 used. The tanks were constructed by

German craftsmen, close to the Maico factory, to the specifications of the riders commissioning them. Maico riders Adolf Weil and Willi Bauer, among others, used tanks similar in appearance to Jonsson’s.33

Figure 51. Unidentified extra-capacity tank (left) and Fiberglass Works tank (center), both in fiberglass;

plastic Superstar/Cycle Works tank is on the right. All manufacturers of aftermarket tanks for Maico took

some care to mimic the form of the original units. (Photo: the author)

32 The leaking fuel tank fiasco between Eastern Maico and German Maico in early 1973 was one of the final, pivotal issues in the factory’s abandonment of Moore. German Maico later agreed to send Moore a shipment of motorcycles in payment for his expenses incurred in fixing the leaking tank problem, but then claimed the shipment was a standard delivery and that Moore never paid for. The factory used this argument against Moore in later legal proceedings (see chapter 4.2). Bob Bondurant was an American race-car driver and racing product fabricator. 33 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded) 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg), and interview with Dennie Moore by David Russell. 193

Aluminum, including the various aluminum alloys, is an ideal material from which to fabricate fuel tanks. Not only is it lightweight, but it is less likely to generate a spark when struck, does not corrode (and contaminate the fuel), and is fairly easily repaired. American

Maico riders greatly admired the aluminum tanks, purchasing them from dealers and sometimes fabricating them themselves.34 There are no manufacturer’s identifying marks on any aluminum

Maico-supplied tank (that I am aware of), so identification must be done by shape alone. The vast majority of aluminum tanks fitting pre-1975 in existence today appear to be units produced by subcontractors in Germany for Maico, and which arrived on a Maico or were purchased from a Maico dealer.35 Curiously, given the relatively large numbers of these tanks still in circulation, few if any of them apparently came on the machines as delivered from the manufacturer to

Eastern Maico, at least prior to 1974.36 The survival of a large number of the circa 1974 factory aluminum tanks indicates the value that American riders places on them, perhaps even when the motorcycle itself was discarded.

Most rare are the few factory-works tanks (off factory race-bikes or provided to sponsored riders; example in Figure 50) which still do emerge from time to time.37 These tanks, sometimes commissioned by individual riders and equipped with quick-release caps, were expensive and few in number. For an examination of all the various German-made and factory- fitted aluminum gas tanks, see appendix A, “Identification and Dating of Maico Motorcycles.”

34 Occasionally, one may encounter later-model (1978-79) stock aluminum tanks with a “box” welded to the top of the tank to increase fuel capacity by about a pint. These modified OEM tanks were usually found on open-class machines competing on the national or GP circuits, where a 45-minute moto could exhaust the machine’s fuel supply a lap or two short of the finish, with stock capacity only. 35 Pre-1975 tanks have the “center-mount” hole position, as opposed to the higher front mounting hole on post-1974 models. 36 Dennie Moore insists that through the end of his business dealings with German Maico in late 1973, not one motorcycle came through his distributorship, from its port of entry in Philadelphia, equipped with an aluminum tank; all motorcycles carried the factory fiberglass units. 37 Maico factory racers usually commissioned fuel tanks built to their own specifications by fabricators in Germany; hence, these factory riders could appear on their Maico motorcycles having tanks all slightly-different in appearance. 194

Rear brake stay arm/chain guide assemblies (Figure 52), rear brake pedals (Figure 53), and front brake stay arms were among the most common alloy performance items produced for

Maicos. These were generally very well-made and effective, and their drilled and lightened appearance appealed to American owners.38 Fitting one these times was both a practical answer to weight concerns, and an immediate attention-getter in knowledgeable circles.

Figure 52. Alloy chain guides; ASR item (top) and early Wheelsmith unit (bottom). Alloy chain guides were both relatively inexpensive and effective, and their presence identified an enthusiast’s motorcycle

immediately. (Photo: the author)

38 The most popular version of chain guide was Wheelsmith, but ASR (and perhaps Cooper Motors and other agencies and individuals) often worked hand-in-hand with Wheelsmith in product development. ASR also marketed its own versions of these items. 195

Figure 53. Alloy brake pedals; ASR item on top, early Wheelsmith item, below. The Wheelsmith

item has had metal removed on the left. A drilled item, achieving even lighter weight, was another visual

indicator of the owner’s search for ultimate lightness and performance. (Photo: the author)

A common and simple modification at the home workshop level was to weld a spoke, nail, or other piece of metal to the rear brake arm, and then to stretch a cross-section of inner tube or several rubber bands between this added piece and the threaded end of the brake rod.

This alteration increased return pressure and provided better braking feedback, or “feel” to the rider. Figure 54 shows two variations of this procedure.

196

Figure 54. Two examples of a homemade modification: a nail welded to the rear brake arm. The

arms were made of steel through most years. These two examples were recovered from Maico motorcycles

(left: pre-1978; right: circa 1980) and were re-plated in nickel-cadmium. (Photo: the author)

Maico shift levers were a near-perfect design: light, simple, easily re-bent on the spot if hit. Perhaps most importantly, they were made of an alloy soft enough to shear on the steel transmission shaft spline in the event of a crash (rather than transmitting harmful movement into the cases and causing transmission damage). Some owners (and ASR during the process of making “works” bikes) ground about ½ inch of metal off the tip to lesson the possibility of inadvertent shifting due to contact with the rider’s boot. Several companies offered replacement levers, usually a folding-type steel item, but this was more a response to the high cost of Maico parts or availability, rather than an upgrade. These steel were inferior items for the same reasons the stock items were so effective.

Maico front brakes through the 1970s were notoriously ineffective (both the older symmetrical hub and the later conical hub). This poor performance is at first puzzling, since the conical brake looks so “right:” small, aluminum, and robust. The Maico hub also possesses nearly identical dimensions and total swept area as the excellent one-finger-operated Japanese brake hubs of the same period. Given this knowledge, their poor performance is baffling. A popular early fix for the conical hub by frustrated owners was to simply replace the whole assembly with a Yamaha wheel. This wheel easily fit the Maico forks and axle, and the owners knew it would work. Soon, however, Greg Smith analyzed the problem and ascertained that the real reason for the conical brake’s weakness was out-of-true machining of the components at the factory, not its design or materials. For a reasonable price, one could send the front hub and backing plate to Wheelsmith, who would re-machine and true the components. Once this was

197 accomplished, the Maico front brakes worked as well or better than any Japanese unit. As with other work, no identifying Wheelsmith “signature” is known to have come with this modification. Wheelsmith also manufactured a replacement front brake stay arm (likely for the early machines with heavier steel stay arms) from solid ¼ inch plate aluminum. Maico rear brakes, both the steel and aluminum hub versions, are adequate, at best. Owners paid less attention to modifying them than the front units.

Engine Modifications

In general, Maico engines of 250cc and up produced the “right” power for off-road competition when the new owner rolled them out of the showroom floor. This optimal power output was characterized by power across a broad rpm band, the ability to gain traction and not produce unwanted wheel-spin, and adequate maximum power when needed. The 360cc and larger bikes in particular made ideal power, which other manufacturers tried for years to emulate.

The 125cc off-road GS and MC models left something to be desired in the engine department; their design derived from road-racing, and while they produced considerable horsepower, it was at a high rpm and in a slowly-accelerating, narrow power-band. The transmission, as previously mentioned, was also sensitive and prone to malfunction. Overall, the 125 could be a rather fragile and unreliable motor. A common modification by American MC/GS125 owners, wanting even more power, was to retrofit the RS125 “full road-race” top-end and rotary valve. This modification only exacerbated the motor’s problems for off-road use and caused the over- stressed engines to break even faster. Some riders, like Charles Schank, did manage to successfully compete on the 125s, nonetheless.

198

The more common Maicos were the 250cc-and-up motorcycles.39 Of this group (250cc,

360cc, 400cc, 440cc, and 501cc) the 250s received the majority of horsepower-directed modifications.40 In most cases, especially with the large engines with had plenty of power already, the judicious owner’s first and primary concern was enhancing the motor’s reliability and longevity, along with correcting a few design rough edges to optimize inherent performance.

The most important single action an owner could take to keep his engine in good running condition was probably attention to the motor mount bolts. Maico engines tended to quickly vibrate loose the factory-installed motor mount bolts. Thereafter began a self-destructive path for the engine, involving severe vibration, elongation of the soft aluminum engine cases, progressively-greater frothing in the carburetor, and eventual leaning-out of the fuel-oil-air mixture (and subsequent cylinder wear or piston seizure). The preventative measure for this condition was to install high-quality, American-made bolts with nylon-impregnated locknuts or nuts secured with LocTite adhesive. Encountering original Maico engine cases without some damage from the motor mount problem is rare.

Still, motorcycle riders, especially in the United States, loved power. The quest for more horsepower from already adequately-powerful engines was common. Cylinder and piston porting changes were the most routine engine hop-up modification. Racers experimented on their own, or sent their cylinders and pistons away to businesses advertising this service. Larger carburetors and altered exhaust systems might also be attempted.

39 See chapter 2.3, “Small Maicos,” for discussion of the 125cc engine. 40 Actual displacements of these machines are: 247cc, 352cc, 386cc, 438cc, and 501cc. The practice of rounding displacements up or down to common sizes was and remains normal policy. 199

Figures 55 (left) and 56, showing two experimental factory 450 cylinders dating from circa-1973, discovered in the old Eastern Maico warehouse. The cylinder at left has had the two inlet ports enlarged, and has a 250- like center boost port added; the cylinder at right has had this added center port filled-in with epoxy cement

(now just barely visible), reverting to a relatively stock condition. Given this experimentation and the search

for even more power from the already extremely strong MC450, it is interesting to note that Maico’s star

rider through 1972, Ake Jonsson, felt the smaller (and less powerful) 400’s power output was completely

adequate for world-class competition. (Photos: the author)

The pre-1975 250cc radial motor, among all the engines, produced what might be considered less-than-ideal power and was probably the most modified engine. The transfer port timing on the 250cc motors was actually designed for very-high rpm running and was mismatched to the exhaust and intake port timing.41 In the early 1970s, Dirt Bike Magazine claimed that the 250’s expansion chamber/silencer combination was actually the culprit, and documented the development and testing of a Wheelsmith pipe and silencer that could allegedly fix everything. The 250’s porting problems were remedied with the introduction of the improved

250cc five-speed motor in 1975. Open class machines were also candidates for modification,

41 The 250 engine porting problem was noted in the author’s interviews with Charles Schank, and Gig Hamilton, and confirmed by Wilhelm Maisch Jr. 200 with some interesting factory porting experiments (Figures 55 and 56. Note the addition of the

“fifth transfer port,” similar in design to the 250cc barrel, incorporated in one 400cc factory cylinder, and then expoxied-over in another.). Even the 501 was not spared the grinding wheel, and modified and “cleaned-up” versions were reputed to produce incredible horsepower figures; these machines were intended for flat-track competition.42

Figure 57. “Radial” Maico cylinder head, handmade from a stock square-barrel head by Pennsylvania racer

Tony DiStefano’s father. This modification was more for show than performance, and may have helped the younger DiStefano’s motorcycle stand out and appear highly-modified to his competitors. It would have been

immediately recognized at the time as being different. (Photo: the author)

The most easily-recognized cylinder/head modifications, externally and visually, were certainly those done by Wheelsmith. Beginning about 1972, Wheelsmith began working closely with the traveling Maico racing team (as well as sponsoring their own local Maico riders) and quickly developed a reputation for innovation and well-designed and well-executed modifications—of which German Maico wisely took note. Of the many Wheelsmith modifications that the factory adopted, the most recognizable was the “wedge” cylinder design

42 See chapter 2.2. 201

(Figure 83), which was adapted to the 1977 “Adolf Weil replica” production machines. In this design, Wheelsmith removed some external finning from the rear of the cylinder and head, at an angle creating a “wedged” look. This was said to balance cylinder heating and heat-dissipation characteristics, as well as to remove several ounces of weight. Accompanying the exterior alterations were interior cylinder porting changes, and Wheelsmith customers as well as factory racers prior to 1977 incorporated these improvements on their machines.

Carburetion was sometimes considered a deficiency on Maicos by American riders, particularly when the German Bings were compared to the well-mannered Mikunis and Keihins fitted to the Japanese competition. Early side-draft, flooding-prone Bings often necessitated the motorcycle being laid on its side and the top-end drained, just to start the machine.43 The more modern Bing V54, fitted from about 1969 and certainly an excellent and very maintenance- friendly unit, would still froth easily with moderate engine vibration, be it from loose engine mounts or a cracked head stay. From the beginning, many riders replaced the Bing with the ubiquitous Mikuni for its perceived superior functioning, although many Maico tuners still considered the Bing a fine, easily-tuned unit and preferred to stay with it.

An interesting carburetion experiment conducted by both C.H. Wheat and the Maico factory involved the addition of a second carburetor to the 501, both feeding the cylinder via a

“Y” spigot. The smaller carburetor fed the engine in the lower rpm range, and the larger unit kicked-in at mid-range and above. A machine of this type, made by the factory, was also in the possession of Eastern Maico.44

Maico engines came equipped with either “small” or “large” clutches, further differentiated by the use of either two-row or three-row primary chain drives (two-row on 250s

43 Interview with Dennie Moore by David Russell. 44 This special machine is discussed in the chapter 2.2. 202 and early large bikes; three-row on later large bikes). Buyers could at one time specify which clutch they desired, and owners converted engines to the different clutch in order to obtain the end result they wanted (generally easier-pull versus less slippage under power). Making the clutch change was relatively easy, the principal requirements being a replacement clutch and then either matching the contact areas between the clutch cam and pressure plate, or replacing the case with a wider left-side outer case, as required.

Wheelsmith offered sets of hardened-steel single-coil springs to replace the Belville-type factory clutch springs (washers), which were claimed to more resilient to sacking. Some authorities, however, insist that the Wheelsmith items never quite worked right, and the OEM

Belville springs were actually superior when the clutch was properly maintained. Wheelsmith also offered modifications of the clutch basket itself.

Capacitor-discharge ignitions (CDI) were available for Maico since the 1970s to replace the condenser-and-points units installed by the factory (see advertisement, Figure 44). Although

Maico ignition systems were not particularly criticized by owners, the CDI units eliminated some periodic maintenance and the usual weaknesses of points systems. These weaknesses included wear, slippage, and moisture interference.

Finally, as with other competition motorcycles then and now, expansion chambers

(exhaust pipes) were a commonly-modified or replaced item, whether due to damage or the quest for better power. Wheelsmith, Aaen Engineering, Cole Brothers, Revell’s 2-Stroke, Torque

Engineering and other performance businesses offered replacement pipes for Maico owners in the mid-to-late 1970s. These companies must have sold them by the thousands, given the numbers of 1976 and 1977 machines found with period aftermarket high-pipes (not provided by

203 the factory until 1978).45 In fact, discovering a 1976 or 1977 machine with the original factory down-pipe remaining is very rare. Unlike today, most aftermarket exhaust manufacturers did not label their products. Hooker and Bassani were two who did, but these manufacturers did not produce Maico pipes. For the other brands, identification can be difficult. Wheelsmith units are by far the most commonly encountered aftermarket period pipe, and can be generally identified by their construction using longitudinally-welded “halves,” similar to modern pipe construction.46 Aaen pipes (Figure 44) can be recognized by the use of cone sections in their construction, and the routing of the aft section of the pipe remaining outside the air box (contrary to Wheelsmith practice, in which pipes were routed through the air-box).

Maico motorcycles were not, as a rule, painted decoratively by owners. Period photographs show the machines in use as delivered from the factory. This lack of superficial ornamentation was the norm in off-road motorcycle riding, and did not apply only to Maico.

Some examples have been located which were painted or decorated, but the workmanship is not impressive, and it would appear to have been executed by young riders who came to possess the machines well after the bikes’ useful years. One form of ornamentation that does appear on many old dirt bikes, Maico included, is that of applying self-adhering stickers. On a professional level, the stickers (displaying the logos of various sponsoring oils, magazines or speed shops) fulfilled the rider’s part of the advertising sponsorship agreement. Sponsored riders received money or parts in such an agreement. Winning riders, who were not officially sponsored, might also receive money from these companies if their bikes displayed the companies’ stickers. Actually using the product was not necessarily required: Dennie Moore recalled Maico rider Ake Jonsson faithfully showcasing [petroleum product maker and sponsor] Bel-Ray’s decal on his bike, but

45 “Down-pipes” run under the motorcycle, lower the center of gravity, and are prone to damage. “High (Up)-pipes” are routed around or above the engine, and are far less prone to damage. 46 Wheelsmith pipes came from the manufacturer with a foil identification decal. 204 never actually using the oil.47 On the amateur level, the placement of stickers appears to be an emulation of professional practice as well as the cheapest and easiest route to personalization and self-expression. The attraction for stickers by off-road riders is fascinating and continues today.

In fact, modern riders can and do purchase sets of stickers, showcasing commercial enterprises, for their motorcycles and, in effect, pay to advertise for these businesses. This identification with commercial companies and products allows the sticker-bearing amateur to announce his affiliation with the recognized, culturally-significant object. In essence, this practice endows the sticker-bearer at least some of the cachet of rider who purchases and uses the product. Such an affiliation with a recognized quality object helps the bearer attain legitimacy within the culture.

(Examples from the automotive world would be the display of “STP” (oil treatment) or

“HOOKER” (exhaust systems) on the window of a car, proclaiming that the car and driver are performance-oriented, and that the driver likewise values these culturally-accepted objects.)

Popular motorcycle stickers of the 1970s included “Bel-Ray” (oil), “Wheelsmith,” “Metzler”

(tires), and “Champion” (spark plugs). Normally, the originating dealer placed his business information on a sticker, attached to the motorcycle, as well (such as “Bull-Pen Cycle Sales”).

Owing to the fact that many dealers were selling off-road motorcycles as an additional product to supplement their primary business, many dealer stickers from the 1960s and 1970s may proclaim the business having sold the bike as a welding shop, hardware store, auto garage, farm supply store, or a like entity.

Maico not only spawned an impressive after-market industry in the United States, but an entire aftermarket motorcycle, as well. This motorcycle, which can be considered as something of a reinterpretation of the Maico, is the short-lived Cooper. The Cooper was a Mexican- manufactured motorcycle of reasonable quality, largely designed and created by West-coast

47 Interview with Dennie Moore by David Russell. 205

Maico distributor Frank Cooper. No doubt as a result of Cooper’s involvement with Maico, the

Cooper motorcycle predictably shared very similar frame geometry and design with the Maico.

In fact, some sources suggest that certain Cooper engine parts, made by the Mexican Moto Islo company, are interchangeable with those of certain Maicos.48

Figure 58. 1973 advertisement for Cooper motorcycles, the creation of western Maico distributor Frank

Cooper. The claim to reliability from finishing four of five entered motorcycles in the tough Barstow-to-Las

Vegas event was justifiable. Note that the rear of the motorcycle is very similar to that of Maico. (Source: Dirt

Bike Magazine)

In conclusion, the Maico motorcycle was a well-designed machine that could be raced,

“out of the box.” It did, however, benefit greatly from additional preparation and modification,

48 The Cooper line was produced in 1973-74 and sold well enough for examples to be available today. The piston- port 250cc engines powered both enduro and motocross versions, and were brightly attractive, with yellow fiberglass bodywork over silver steel frames. Coopers ceased to be marketed in the United States in 1974, just after demand for off-road motorcycles had peaked. 206 and it was in these areas where American small businesses and motorcycle owners exceled. After carefully checking the machine’s basic structural integrity, American riders found the Maico to be a thoroughbred racer possessing superior handling and power attributes, and capable of competing at the highest levels. It was also a ready platform for further modification and self- expression. Owners were able to select from a wide variety of aftermarket parts, which allowed them to express themselves through their alteration and personalization of the motorcycle. The owners’ selections of parts and their execution of these modifications carried meaning for them as well as for the riding community, which would assess the owners’ work. The modification of the Maico competition motorcycle was thus an ongoing conversation, where the owner’s expression of values and risk were (ideally) affirmed by the culture.

207

Chapter 4: THE MOTORCYCLE BUSINESS IN AMERICA

4.1 EASTERN MAICO AND DENNIE MOORE, PART 1

Figure 59. Dennie Moore racing his 125 Maico, circa 1969, pictured on the cover of All About Motorcycles.1

During the glory years of off-road motorcycling in the United States, the late 1960s and early 1970s, two men were largely responsible for Maico’s success in this country. Frank Cooper operated Cooper Motors in Burbank, California, served as the west coast Maico distributor, and also oversaw all American distribution in his position as North American Maico distributor. On the east coast, Dennie Moore ran Eastern Maico Distributors in Reedsville, Pennsylvania, from

1968 through 1973. A third, mid-western distributor, Debenham Imports in Antioch, Illinois, began distribution in 1970, but did not achieve the influence of the coastal distributors. Cooper and Moore had solidified their regional positions by that year, and were clearly the two major

Maico distributors. Debenham, kept from the more populous and lucrative coastal markets, never achieved similar sales success.

1 Deke Houlgate, All About Motorcycles (New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1974), cover. 208

Still, all three principal Maico distributors, along with their many hundreds of dealers across the country, were enjoying unprecedented sales as the 1970s unfolded. Though off-road motorcycling, like many other American cultural inventions, could call southern California its lodestone, the east coast of the United States was by no means a motorcycling backwater.

Districts Six and Seven of the American Motorcycle Association, in Pennsylvania and Ohio, respectively, were hotbeds of motorcycle racing and riding activity since the 1950s.

The topography and climate of a region influenced the kinds of motorcycle sporting events which evolved in that area. While the west coast possessed a unique venue in the form of desert racing, the east coast and mid-west had by the 1960s developed their own signature event: enduro competition. Enduro riding, especially suited to the eastern and Midwestern forest lands, became a major motorcycle activity. (Motocross, beginning in the late 1960s, was present in all areas of the country. The older dirt track/flat track tradition was likewise not confined to any one area.) Thus, even though southern California’s mild weather and great population density helped make it the national motorcycling trend setter, other regions were simultaneously busy evolving competition variants of their own, which matched the landscape and appealed to local interests.

Growing up in north-central Pennsylvania, Dennie Moore found himself in an area of motorcycling activity that rivaled any American locale, and which embraced enduro, motocross, flat-track, and scrambles.

The story of Moore’s business association with Maico is useful for the details it reveals about Maico, and for the history it conveys about off-road motorcycling’s ascension during its peak years, the early-to-mid 1970s. His life experience is also a characteristically American story about response to adversity; Moore enjoyed times of great prosperity, endured rejection and bankruptcy, and dealt frequently with severe personal crises. And, finally, his story provides a

209 glimpse of German corporate attitude towards, and involvement with, America during these pivotal years.2 Moore worked on automobiles from childhood; joined the U.S. Navy and saw the world; discovered motorcycling racing as a young adult; lived “the American dream,” in becoming a successful motorcycle importer; and suffered setbacks—but never gave up. He values hard work and toughness; he is not a favorite of some elder motorcyclists and former business associates, but he is comfortable with his position. Dennie Moore loves God, his family, things with engines, and a collection of rifles and large-caliber handguns. As such, he fits in with most competitive motorcycle riders of his era, who I portray in this study as similarly socially and morally conservative.

Near his rural family home near Milroy, Pennsylvania, in the 1950s, the young Dennie

Moore would take his stripped-down Schwinn Roadmaster bicycle miles up the snowy draw, running behind the garage. When sufficiently far away, he would bring his bicycle onto the frozen creek bed and start downstream, “racing” as fast as he could across the slippery, rock- strewn surface. Careening and sliding all the way back, past his father’s garage, Moore honed the fledgling skills of a motorcycle racer. Bruised, tired, sweating and grinning, and miles downstream, he would get back on the bicycle and ride back up, to do it all over again. Mountain biking had not yet been invented; at least it had not yet been named. If it had, Moore might have pioneered another sport. As it was, his love of fast travel over difficult terrain still came to serve him well.

2 I realized that I had met Mr. Moore decades earlier, on a bleak, snowy Pennsylvania afternoon, in 1975. Along with a carload of other boys, I snuck out of high school classes to drive to Moore’s business in Lewistown, in search of dirt bike accessories. Our later meetings had, of course, a different purpose. This story is taken from multiple recorded interviews between the author and Mr. Moore, beginning in late March of 2007. 210

Figure 60. Dennie Moore’s first race track: the creek behind the family home, Milroy, Pennsylvania, down

which Moore would ride his bicycle in the winters. (Photo: the author)

Moore’s father’s garage and gas station straddled the road to “Happy Valley,” Route 322 to State College, Pennsylvania, home to the main campus of Penn State University. Milroy is very nearly the absolute geographical center of the commonwealth, composed now of a collection of buildings sitting just to the east of Route 322. This area is hardscrabble high ground, before the Penn State-bound traveler enters the collegiate grace of the horse-breeding estates astride the final approach to the university. Good-paying employers like Fischer

Electronics and a travel trailer manufacturer once gave life to the Milroy area, these are now gone. The most notable surviving Milroy business might be the Tastee-Freez, situated just close enough to the State College route to still entice a tired family to exit the highway.

Around the Moore garage was an acre or so of junked cars, partially disassembled and waiting to be scrapped for their metal content. Young Dennie was assigned the duty of “car burning,” heating the car body seams with a torch to extract the valuable lead from the joints.

Equipped with plenty of this material, he learned the lost craft of auto body “leading,” using a

211 wooden paddle and molten lead to fill dents and creases. Along the way he also became a skilled general mechanic, the sort of person who is good to have around when processes go astray.

Before the war, John Moore was a respected machinist in the Penn State University

Engineering shop. The elder Moore’s highly-evident machine skills resulted in his recommendation for work with the Manhattan Project during World War II. He was assigned to the Project’s Oak Ridge, Tennessee location, and brought his family to live there with him. A few years later, fuse gears that John Moore personally machined were used in the Little Boy and

Fat Man atomic bombs, dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. His skills were sufficiently refined to contribute to the United States’ most critical and secret war project, and he was confident that they would satisfy motorists in Central Pennsylvania as well. After the war,

John Moore returned with his wife and children to Pennsylvania, where he opened the garage.

The elder Moore was a unique character by any criteria. Dennie recalled an older neighbor’s description of his father’s occasional commuting practice: “My dad had a motorcycle before I can remember; an old Indian. He’d set the throttle, stand up on the seat of this thing, and steer it like that. Then he had these two .45s (pistols) . . . according to this old guy, he’d pull out these pistols with a bunch of clips, and just proceed to shoot anything he’d see in folks’ front yards: cans, jars, chickens. He never hurt anyone, but what a crazy guy. How [they ever accepted a guy like him] in the Manhattan Project is beyond me.” The Moore’s raised chickens and rabbits for food, and extracted a living from the garage.

The Moore’s rural, self-dependent life could be stressful. John Moore was a tough disciplinarian, and took his frustrations out on his sons. An especially harsh date in the family’s history was the day Dennie’s little sister was killed, crushed by the family car with him aboard.

The little girl had run behind the car while her father backed up, unaware of her presence; though

212 taken as quickly as possible to a nearby hospital, the girl did not survive. The event traumatized ten-year-old Dennie and the rest of the family ever after. Years later, the pain of the event remains in his memory. Moore enlisted in the United States Navy upon graduation from high school in 1960. He returned four years later to Milroy, following duty on diesel submarines and destroyers across the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. His Navy experience, including being in charge of the entire water supply on his destroyer, taught him discipline, the value of being proactive, and how to administer large interdependent systems. These abilities would serve him particularly well in his next job. Back from the service, Moore began hanging around

Aurands for Sports (AFS), a thriving sporting goods outlet and distributor in nearby Lewistown,

Pennsylvania, owned by Leonard Aurands. Hired by Aurands in January of 1965 and having recently caught the “motorcycle bug,” Moore asked to be allowed to handle Aurands’ newest business venture, the distribution of the Hodaka lightweight motorcycle line.3 Moore threw himself into designing and setting-up the parts inventory and dealer support system for Aurands’ new Hodaka distributorship. Despite seeing the results of his hard work, Moore knew that his job, involved as it was with a new and unpredictable product line, was not secure. Having developed an appreciation of Aurands’ business practices, he realized that the new venture would have to generate sales quickly if it was to justify his continued employment with Aurands. The problem with that, Moore felt, was that there was not yet a ready line of dealers or customers for the new product. Taking responsibility upon himself, Moore requested the chance to try his hand at sales for the brand as well, and was reluctantly given permission. Hitting the road as the line’s only salesperson, he had 256 new Pennsylvania Hodaka dealers in tow by the end of his first year, a remarkable achievement. Moore already knew he could organize; now, he realized he

3 Hodakas were well-designed, lightweight motorcycles imported to North America by PABATCO (Pacific Basin Trading Company). 90cc and 100cc two-stroke Hodaka motorcycles were some of the first inexpensive and dirt- capable machines to reach American shores, and were the first “real” dirt bike for many American riders. 213 could sell. Learning as he went, Moore assembled the skills necessary to create his own product distributorship infrastructure with each passing day. This preparation was in place when the young salesman visited Daytona Beach Bike Week in early 1968. He had come to test his homemade Hodaka road racer and see new products; while there, he unexpectedly encountered the motorcycle that would become his future. Frank Cooper, the United States Maico importer, had traveled from California to show off his new motorcycle line. Cooper’s seemingly cobbled- together, aggressive-looking machine with the huge cylinder made a lasting impression on

Moore.

Moore returned to Lewistown, determined that his boss take on the Maico line. Soon a brand new, blue Maico 360 square-barrel appeared at Aurands for Sports, shipped from Gray

International in Michigan. Aurands’ initial interest in distributing yet another motorcycle brand soon subsided, however, and he ultimately backed off from his initial decision to sell the German machines. Strongly believing in the brand’s qualities (Moore had been riding the motorcycle),

Moore asked for the opportunity to take Maico as a private endeavor, as a sideline to his continuing sales work. Aurands granted permission, and Moore began taking the steps to become a local distributor, under Cooper.

Moore brought the Maico 360 home with him from AFS, and soon entered it in the 500

Pro class at local dirt track and scrambles/TT races.4 His previous experience was racing the smaller 100cc machines; being short in stature, adapting to the big, growling 360 was demanding. Starting the beast, in particular, was difficult: the finicky side-bowl Bing carburetor required Moore to first lay the 360 on its side, till gas ran out of the cases and carb, before the bike would fire up. Once running, however, the big Maico quickly felt comfortable to its new

4 Scrambles/TT races were a popular American racing format in the 1950s and 1960s involving a manicured dirt surface, left and right turns, and a jump. This racing was eclipsed by motocross by the early 1970s. 214 owner; it was the finest motorcycle Moore had yet experienced. “The thing about the Maico was that it handled; it was easy to ride. You rode it with the throttle, instead of the handlebars. . . . I wanted to be a part of that bike. In my mind, I rode a big gyroscope.5 The whole thing was to keep that rear wheel spinning . . . and the Maico had the power and the handling to do this. You could pitch the Maico in, go sideways—and we’re talking 110 mph here—and when you came out you’d just give it gas and it would straighten up.” Having complete confidence in his product, Moore could only see his business as succeeding.

Eastern Maico

Moore started Eastern Maico Distributors, Incorporated, in the fall of 1968. Co-signing with his father for a $15,000 bank loan, Moore rented an old meat processing plant in Milroy. He placed his first order, for fifteen bikes and a rudimentary parts inventory, to be delivered by air freight from Germany in November of that year. The initial distributorship agreement granted him twelve established dealers, all in Pennsylvania. Moore had every bike in the first shipment sold before the crates touched the loading docks at the Philadelphia airport, and he quickly placed an order for a shipment of fifteen more motorcycles. Using his sales skills on the dealer network he had previously set up with Hodaka, Moore had little problem enticing these and many new dealers to try Maico. Word was spreading fast, and with every race he attended and each week that went by the Maico name was becoming more recognizable among riders; it was synonymous with “serious racing motorcycle.” Moore built upon the sales methodology he had created with AFS and Hodaka: he would organize routes “like the petals of a flower,” traveling outbound from Milroy in a large circle, stopping at each town, meeting old dealers and introducing himself to new ones. Established dealers sometimes laughed-off the young man and

5 Moore’s allusion to the Maico’s gyroscopic properties is expressed by others in this dissertation, particularly Gunnar Lindstrom. Moore is referring to the stabilizing effect of the heavy, spinning, centrally-located crankshaft. 215 his rough German motorcycle; Moore thanked them, noted the visit, and told them he would be back. He kept a “book” on each current and prospective dealer, noting the man’s foibles, preferences, and dislikes. Sometimes it took a year to bring a new dealer onboard, but Moore was patient and relentless. Originally Cooper gave Moore only part of Pennsylvania as his distribution area, but Moore’s success quickly added Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia to

Eastern Maico’s assigned territory. By 1970, all territory from the Carolinas to Massachusetts to

Ohio was Moore’s, with the Florida-through-Mississippi Gulf states soon to follow. Within another year, Eastern Maico had the sole distribution rights for most of the United States east of the Mississippi River. Moore also began to assemble a staff around him. Initially depending on his father and brother Dane, Moore hired Tom Steele from AFS to be the Eastern Maico vice- president. Steele’s wife, Olga, came along as secretary and to oversee and manage the dealer network. Racer Gary Herto started at Eastern Maico as a part-time parts manager. Selvaraj

Narayana eventually arrived from the German headquarters in 1972, assisting with all racing endeavors, and generally being a key player in every aspect of the business. The business prospered.

Figure 61. Former Eastern Maico headquarters building, Reedsville, Pennsylvania. (Photo: the author)

216

Eastern Maico operated on a straightforward distribution business model: the company purchased a product manufactured by someone else (German Maico) and resold that product at a profit to the wholesale dealers (who in turn sold the product to retail buyers). As a distributor,

Eastern Maico was also responsible for many aspects of product and dealer support. The distributor’s responsibilities extended into every facet of product advertising, technical support, and public image (see Figures 62 and 64), as well as general support to the dealers. In fact, other than the interface with and responsibility for the individual retail buyer, Moore’s distributorship carried much of the responsibility for the product’s success. In addition to simply conveying motorcycles to the dealers, Eastern Maico assisted the Maico factory racing team when they were in the Eastern United States, sponsored local riders, paid for media advertising, stocked and shipped repair parts, and handled quality control and maintenance update issues. Eastern Maico responsible for taking possession of the inbound motorcycles at the port of arrival at

Philadelphia, warehousing them there or on the company’s premises, and arranging shipment to the dealers. Usually the motorcycles were pre-purchased by dealers. Ideally, after being inventoried in a bonded warehouse at the port, the motorcycles were addressed to the dealer and shipped directly from that location. Such a system was advantageous both for its quick response to the dealer, and also for the savings in avoiding an extra trip to the distributor’s warehouse.

Moore notes, however, that he also kept 150 to 200 motorcycles at Eastern Maico at all times, for the benefit of new dealers, who he found preferred to pick up the motorcycles personally and build an initial rapport with their distributor. The influx of motorcycles could be demanding: by

1972 Eastern Maico might receive two or three shipping containers a week, each containing 64 motorcycles, and costing Eastern Maico about $1000 per motorcycle, for a total of approximately $64,000 a container.

217

Moore had to quickly understand a marketing quirk, specific to motorcycles. Actual manufacturing costs for the various motorcycle engine sizes (125, 250, and 400 models for the most part, during Moore’s years with the company) were about the same for each model. Yet the selling price of a smaller capacity motorcycle always had to be less than a larger one, owing to expectations in the marketplace. This economic reality was the same across the industry, and generally made the profit margin on all smaller-capacity bikes less (even though greater numbers of the smaller motorcycles might actually be sold). Moore recalls that the distributor profit margin on a 125 Maico was about 12%, then jumped to 28% on a 250, and slid back down to

18% on a 400. These margins were based upon the factory prices dictated by German Maico, and also the need to compete with competitors’ prices. (In the case of the 400 Maico, Eastern Maico had to reduce the price to account for similar-model competition by Husqvarna, CZ, and other high-end manufacturers.) Like modern motorcycle industry business models, Eastern Maico actually made more from the sale of parts and accessories than they did through the sale of the motorcycles themselves.6 A typical week at Eastern Maico in 1972 saw one or two containers arrive in Philadelphia (with the distributor making about $12,000 gross profit per container) and simultaneously $40,000-50,000 in gross parts sales (on which the distributor made an average of

40 percent profit) that same week. Eastern Maico’s total gross sales by year were:

1969: $ 74,000

1970: 280,000

1971: 767,000

1972: 1,100,000

6 This analogy is perhaps most evident in the case of Harley-Davidson, which famously generates far more profit from the sale of accessories, garments, gifts, and other ancillary branded items, than from actual motorcycle sales. (Source: conversations between the author and employees of Susquehanna Valley Harley-Davidson, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) 218

1973: 1,300,0007

Moore’s advertising budget evolved from typical media print ads, at first, to a method of promoting Maico primarily through racing sponsorship. Using this strategy, his advertising came in the form of press coverage of Maico race wins (assuming the Maicos were winning). By 1972

Eastern Maico advertising expenditures were almost entirely devoted to support for the Maico racing team in America: their wins, reported enthusiastically by the local and national motorcycle press, became the firm’s principal advertising voice, although print ads were still run in cycle magazines by Moore and German Maico. In 1972 Eastern Maico spent about $68,000 in direct support of the factory racing team, money well-spent considering Ake Jonsson’s wild success that year and the resultant stream of superlative press reporting and positive word-of- mouth advertising for Maico. Winning nine of eleven races that year in the Trans-AMA series

(the nationwide North American motocross series) Moore summed up his strategy as follows:

“By the end of the year the press was covering it so heavily, that this was my advertising.”

The Maico racing team

Eastern Maico’s support of the factory Maico racing team dates to 1969. North American distributor Frank Cooper requested that Moore assist the team that year as best he could, at least while they were racing throughout the eastern United States. The team had come to participate in

Edison Dye’s new American InterAm motocross series, the progenitor of the Trans-AMA series.8 The InterAm was initially conceived as a sales tool by Dye, who was then importing

Husqvarna motorcycles, but became popular and attracted the factory teams as well as the major

European motocross stars. Moore lent Maico star Ake Jonsson his one company van that first

7 Eastern Maico sales figures shown are as reported by Moore and are unsubstantiated. 1973 sales were affected by German Maico’s refusal to ship Moore any more motorcycles after August of that year. 8 Telephone conversation between Ed Youngblood and the author, September 21, 2013. The InterAM ran through 1969, then again in 1971, according to AMA records. The Trans-AMA series began in 1970 and eventually replaced the InterAM (See Annex C). 219 year. As the team moved around the United States, Moore arranged for local dealers to help the team with vehicles, lodging, and any other assistance they could provide, when the team appeared in their areas. The following year, in 1970, Willi Bauer represented the Maico factory team, and Moore dedicated a new Ford van to the team’s efforts. In 1971, with the Trans-AMA continuing to grow, stalwart Maico icon Adolf Weil joined Bauer for the series, and Moore independently sponsored Swede Tore Jonsson, brother of Ake.9 That following year, 1972, was

Maico’s glory year in America, brought about by Ake Jonsson’s domination of the American series and world championship bid. The team then was comprised of Ake Jonsson, Dutch dentist and racer Gerritt Wolsink, and Maisch family heir and racer Hans Maisch.10

As motocross soared in popularity and off-road motorcycle sales increased, nearly all manufacturers of dirt bikes sponsored traveling teams. Suzuki, Yamaha, Maico, CZ, and

Husqvarna were among the first factories to resource factory teams, and these were joined by

Kawasaki, and Honda. The dissimilarity in funding available to the well-supported teams (such as Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and even Husqvarna) versus that of the more meagerly-funded teams (CZ, Maico, and other smaller companies) was vast. But, funding alone did not insure success on a racetrack. Despite the disparity in financial backing, Moore noted that often the interpersonal dynamics within the large, heavily financed teams—despite earning large salaries and having armies of tractor-trailers, managers and mechanics in support—was often anything but productive. “I noticed all the [other] guys were fighting. . . . they’d come out on the track, be

9 Tore Jonsson, the brother of wunderkind Ake Jonsson, is something of an enigma in 1970s motocross. He won the August 1, 1972, Trans-AMA event in New Berlin, New York, and placed 8th in both the September 19 Carlsbad, California, and October 10 New Berlin races. He disappeared from sight in the United States after 1972. His brother Ake does not recall him being in the United States. Eastern Maico sponsored Tore. (Race results are obtained from AMA records, and are listed at Annex C.) 10 Hans Maisch, usually a 250 class racer, competed in the 500 class in the 1972 Trans-AMA series (see Annex D). Some European professional riders, differing from most United States professional riders, sometimes completed professional post-secondary educations (like Jonsson and Wolsink), enjoyed a racing career, and then returned to the professions for which they were formally trained. 220 thinking of something else, and not ride well. I thought that the only way we were going to beat them was to keep our riders happy. The Maico factory sent them here with motorcycles, a small salary, and some parts. And perhaps a little travel money . . . which they didn’t want to spend! It was up to us, myself and the dealers, to get them the rest of the support and parts they needed, get them from point-A to point-B, and pay the other expenses. . . . So, we started to line up some contingency money; the first was from Champion spark plugs; maybe $100 a race. Then we hooked-up with Bel-Ray oil in 1972; of course you know where they are now, but back then they were just another little company. But it was a good product; good oil. . . . Bel-Ray agreed to pay out $200 a week for acknowledging their sponsorship, I believe. And they really didn’t care if the riders actually ran their oil or not! And, you know, some riders didn’t run the oil—they just ran the sticker! . . . At any rate, my whole theory was to keep the team happy. We were happy and winning while the other teams were falling apart.”

Moore’s dedicated handling of the Maico team contributed to Maico’s domination of the

1972 Trans-AMA series, in which Ake Jonsson led the team in an unprecedented string of wins.

Moore that year bought an old Fagel bus, soon nicknamed “The Great Kahuna,” to transport the team. To further help the underpaid (and, often, not paid, in the case of the several American

250cc support riders that Eastern Maico assisted) Moore and the dealers organized “motocross schools” at races, where the star riders spent a day or two instructing local amateurs for a fee. 11

These schools could net a star rider several hundred to a thousand extra dollars each week, which helped to bridge the vast salary differential between what Maico could afford and what the

Japanese companies were paying for similar, high-caliber talent. Professional motocross riders were, not unreasonably, seeking to make the most money possible, while simultaneously

11 In the early days of American motocross, the 500cc (or Open) class was the primary event, with the 250cc event being called the “support class.” Notable support class racers sponsored by Eastern Maico included Gary Chaplin, Jimmy Weinert, and Bob Harris. 221 maximizing their chances to attain the greatest success. On a personal level, the equation was very much a balancing act, and more money and financial resourcing (such as a contract with a

Japanese manufacturer provided) did not necessarily equate to better racing results (which ultimately affected pay, as well). Also, switching to another brand usually required a significant learning curve in both machine characteristics and corporate culture. Weighing these factors led some top riders to change sponsors often for higher salaries, while others were content to stay with a brand they understood and felt the most competitive on. Ake Jonsson elected to move from Maico to Yamaha in 1973, ending one of the most successful combinations of man and motorcycle, ever. Yet this pairing never did result in the wins that observers (and Yamaha executives) expected and hoped for. Although the marriage looked good on paper, bringing one of the most talented motocross riders to the massive financial and engineering resources of

Yamaha, the Jonsson/Yamaha racing results never lived up to the expectations. Alternatively,

Finn Heikki Mikkola, switching from Husqvarna to Yamaha in late 1976, soon adapted to the new machine and culture, and did achieve the hoped-for greater levels of success. Adolf Weil, unlike both Jonsson and Mikkola, raced for his first sponsor, Maico, his entire professional career. Comfortable with his fellow Germans, Weil never sensed reasons compelling enough to make him defect to another brand, and this comfort seems to have contributed to his success.

Moore, like Weil, recognized how a positive, nurturing relationship between sponsor and rider contributed to winning results.

American Sport Racer

An unheralded achievement of Moore and Eastern Maico was their effort in the transformation of the protective apparel worn by American off-road riders. Moore noticed that

American racers in the 1960s tended to wear black leather protective gear for the most part,

222 further equipping themselves with lace-up “lineman’s boots” and possibly gloves designed for something else entirely. As he put it, “we looked like a bunch of muddy football players.” Moore set himself to remedying the situation. European riders were then already changing the styles, with their greater use of color and purpose-built riding gear. The most critical thing Americans needed help with, Moore reflected, was the boots. The thick steer-leather work and riding boots of the period were made of overly thick, inflexible hides, and seemed to be worn-out by the time the rider finally broken them in and was comfortable in them. A key problem was that the boots, either due to their rigidity or to the placement of the straps, did not bend easily at the ankle. This ability to pivot was critical for the motorcycle rider, whose feet had to work the shift lever up and down with one foot, and apply the rear brake lever with the other. American companies he contacted were not interested in re-designing their products, so Moore sent his vice-president

Tom Steele to Europe, where Steele eventually located a German company willing to design a boot to Moore’s requirements. The finished boot was called the “Daytona,” and incorporated steel toes, better strap placement and flexibility, and a pronounced arch.12

12 The Daytona boot, retailing for $59.95, was sold primarily by Maico dealers. Moore advertised this and other ASR items in Cycle News and other period motorcycle publications. 223

Figure 62. American Sport Racer flier, circa 1972, featuring Ake Jonsson. Jonsson is pictured wearing the brightly-colored riding pants, Daytona boots, and gloves that American Sport Racer was then producing. The

advertisement’s “For The (Serious Racer)” text reads awkwardly and suggests that the advertisement was not composed in a professional advertising shop. The text on the right side indicates that this flier was used at

the annual Daytona, Florida, motorcycle show. (Source: Dennie Moore)

Next up for redesign were the riding pants. Moore and company created a pliable leather pant with removable plastic inserts and padding in all the right places. The pants were colorful, comfortable, and resembled the fashionable leathers the Europeans were wearing. Then it was the gloves’ turn. Before the creation of dedicated motorcycle gloves, American riders wore various leather work gloves, or did not wear gloves at all, in many cases (Figure 6).13 These gloves were usually made from cowhide, which tended to be inflexible and also would bunch up

13 Period photographs suggest that only about half of late-1960s TT and flat-track riders wore gloves when racing. Images from Pennsylvania’s District Six showing this era of racing can be viewed at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/227869287314594/. 224 at the palm when the rider curved his hand (around the curved handlebar grips, which was most of the time). Moore’s solution was to make the glove from lighter-weight goatskin, engineering- in a “short” palm which left the gloves in a permanent gripping attitude, and to sew strips of rubber on the top face, as a guard against rocks. The collection was initially finished in traditional German colors of red, yellow and black, but changed in 1972 to bright yellow and blue hues, Ake Jonsson’s Swedish national colors. The entire line was marketed under Moore’s

“American Sport Racer” (ASR) side company, and sold primarily by Moore’s dealer network.

With the Maico team attired in Moore’s colorful new collection, the response from other racers at the line’s introduction at the Honda Hills National and other events in 1972 was in part predictable. Black leather clad racers yelled, “Here come the Gay Boys!”14 Moore recalled his standard response: “’Gay Boys’ gonna kick your guys’ asses today! You’re all going to go home wishing you could look like our team and wishing you could ride like our team!”

ASR did not stop its efforts with clothing, and also produced a line of custom performance motorcycle parts. The company ultimately branched out further, using these parts to create their own “works” motorcycles. Introduced to Greg Smith of Wheelsmith Engineering in

California, by Selvaraj Narayana in 1971, Moore collaborated on the design of a number of

Maico aftermarket performance products.15 The two combined their ideas on aluminum brake pedals, brake stay arms, chain guides, and other items. These pieces were sometimes modeled after parts Jonsson and the other European professionals had been having custom-made for their bikes, and were at other times original creations. Moore notes that prototype for the “Wheelsmith

14 “Gay,” in the language of the time and in this usage, did not have a sexual connotation. 15 Wheelsmith Engineering was an aftermarket motorcycle accessories company founded by out-of-work aerospace worker and motorcycle racer Greg Smith in Santa Anna, California, in 1971. Wheelsmith also became a Maico dealer (then called Wheelsmith Motorcycles), and was particularly interested in Maico. 225 brake lever,” a coveted historical item for Maicos today, was actually fabricated by shop students at the Mifflin County Vocational-Technical School.

Having upgraded their own and several other customers’ motorcycles with Wheelsmith and ASR parts, Eastern Maico in time elected to offer their own “works” ASR bikes.16 The actual motorcycle could be customized to the customer’s specific requests, but generally conformed to a version of a set standard formula. Using the jointly-developed Wheelsmith/ASR parts and other improvements, the ASR “works” Maico of 1972 and 1973 usually incorporated the following work plan and upgrades (as related by Dennie Moore):

Motorcycle stripped down to frame; frame repainted gray

Remove 10mm from upper frame tube and re-join (decreasing rake and increasing wheelbase and trail)

Wheelsmith/ASR alloy chain guide, rear brake pedal, and front brake stay arm

German hand-made alloy gas-tank

Improved air cleaner-to-carburetor boot with Filtron oiled-foam air filter installed

Alloy air box

Naugahyde “tent” covering top opening of air box

Seat kit installed (additional two inches foam padding)

Naugahyde brake and clutch lever covers

Remove ½ inch from stock shift lever

Clutch basket and plates inspected and filed-down

Custom porting to cylinder as desired by customer

Replace rear tire with 4.50 Metzler (on 400/440 motorcycles)

16 “Works” in this sense appears to be an abbreviation of “factory works,” meaning a motorcycle equipped specially made by the factory—or in this case ASR. 226

Cables lubricated

Figure 63. Notice run by American Motocross Team captain Bryan Kenney, offering his previous season’s

racing bike for sale. Kenney was sponsored by Eastern Maico, and the machine is essentially an “ASR

special,” although it may have been picked up in Germany. Note the alloy tank, rear brake lever, seat with

extra padding, and silver frame. The engine in this motorcycle has been painted black—believed by

European riders to assist with heat transfer. (Source: Cycle News)

The cost for this work could nearly equal the price of a new motorcycle. The modifications were often performed on new, stock machines before being delivered to the dealer by Eastern Maico, or were sold directly to a customer by ASR. For about $2,500 in 1972 (the combined approximate cost of a $1400 Maico and $1100 of improvements), the owner had a motorcycle that was the equal of what the Maico factory teams were racing, and certainly an attention-grabbing motorcycle at any gathering of riders in the United States.

All seemed good at Eastern Maico. The motorcycles themselves were immensely popular and were selling as fast at they could be imported from Germany. The company had standing orders for 150 to 300 motorcycles at most times. The business was earning more in gross sales

227 each year, and actual net profits were also improving. But, there were rumblings of discontent from within the Maisch family. Furthermore, some problems with previously reliable basic components were occurring; items that had never been a problem were failing and injuring riders. And, finally, there were rumors that Maico owner Otto Maisch was interested in taking over the American distribution, where he felt even more profits could be made.17

Figure 64. Eastern Maico flier, circa 1972, alluding Figure 65. Statement of Origin for a 125 Maico, to Ake Jonsson’s domination of the 1972 series. shipped to Cycle Imports, a Centerville, Ohio,

(Source: Brian Thompson) Maico dealer. Being an off-road motorcycle, a

title was not required, though sometimes issued.

(Source: Dennie Moore)

17 Interview with Greg Smith by David Russell, February 9, 2009; and interview with Barry Higgins by David Russell, January 8, 2014; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 228

Relations between the German Maico company and its single biggest market, the United

States, were variable. Sometimes, as with the creation of the 501 Maico, communication and responsiveness were excellent. At other times Maico’s German management seemed oddly intransigent, even hostile, to the requests and advice of the distributors. Moore recalled, “The

Maico factory was so hard-headed, sometimes. ‘Americans can’t ride hard enough to break our bikes’ was their theory. The guy I dealt with, the [Maico factory] export manager, always cursed

Americans.18 He would say that everyone in America had Corvettes and we could afford everything. He also thought Maico could raise the price, and we would just continue to pay—and that wasn’t true at all. They always thought they knew what American riders needed, better than the riders and the dealers.” Moore also felt that German Maico was intentionally harder on their

United States business partners (who purchased half of Maico’s total output) then on those of other nationalities, and he suggests the possibility of lingering World War II bitterness towards

Americans on the part of some German Maico employees. “I believe they treated their European contacts much better than the Americans; [European dealers I have met] would, I think, confirm this.”

Amid the continual increases in sales and success of American Maico riders, the sense of something ominous and unwanted persisted at Eastern Maico.

“They’re coming for you,” Moore was told by a company insider.

18 Hans Kresin was German Maico’s export manager at the time. 229

4.2 EASTERN MAICO AND DENNIE MOORE, Part 2

“Are you looking for a safe place? Well, buddy, just pull your vehicle behind me. I’m the 82d Airborne, and this is as far as the bastards are going!” American PFC Vernon Haught, referring to advancing Germans during the Battle of the Bulge, December, 1944.1

“I opened both the desk drawers, pulled both the guns up, cocked them and put them on the table, and said ‘Now, who’s gonna kill who?’” Dennie Moore, responding to threats by German Maico management, July, 19732

The early years of Eastern Maico Distributors, 1968 through 1971, had been ones of adventure and consistent growth for the small company. Both interest in off-road motorcycle riding in the United States and the acceptance of Maico as a premier racing machine had been phenomenal, and Moore occupied an important and visible position as he watched all this occur.

All was not well at Maico, though, as Moore would soon learn. Now, we will examine Eastern

Maico’s last years, from 1972 through the end in 1973. These were a time of cross-cultural problems between the Germans and Moore, of some of Maico’s greatest wins in the United

States, and of Maico’s late-1973 termination of Moore’s contract. Moore, throughout this period, showed himself to be the type of American individualist who personified early American motorcycle sport culture.

The Motorcycles

When Dennie Moore started Eastern Maico Distributors in 1968, the Maico export line- up consisted of three motorcycles: a 125, a 250, and the 360. The 360 was also called the “400” at the time, and was eventually increased to nearer its claimed 400 cubic centimeter capacity in

1 Phil Nordyke, The All Americans in World War II (St. Paul: Zenith Press, 2006), 143. 2 Interview with Dennie Moore by David Russell, March 27, 2007, Lewistown, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg) 230

1970.3 The “radial” line was introduced in 1972, first with the 250, and with a 400 version later that year. These improved machines were immediately popular in the United States, and selling the older square-barrel models was increasingly difficult once the radials became available.

Moore first received 501s in 1971, and the new 450 radials in 1973.

Moore’s recollection of the motorcycles imported by Eastern Maico contradicts some present-day assumptions about Maico motorcycles. A prime example is the type of gas tank installed by the factory on new Maicos: from the first container in 1968 to his very last shipments in mid-1973, the tanks on all the motorcycles Moore received were fiberglass, refuting one commonly-held belief that Maicos came equipped with the alloy tanks. His tenure as the first-line inspector of Maicos imported to the east coast of the United States refutes other beliefs about Maico factory procedures, as well.4

The make-up of each container shipment differed. “Although I could order whatever bikes I wanted, the shipments we received varied; sometimes they’d contain all 400s, sometimes all 250s, and, every once in a while, all 125s. Most times the 125s would be mixed-in with the

250s; maybe also a 501 or so. I could specifically request wide-ratio (WR) or close-ratio (CR) gearboxes, but [Frank] Cooper got way more of the WRs. The WR was good for enduro; the WR gave you a lower low-gear than what the CR did, and a higher high-gear.” Moore adds, “I sold a

3 These two engines (354cc and 386cc) shared identical pistons, sleeves, and outer cylinder castings, but had different strokes. Thus they were dissimilar internally, and the two models used different crankshaft and rod assemblies. The sleeve was also positioned at different heights in the cylinder on the two engines. 4 Moore acknowledges the existence of the alloy tank; Eastern Maico had orders for similar units produced in Germany, to his specifications. But, he maintains, the metal tanks were not standard equipment, at least through mid-1973. The reason for the embedded belief may be that the alloy tank became a signature of the brand; a classic, idealized Maico of riders’ memories. However, the Maico factory did not shun fiberglass in the early 1970s. Early shipments to Moore came with the “small” fiberglass tank on every motorcycle, including even the first fuel- guzzling 501s. In about 1972 the “large” fiberglass tanks began appearing. Subsequent to this date, Moore recalls that 125s always came with the small tank, and 250s and 400s could come either way (although the 400s usually had the large tank fitted). The later 501s always came with the large tank as well. Alloy tanks began to be a production item, he recalls, with the 1974 ½ factory forward-mounted motorcycles. Initially, all tanks came bearing the small Maico (called the “flying M” or “shield” logo) decal. With the implementation of the large tank, the large decal tended to be affixed from the factory. 231 few 125 road-racers; probably ten to twelve, 1972 through 1973.” Thus, for the most part, Moore sold what the company chose to send him.

Despite his dramatic espousal of the Maico’s “ready to race, out of the crate” ability, described in the previous chapter, Moore would be the last to suggest that the motorcycles were ideal, or without shortcomings. During Moore’s time as a distributor from 1968 through 1973, significant manufacturing issues with new bikes occurred, in the guise of defective front hubs and wheels, curious deposits of metal shavings in the forks, and the leaking gas tank disaster of

1972 and 1973. This latter issue, the leaking gas tank problem, affected the large fiberglass fuel tanks; Moore received some shipments where every tank on each of the 64 motorcycles in the container was defective.5 The gas tank problem was a major business challenge for Moore, the distributor, for two reasons. First, Moore recalls that the Maico factory was “horrible on warranty issues” in general, and, true to form, initially refused to make good on this situation. He was on his own, and there was to be no help from the factory. Second, from a public relations standpoint, the leaking gas tank problem had the makings of a publicity disaster for any seller of

Maico motorcycles in the United States—where potential purchasers already might be wary of the brand’s reputation as finicky and maintenance-intensive. (This rumor plagued Maico throughout its best years in the United States, and could pass quickly among riders, particularly if they had witnessed the indignation of a Maico owner having to lay his flooded bike on its side to drain fuel before the machine would start, or any number of other odd Maico shortcomings.)

Moore had to act quickly, as his dealers naturally expected decent motorcycles, and would in no way tolerate receiving defective bikes from the distributor. For Moore and his dealers, the gas tank design flaw constituted a crisis. While the Germans stubbornly ignored the situation, oblivious to his pleadings, Moore was left to fix the problem alone.

5 Moore notes that only the large tanks leaked. The small fiberglass tanks were apparently unaffected. 232

“Every one [of the large tanks was affected]; you’d put gas in it and it would leak out immediately. The next year [1973] they put rivets in them, and they’d still leak. Next they tried putting a sealant inside, and they’d still leak!” Moore’s only option was to replace every one of the defective tanks. Alloy was prohibitively expensive, so he reverted to his own fiberglass option. “We went to Bob Bondurant and had him copy an Ake Jonsson [alloy] tank in fiberglass.6 We bought hundreds of these off him, to replace the bad tanks. . . German Maico did nothing for us; this fix was entirely paid for by us. And, we had to pay Bondurant in advance to make the prototype. If any tank leaked [on any bike already delivered], we’d tell the dealer to send it back and we’d make it good.”

Later, German Maico appeared to rectify their debt to Moore for the defective tank, by shipping him a full container of sixty-four bikes at no expense (in essence, a $64,000 check in

1973 dollars) to compensate for Moore’s expenses. Maico management had a separate agenda, however; and the gesture would actually be used against Moore, a couple of years later, with

Maico claiming the unpaid-for container (for which no paperwork existed) was stolen. Moore ultimately paid the price, not only for sloppy German quality control, but also for the trusting, informal way in which he dealt with Maico management in the case of the extra “free” shipment.

6 Bob Bondurant (American, born 1933) is a race-car driver, technical consultant, designer, fabricator, and operator of the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving. 233

Figure 66. The Bondurant tank, built to replace the defective factory tanks of 1972 and 73, and based upon

factory racer Ake Jonsson’s alloy tank. (Photo: the author)

Another strange manufacturing defect was the presence of metal shavings in the fork tube assemblies. Besides the possibility of the metal shavings causing the forks to jam at an inopportune moment, their presence, discovered by owners who had paid premium prices for supposedly premium racing motorcycles, could have been another public relations debacle.

Many years later, Moore still does not have a conclusive explanation for this, and its source remains unknown. “I don’t know of any way it could have gotten there, other than for someone to have put it in, after the bike was already together. . . . Someone either wanted to hurt our business specifically, or Maico in general. We didn’t know if it came from a fight between the

[elder] Maisch brothers—Otto and Wilhelm Sr.—or Wilhelm’s boys trying to take over the factory, trying to make Otto look like an idiot because they thought he couldn’t run it right.”

Whether an attack on Eastern Maico by German Maico, self-sabotage within German Maico by

234 management, a disgruntled Maico employee, or simply a bizarre accident; the truth remains elusive.7

Despite the design faults and the sense of trans-Atlantic tensions emanating from factory management, Moore remained faithful to Maico and continued to extol the brand’s virtues across the United States. He was and remains convinced that Maico was the best handling off-road motorcycle, and that it also produced the best power of any off-road motorcycle then available.

Maico did, however, have a reputation for mechanical breakdowns, and the expression “Maico- break-o” was bandied about by riders of other brands. Moore discounts the gibe as mostly whining from riders who would not (or could not) properly maintain their machines. “The

‘Maico-break-o’ thing was just from guys who didn’t understand what had to be done. Any

Maico rider who was a good mechanic was winning races. There are just things you need to do after every race, and each good rider was doing that. At least tearing down the top end

[examining the piston, rings and cylinder] and checking things after every weekend; you never know what you may have done, and what’s happening in there. . . . As long as you kept the three engine bolts tight and the swing-arm tight, you’d be in pretty good shape. You had to make sure those things were tight on a Maico; and, if they were, you were good to go. Also, the top yoke and the carb had to be kept tight, the air cleaner kept clean, good oil in the gearbox, and the bike clean.” While Moore is correct, certain other motorcycles, notably those of Japanese manufacture, were intrinsically more reliable and could function longer with far less preventative maintenance. This ride-it-and-ignore-it quality was obviously attractive to more casual riders, and those lacking an interest in learning the details of repair and upkeep. On the other hand, being capable of fixing one’s own machine was a point of pride for Maico riders; it indicated a

7 Here Moore alludes to the theory, promulgated by former Dirt Bike Magazine editor and writer Rick Sieman, that the Wilhelm Maisch children (Wilhelm Jr., Hans, and Peter) worked to make Maico fail in order to take over the bankrupt company. This theory is addressed in chapter 7. 235 deeper commitment to competition, as well as a higher level of involvement in the motorcycle lifestyle. The buyer’s choice was also one of basic versus exotic engineering. A modern automotive analogy is the difference between operating a Ford truck versus driving a high-end

Porsche or a Mercedes. The expensive and exotic cars may be wonderfully engineered and capable of much greater performance; but, owing to the machines’ complexity, they are also more likely than the Honda to require frequent maintenance procedures and to fail if these requirements are ignored. There is a price to pay, in terms of work and expertise required, when a buyer commits to a higher level of performance; this was the case with Maico. But, that price, when paid, can also become part of the pride of ownership for the true enthusiast. The Maico rider, who knowingly paid a premium price for a machine which would require constant attention, was familiar with both this price and this pride.

Racing

For all motorcycle manufacturers, racing results are considered the ultimate validation of a machine’s quality. During Eastern Maico’s years, from 1969 to 1973, professional Maico riders won the American motocross series championship three out of the five years. Although having a talented rider on the motorcycle is critical for any racing team, there are a myriad of other things which must align in order bring about success. Financing, capable machinery, cooperation, a will to win across the entire team membership—leaders and mechanics, as well as racers—and the right equipment are all essential. Finally, sheer luck plays a part; there are no guarantees in motor racing. For Maico in these early years, success came about from outside as well as inside the team. The dedication of the distributors and the individual small dealers, who devoted their time and limited funds to assisting the racers, at a time when off-road racing had not yet attracted great popularity and sponsorship money, played an immense part in Maico’s early 1970s wins.

236

These local enthusiasts offered their homes and trucks; cared for the factory team when it was nearby; and coordinated lodging, transportation, and other details for the visitors. Finally, even for a small team like Maico, there existed a supporting logistical tail for the little group, an ocean apart from their home base. Here, larger United States Maico operations, like Moore’s and

Cooper’s, filled the role. “I expected our race manager to call me as soon as the racing ended; what broke, and what did they need for the next week,” Moore remembers.8 “Back at the shop, we’d be pulling that merchandise and by 7:00 am Monday morning it was on its way via air transport, and would be where they needed it the very next day.”

Besides assisting the international, factory-sponsored and fully-supported Maico motocross riders like Swede Ake Jonsson; Germans Adolf Weil, Hans Maisch and Willi Bauer; and Dutchman Gerrit Wolsink, Eastern Maico partially-sponsored American riders. 9 These young hopefuls from across the United States, still learning the sport, led a nomadic life with negligible pay. They traveled the country in the early 1970s, sleeping in vans, working on their own machines, and looking forward to the next dusty race-track, outside another small town on the circuit. Putting aside their anticipated careers as steamfitters, stonemasons, and farmers, they exchanged financial security for the privilege of competing with the world’s best in an exciting new sport. Maico riders in this early group who hailed from the eastern United States and were assisted by Eastern Maico included Gary Chaplin, Bob Harris, Gary Ingham, Bryan Kenney, and

Jimmy Weinert. Ohioan Kenney also raced in Europe as part of the American Motocross Team

8 Moore’s reference to race manager implies a paid employee of Eastern Maico or the factory, who accompanied the team and handled logistical issues. 9 Hans Maisch is the son of Maico co-founder Wilhelm Maisch Sr. 237

(see chapter 5.5). New Yorker Weinert would go on to a prestigious racing career as a member of the Yamaha and then Kawasaki motocross teams.10

Moore’s management team at Eastern Maico (Tom and Olga Steele, Selvaraj Narayana, and Gary Herto) was small but efficient. Moore was president and the self-appointed “race team organizer.” Another of Moore’s self-appointed positions was that of team bus driver: “In 1972 I bought ‘The Great Kahuna,’ a bus with everything in it. It was a Pagel with the antique motor . . . that thing would cruise at 72, 73 mph. . . . I always drove that thing. I remember locking the throttle on a nice straight stretch of highway—late at night; everyone would be sleeping—and I’d get out of the driver’s seat and walk back to the refrigerator to get food! Most of the riders would drive themselves; Ingham, Kenney, and Harris would ride in the bus with me some of the time.”

Figure 67. Maico advertisement of 1973, showing the results of the efforts of Moore, Cooper, and other

American dealers. Maico’s assertion was not a difficult one to make: The top three riders on the North

10 Other early professional American Maico riders who hailed from the west coast, and were supported by other businesses, included Tim Hart, Rex Staten, Rich Eierstedt, John Franklin, Bill Cook, and Gaylon Mosier. 238

American motocross circuit were winning on Maicos, and owning a Maico would help the amateur win, as

well. The Maico factory sponsored these nationwide promotions. (Source: Dirt Bike Magazine)

The motocross world in the early 1970s was anything but lucrative, for most all of the parties involved. Even relatively successful American racers could have a hard time paying their bills. One particular Texas rider, who was either unable or unwilling to pay, encountered his debtor (Moore) at Florida race. Moore recalls, “He got me good. I had shipped him probably in excess of $5000 worth of boots and parts; he paid me $1000 or $1200 to start, and then the money dried up. Well, we’re down in Florida, and I went over to this guy’s trailer to try and collect my money. He knew I wanted my money, and he kept hiding from me. The final [race] is on, and I’m realizing I’m going to be out my money for another year. Well, it’s the last race of the day and this guy’s in it; they’re out at the line and the flag’s about ready to drop. I walk over to [his trailer], and there’s this big guard dog; this big dog came right at me! I grabbed its lower jaw, put my hand straight in its mouth, pressed down on its tongue, and we looked at each other.

I gave him a ‘Look at me . . . now, don’t try to bite me again!’ look, and smacked him right by the jaw. I came back a few minutes later and we just looked at each other again; he decided not to go at me this time, and I threw him a hot dog.”

239

Figure 68. Californian Gary Chaplin and Eve Priest on their motocross-themed wedding day, near Atlanta,

Georgia, 1972. Chaplin was one of the partially-sponsored American “support” riders, not yet surpassing the

European professionals, but nipping at their heels. Moore’s “Great Kahuna” race team bus is visible in the

background. (Photo: Jim Gianatsis)

“Well, the race had started . . . I slipped into the trailer and unhooked the first Maico I came to, turned around and pushed it to the gate. I turned on the gas and tried to start it, but it wouldn’t start—and here comes the security guard!” Moore quickly invented a diversion. “I tell him, ‘They’re on the line . . . gotta get this thing running!’ Well, he tries to help me start it, but no luck. Finally I told him, ‘I’m done . . . no way to make the race. I’ll just push it back to the van and load it up.’ Loaded it onto my van, drove over, and put it in the Great Kahuna. Well, next morning, here’s this racer and this army outside my motel . . . I gave it back, but I told him and his boss that there’ll be other races . . .” Moore never was paid. He did, however, wind up

240 with another actual motorcycle raced by the same deadbeat Texan several years later, which he still owns.

Figure 69. Additional 1973 results in an advertisement sponsored by Eastern Maico, this time highlighting

the success of American support riders, assisted by Moore. Maico star Ake Jonsson—opposite the yellow highlighting in the lower left—had by this time joined Yamaha, with mediocre results (here finishing 11th, far

behind former teammate Willi Bauer) as he began to work the big Yamaha motocrossers into shape. The

“YAMAICO” spelling, impishly inserted by the unidentified writer at Moore’s Eastern Maico, pokes fun at

Jonsson’s supposed use of superior Maico forks on his 1973 Yamaha, an allegation Jonsson steadfastly denies.

The advertisement also assures riders that “any accessories found on [the factory bikes] are readily available

from your Maico dealer or Maico East,” further making the case that American buyers could have exactly the same motorcycle that the stars were then using, quite unlike the case with the Japanese factory machines.

(Source: Cycle News)

241

1973: “They’re coming . . .”

“They’re coming . . . you might get another year.” With these words Dennie Moore was informed by a loyal friend within the Maico organization that he had become a target. German

Maico leadership noted the profitability of the western and eastern distributorships, with a desire to direct this money back to Germany. Perhaps they even believed they could run the operations better than the rough Americans motorcyclists, with the company’s chosen corporate-wise and internationally versed managers installed. Maico would, in essence, eliminate the [American] middle man. In Germany, President Otto Maisch offered the Wilhelm Maisch side of the family the opportunity to buy into his planned new American distribution enterprise, which he was creating as a business separate from German Maico. The Wilhelm Maisch side declined, and

Otto continued forward with the takeover of the American distributorships alone. The planning for the new German-run distributorships in America continued, but they would be, Otto decided, privately owned by him. This meant that the distributorships would not be a subsidiary of

German Maico, but be personally owned by the company’s president.11 The predictable conflict of interest inherent in this unusual arrangement figured predominantly in Maico’s financial problems throughout the next decade. Beyond the German factory’s reasonable desire for increased profit, however, this action betrayed a failure to appreciate the roles played by Moore and Cooper in helping to create and tend to the unique Maico subculture in the United States— the nature of which the Germans in time would realize that they did not understand. This lack of awareness may have been the result of managerial miscalculations, or of a greater cross-cultural disconnection. In any event, it proved to be a bad decision for Maico. While the German side

11 Wilhelm Maisch Jr. recalled the offer by his uncle Otto for Wilhelm’s side of the family to participate and noted their decline of the offer, but did not specify a reason (Source: Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded) 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg)). 242 acted on the supposition that they could avail themselves of the additional distribution income generated by their American market, they overlooked the fact that Maico’s appeal was based upon complex factors that included not just the machines’ capabilities, but on the nurturing and sustainment of a unique multi-national relationship. Moore and Cooper turned out to be crucial players in this soon-soured relationship.

While the takeover planning progressed, now with Moore aware, he and the German factory continued to work together productively. A current project for which Moore was requested to consult was that of finding ways that the factory might contain the rising cost of machined engine parts; particularly pistons, crankcases, and crankshafts. While German production costs continued to escalate, industry observers noted Poland’s mature status as a precision manufacturing nation, as well as the very competitive Polish prices. And the Polish machine work was exceptional; it was not only extremely accurate, like that of the Germans, but also polished and visually stunning, in the Japanese fashion. Other American companies had already taken advantage of doing business in Poland. In time, Maico located and contacted a

Polish government-owned company, Pezetel, and plans were made for a Maico delegation

(including Moore) to visit the factory. Pezetel was already engaged in manufacturing high- quality crankshafts and other parts for the Mercury boat company and the Lycoming aviation company, and it seemed the perfect solution for reducing costs at Maico.

With the full knowledge and support of German Maico, Dennie Moore arranged a visit to

Poland and Pezetel’s factory in June, 1973. On June 18, 1973, Moore, his lawyer (Rusty Miller), and a Pezetel official were being driven through the Polish countryside. According to Moore,

“Something just wasn’t right. . . . there was something wrong with [the car] . . . this rented

Russian Volga, making an awful high-pitched whine.” Moving into a long, sweeping right-hand

243 turn, the Volga began vibrating violently, side-to-side. The panic-stricken Polish driver suddenly yelled “I can’t control this thing . . . it won’t turn!” as the Volga veered into the path of oncoming car, on Moore’s side. As the cars collided, Moore’s head hit the windshield, cutting him badly. A millisecond later, the other car’s rooftop luggage, now unrestrained and rocketing forward at sixty miles per hour, crashed through the Volga’s broken windshield, striking Moore in the head a second time. All was soon quiet; the other car also fell silent, save for the slight hiss of steam from a ruptured radiator. A passenger in the other car lay dying. Bleeding and suffering from concussions, Moore did not know where he was. A truck-driver stopped and ran to help, assisting the occupants of the two cars as best he could.

In the weeks that followed, assisted in his recovery by a Pezetel official, Moore remained in Poland and regained partial health. His memory, however, was severely compromised.

Arriving back in the United States at John F. Kennedy Airport in early July and greeted by his family, Moore had little idea where he was, or that he even had a father, brother and a family: “I walked right by my kids at Kennedy Airport and didn’t recognize them.” Several days later, with

Moore still reeling from memory loss and the physical injuries of the crash, German Maico called to inform him that Eastern Maico’s distribution contract with the manufacturer was being cancelled. Moore and his wife were in disbelief.

Very soon after, at the end of July, 1973, representatives of German Maico arrived at

Eastern Maico’s office, demanding that Moore transfer Eastern Maico’s assets to them. Moore maintains the events that day transpired as follows: “They said to me, ‘If you don’t cooperate, we’ll kill you…or we’ll have you killed.’ We’re just sitting there, and they say this to me! And

I said, ‘what?’ And he said, ‘Yes—if you don’t cooperate, we’ll have you killed if we have to.’

Well, I’d just happened to have come back from K’s Army-Navy that day, where I’d bought a

244 brand-new .44-magnum and a .357; I slid open the drawers where the guns were while they spoke. Now, the guns weren’t loaded, but they didn’t know that. When I asked him what he said again, and when he repeated this stuff about killing me if I didn’t cooperate, I opened both the desk drawers, pulled both the guns up, cocked them and put them on the table, and said

‘Now--who’s gonna kill who?’ The lawyer [Rusty Miller] was shittin’ his pants. ‘Now Dennie, calm down—don’t do anything irrational, here!’ Well, I pointed the guns over the top of their heads—so they wouldn’t see the empty cylinder holes . . . [one of them] had been an SS officer and would have seen they were empty. I told them not to come to my office, in America, and sit there and tell me they were gonna kill me . . . not today. Then they apologized, of course, and my lawyer . . . he thought [me pulling the guns out] was real. But they really threatened to kill me!”12

Eventually, tempers lowered. The Maico emissaries saw that bringing Moore on board would require persuasion and not just threats, and all parties cooled down while the conversation returned to a reasonable, if pained, dialog. Moore realized that ultimately German Maico held the far stronger position: if the factory declined to deliver motorcycles to Eastern Maico, he had no product to sell to the dealers, and he would quickly be out of business. The Germans were naturally very focused on the information pertaining to his dealers. The dealer network data would be absolutely critical to German Maico if they were to take over distribution from Moore in an effective, orderly manner. Also attractive to the Germans was Eastern Maico’s on-hand stock of approximately $280,000 worth of parts and many motorcycles, some owned by Moore and some yet to be paid for. Moore reassessed his position; he knew Maico held the upper hand, but hoped to at the least bargain for a deal which left him with enough cash to begin another

12 Moore requested to the author that the Germans involved not be mentioned by name. The author believes that the presence of these high-level emissaries seems entirely plausible, in their capacity as executives of German Maico. 245 business. After continued negotiation, Moore believed he had a rough but reasonable offer for

Eastern Maico’s sale agreed to. The Germans drove away.

German Maico’s stated justification for terminating Moore’s distribution contract was that Eastern Maico allegedly was not paying on time, according to the requirements of the stipulated “Ninety day floor plan” contract arrangement. Moore insists that Eastern Maico’s average pay-off time to Germany was sixty-three days, and that it had never exceeded the ninety day maximum. Both Eastern Maico’s financial strength and Moore’s personal credit status were excellent at the time. German Maico had, however, already set its sights on the profits that the distributors were currently enjoying, and would be content with only one outcome. Maico’s mistake was that it assumed its success was the natural outcome of solely its motorcycle’s excellence, minimizing the work accomplished in the foreign United States market by people who knew the local motorcycling culture and exploited it for the firm’s benefit. It was a failure of understanding on the part of German Maico; the company did not comprehend the unique role

Moore and other Americans played in knitting together a community surrounding their good, but imperfect, brand. Perversely, German Maico itself would never substantially benefit from the arrangement that forced aside its biggest American promoters (Cooper and Moore). As noted, it was Otto Maisch who personally owned the new American Maico distribution system and reaped its profits; not German Maico. While the Otto Maisch-owned distribution system did certainly make money, these profits never made it to German Maico, where the capital was critically needed, but instead enriched the personal fortune of the failing company’s president. Worse, and what constituted criminal behavior on the part of Otto Maisch, was that requisite payments to the factory for imported motorcycles and parts (beyond any the profits from distribution mark-ups)

246 sometimes did not reach Maico, either.13 And, in time, the German nationals sent to run the

American distribution companies, while experienced industrial managers, proved unable to maintain the crucial cultural links between the Germans motorcycle builders and the motorcycle riders in America. Ultimately, they lacked two critical qualifications that Maico had overlooked in their search for seasoned businessmen to run the distributorships. They were, to their detriment (as Maico Technical Manager Wilhelm Maisch Jr. later lamented), “neither Americans nor motorcycle men.”14

Moore, meanwhile, was of the mind that he had reached a reasonable agreement with

Maico, and that the deal was imminent. Both parties would benefit from the arrangement he believed was in place, and it would allow both him and Maico to continue their lives in peace.

According to the plan, Moore’s Eastern Maico Distributors would be completely bought-out by the German company, giving Moore the cash he needed to begin some other enterprise. Maico, on the other hand, would benefit from Moore’s inventory of parts and from his introduction to and access to the dealers. The company would gain Moore’s expertise in the role of a consultant, to get the new distribution system up and running. It would be a “. . . friendly takeover. [I] would go on to another product, and [we’d] be friends and see each other around. . .” This was, Moore believed at the time, “the way it was supposed to work.”

Moore and his wife Betty flew to Germany in mid August of 1973 for two weeks of further discussions on the buyout. They met with the Maisch family at the factory as soon as they arrived in Germany. The talks progressed cordially and meaningfully. The Moores took the middle weekend off to watch the German Grand Prix motorcycle races, and then returned to the factory to finalize the plan the following week. Negotiating on behalf of Maico were Otto

13 The financial aspects of Maico’s demise are explained in chapter 7.1. 14 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell. 247

Maisch, Otto’s daughter Gabriella, and export manager Hans Kresin.15 Maico agreed to buy

Moore’s inventory and retain him as a consultant; in which role he would introduce the Germans to all of Eastern Maico’s dealers. Moore would also assist the Maico racing team in the coming fall’s North American Trans-AMA series races, as he had done many times before. Feeling all was well—or at least as well as could be expected—the Moores shook hands with the company management and headed home to Pennsylvania.

Back in the United States, the second race of the 1973 fall Trans-AMA series was about to take place in Philadelphia; this was September 28, at the new John F. Kennedy Stadium. The race was another hoped-for watershed moment for outdoor motocross, when the sport could transition from its then out-of-the-way rural venue to a modern American sports “stadium event,” with metropolitan fans, better gate earnings, and an influx of big advertising dollars. Following the first stadium motocross event (the “Super Bowl of Motocross” at the Los Angeles Coliseum, alluding to another American stadium sport) in July, 1972, motocross promoters continued to engage more spectator-friendly stadium venues for the series, such as Road Atlanta and the

Pocono International Raceway.16 Among racing enthusiasts, a metamorphosis to something new and big seemed imminent. Prior to the big Philadelphia event, the Maico factory motocross team of Adolf Weil, Willi Bauer, and Gerrit Wolsink arrived and moved into Eastern Maico’s “back- yard” in Reedsville, Pennsylvania. They set up a noisy, happy camp of vans, trailers, girlfriends, wives, and barking dogs; in the background the never-ending, growling wail of two-stroke racing

15 Otto Maisch’s daughters were Ingrid (who worked in purchasing at Maico) and Gabriella (called “Gabi” at the factory, who was in charge of book-keeping). These were cousins to Wilhelm Maisch Senior’s sons: Wilhelm Jr., Hans, and Peter. 16 Music promoter Mike Goodwin’s prototypical “Superbowl of Motocross” race on July 8, 1972 at the Los Angeles Coliseum was the model for future “supercross” and (later and smaller) “arenacross” events. Goodwin himself was later implicated in the murder of famed American automobile racer Mickey Thompson and his wife, and is serving two life sentences in a Nevada prison as of this writing. 248 motorcycles being tested. The excited assembly worked on bikes, prepped vehicles, and stocked the extra parts necessary for the coming fall series of races.

That weekend in Philadelphia, following introductory pageantry and an opening ceremony reminiscent of European motocross, the Maico team overwhelmingly bested the competition. Wolsink gained the overall win, with Weil bringing in second-place in an exciting, crowd-pleasing, back-and-forth Maico contest in each of the two forty-five-minute motos.17

Maico was once again on top. It was an impressive victory which should have assured Maico’s continued popularity and cleared the way for increased future sales.

From Philadelphia, the Maico team continued winning as they progressed around the circuit: Copetown, Ontario, Canada; Lexington, Ohio; and into the American mid-west. Weil came into his full potential, and began chalking-up more overall wins. Satisfied that all was well with the team, Moore said goodbye as the group headed south to Texas, eventually returning to

Pennsylvania.

Arriving back in Reedsville in October of 1973, Moore was shocked to learn that the

Germans had obtained a commercial property, down the road in nearby Lewistown,

Pennsylvania, and were already moving in. A few days later, in early November, Moore’s employees (the Steeles, Selvaraj Narayana, and Gary Herto) met privately to discuss the situation. They then informed Moore that they were accepting an arrangement that German

Maico (or at least Otto Maisch) had offered them, and were leaving Eastern Maico for the new operation (to be called “Maico East”). This turn of events completely undercut Moore, since now the Germans had access to the dealer information and expertise they needed, via his ex- employees, and Moore’s important dealer and logistical knowledge base was suddenly redundant. Not only did German Maico now not need Moore, but the plan for the purchase of his

17 Combined results from the two motos (heat races) determine the rider’s final placing and points. 249 parts inventory was also placed on indefinite hold. “I thought we had a deal made,” he recalled.

But, in the end, it seemed to him more like a “broken marriage;” with Moore left standing in the now quiet Eastern Maico warehouse, surrounded by the trappings of a once-thriving business, but with no employees and no immediate hope for the future. For the time being, German management had proved themselves more resourceful.

Later, Moore’s lawyer initiated a lawsuit against the Polish rental car company which had provided the vehicle involved in the June accident. Arriving back at the hotel where the rental agency had been, months before, the Eastern Maico party were surprised to find no trace whatsoever of the agency. “‘Never existed. There’s no rental agency here.’ they said. Right in the middle of Warsaw,” remembers Moore. The rental agency was gone, and another business had moved into its former location. Eventually, he successfully sued the Avis Company, but

Moore maintains he never received compensation. He also continues to believe that German

Maico management was implicated in the accident.

Moore persevered in business for a while, selling off remaining Maico parts and motorcycles, and marketing accessories. He attempted a new business, distributing a start-up motorcycle line, but this venture failed. His medical condition and the damage to his reputation, brought about by the implosion of Eastern Maico, prevented him from securing financing for future projects. A lawsuit he initiated against German Maico (for breach of the distribution contract with Eastern Maico) further incurred Maico’s wrath, resulting in Moore being accused in Maico’s countersuit of being a drug addict, of allegations of delinquent payments, and also of theft in the case of the “free” shipping container of motorcycles (provided as compensation to

Eastern Maico for the leaking gas tanks and worked out in a trans-oceanic phone conversation, but for which substantiating paperwork could not be found). In July of 1975, Moore moved out

250 of the Eastern Maico premises, and the bank seized all remaining inventory. Although Moore managed to pay off the business’s complete $493,000 debt load through the sale of business assets and personal possessions, he found himself unable to secure any more financing for other ventures.

Moore continued his own racing for several years after the business failure. In March of

1974, while sitting at a fast-food restaurant in Kentucky, clear fluid suddenly began streaming from his nostrils. It was spinal fluid, which had gravitated into his sinuses as a result of his head injury in Poland. Reaching home, Moore was informed by his doctor that he had severe meningitis, which put another stop to Moore’s racing and business pursuits.

The hardest years were yet to come. A home fire resulted in the death of his only son.

Work, owing to his ongoing medical condition, was out of the question. Another fire in his three- story warehouse damaged the roof, which allowed rain and snow to enter the building. Over the years, beams collapsed on historic motorcycles and much of the vast inventory of new Maico parts was rusted beyond use.18

In early 1982, following years of appeals by German Maico, Eastern Maico’s lawsuit was finalized at the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals.19 Moore had ultimately prevailed, but it was an empty win. Maico was by then in deep trouble, and the several hundred thousand dollars and other concessions awarded Moore for Maico’s unlawful termination of his contract were never collected. “I never saw any of the money, and that was that. Maico closed down their offices in Virginia Beach, fired everyone, and that was the end.” He has, though, no regrets about

18 The author, his son William, and Gig Hamilton ventured into the old building in 2010, carrying out what little could be safely moved and remained of value. The little rescue party balanced on joists over missing floors, crawled under fallen beams, and removed what they could. Among the items recovered where original alloy gas tanks used by Adolf Weil, Willi Bauer, and Gerrit Wolsink. A year or so later, the building, still containing many of its treasures, was sold and demolished by the new owner. 19 Eastern Maico Distributers, Inc., v. Maico Fahrzeugfabrik, G.m.b.H, 658 F.2d 944 (3rd Cir.1981). 251 the entire, great adventure, and enjoys setting the record straight. Moore still ventures out for the occasional motorcycle event, and enjoys his grandchildren’s visits.

“Well, that’s the story,” he says. “Might sound like bragging a bit, but I figure a thing’s not bragging if it’s true.”

Figure 70. Dennie Moore’s old parking space at the former Eastern Maico Distributors building in

Reedsville, Pennsylvania; like its former owner, it still refuses to disappear in 2007. (Photo: the author)

That glorious evening in September, 1972, the night of Maico’s triumph at J.F.K

Stadium, it would have been unthinkable to imagine that Maico would disappear as a company within a decade, having created a product so successful and so uniquely appreciated in the

American market. It would fail, in part, because Maico did not fully understand the reasons behind its acceptance in the United States. By reworking its American formula precisely when it should have been studying it to find out why this formula was so successful, Maico displayed ignorance of their best customer, the American sport rider, and the unique Maico-riding subculture in the United States. Maico’s dismissal of Cooper and Moore was part of this failure.

Although Dennie Moore’s time as a business entity in American racing only numbered five years, he did accomplish his goal of making Maico the recognized power in racing in the

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United States that he knew it could be. Moore’s experiences with the German company also reveal the difficulty, at least in an earlier and less trans-global era, of conducting business between two differing cultures. Next, the story of one of Moore’s closest friends, and his very first Maico dealer, Gig Hamilton, illustrates the type of small businessman that Moore depended on to bring Maico to the actual buyers.

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4.3 THE SHOP OWNER: GIG HAMILTON

The motorcycle business community of the 1960s and 1970s in the United States differed from that of the present day. More resembling the “Mom and Pop” retail environment of a half- century ago, motorcycle retailers likewise tended to be smaller and more distributed across the

American landscape. Prior to the industry domination of the four large Japanese motorcycle companies and native Harley-Davidson, small motorcycle dealers operated out of sheds, as sidelines to small businesses, or as standalone small businesses in seemingly every American town.1 Before their elimination by the large surviving companies, these small retailers who sold motorcycles were the backbone of the motorcycle industry in America. It was a time when the purchase of a sign, a motorcycle or two, and a few parts could transform an enthusiast into a dealer. Once established as a dealership (often in conjunction with other employment or principal business) the owner could stay small and make a few extra dollars on the side, or attempt growth.

Being able to purchase items at wholesale, the dealer was also able to save on his or his family’s own competition efforts. The liberal viewpoint permitting this involvement on the part of motorcycle companies eventually disappeared, as the companies moved towards a larger, more standardized, more efficient, and more profitable retail model. The changeover was not always friendly, or by attrition: motorcyclists still recall Harley-Davidson’s forced dismissal of many old, stalwart, family-owned small dealerships in the 1980s and 1990s, in favor of Harley’s modern corporate mega-dealerships. This consolidation was a reversal of the rush to establish retail networks in the United States market during the late 1960s and early 1970s, when nearly anyone could become a dealer.

1 The “Big Four” are: Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki. In the United States in 2014, The Big Four account for about fifty percent of all new motorcycle sales, with Harley-Davidson accounting for the rest. 254

Eastern Maico distributer Dennie Moore performed one role in the motorcycle business: that of the importer/distributor. For him to succeed, he needed many hundreds of motivated retail dealers to buy his product, and to sell to and interface with the individual owner. If they were enthusiasts like himself, so much the better. Miller “Gig” Hamilton was one such example.

* * *

Fresh spring air billowed up the building’s old plank stairwell. It was early April, 1964; the first nice day in north-central Pennsylvania.2 The breeze signaled the end of another winter of dirty snow and heavy gray skies, and dingy trucks careening down the town’s main street, kicking up vortices of coal and ice slush. A sweet, complex aroma reached the second-floor apartment and gently flipped a switch in the young man’s mind. There was something instinctual and elemental in the moment, resembling the effect of solar convection that was just then stirring a small turtle from hibernation, in the nearby pond bank’s melting mush. The little painted turtle sensed spring; it awakened and began boring out of the mud which had enveloped it for the last months. The young man sensed it, too, and peered down the stairwell. It was time.

Hamilton’s first attempt at moving 600 pounds of Harley-Davidson down the steep, turning narrow stairwell did not go well. Harleys were never known for cornering, anyway. The bike had come into the apartment in pieces: wheels, a frame . . . several boxes and a bushel basket. It was coming out fully-assembled. OK, he thought; pieces were going to have to come off. Lights, pipes, and a front wheel are jettisoned. He tries it again; the bar ends again dig trenches into old paint and horse-hair plaster. More stuff removed. Another try at clearing the upper corner, with 136 pounds of teenager barely restraining over 500 pounds of Harley. At least the mass wanted to go in the right direction: down. Finally, the ’37 Harley is in the front yard; an

2 Interviews with Gig Hamilton by David Russell, June 19, 2007, and April 7, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 255 hour later it is back together. And, it’s so pretty out. The buds on the trees, the warm breeze, smells of life—and the motorcycle. He should go for a ride. Definitely. Gas; a little into both tanks. (Will this thing start? Did he get those cam gears meshed correctly?) Give the fuel a moment to trickle down. Big, sweeping, slow, sloppy-sounding Harley kicks. BLAAH-bluh- bluh-bluh. BLAAH-bluh-bluh-bluh. Then, the spark ignites the fuel mixture in one cylinder at the precise time (they say that with fuel, compression, and timing, an engine must run; Boy, are they wrong a lot of the time!), and one explosion reluctantly following another. The big twin engine burbles down to an idle, with a few more adjustments to the carburetor, expressing itself as one big, burping, shaking iron hulk.

Figure 71. Hamilton and the ’37 Harley, now removed from Hamilton’s second-story apartment, 1964.

(Photo: Gig Hamilton)

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Ca-Clunk into first gear; let out the clutch, and the thing is underway. Each power-stroke of the old 1200cc iron engine pushes the Harley forward, faster. Two miles down the road, into the gorgeous spring smells, the nineteen-year-old hears the old engine sputter: running out of gas! He switches to the other tank for fuel as he turns the beast around. As home comes into sight, he hears the BRrap-puf-puf-puf-BRrap-puf-puf of an engine just about out of fuel. Finally, the big Harley falls silent, as they roll to a stop. A 100-yard push back to the apartment, but well worth the exhaustion.

Miller Bernard “Gig” Hamilton was raised by a single mother in rural western

Pennsylvania, after his alcoholic father left home for good. Moving into the second-floor apartment after high school, the old Harley “basket-case” was his introduction to motorcycles.3

He was hooked. Hamilton’s first job was at the cigar factory in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, maintaining the machinery. With his earnings he purchased a small 80cc Yamaha and began riding it through the woods. In the early 1960s, scrambles racing was the predominant American motorcycle racing event, and Hamilton soon found himself lined up on the starting line of his very first scrambles race with the little Yamaha. Being twenty years old, he had to obtain his mother’s signature to race; even though he was by then married and a father. That first race was a learning experience. Still putting his helmet and gloves on as the starting flag dropped, he got a late start, fell, got himself thoroughly skinned up, and was lapped. He “didn’t get lapped anymore,” though, after that first race.4

3 “Basket case” is a motorcyclist’s term for a non-running motorcycle with pieces removed. 4 Interview with Gig Hamilton by David Russell. 257

Figure 72. Gig Hamilton with daughter Shelly, herself a rider from the age of five. Hamilton, though married and the father of a young girl, still needed his mother’s permission to enter his first race in 1966, because of

his being under twenty-one years old. The motorcycle is his slow but reliable Italian Benelli, and displays

Hamilton’s perennial #37 racing number; a shortened racing seat and small-capacity racing fuel tank have

been added, and the lights removed. (Photo: Gig Hamilton)

Hamilton soon progressed to a used, fifty-dollar, very fast and terminally unreliable

Bultaco 125. After enduring the Bultaco’s self-destructive ways for a few months, a local dealer loaned him a 125cc Benelli to race on the dealer’s behalf. The Benelli was the complete opposite of the Bultaco; slow, but solid and reliable. Hamilton thought the calm Italian four-stroke was the best thing that could have happened to him as a racer. The bike, he recalls, forced him to learn how to finesse the motorcycle quickly through turns in order to pass other racers there; he could not depend on sheer horsepower and acceleration in the straights to win. The wiry, aggressive Hamilton kept progressing, and achieved his expert and professional ratings quickly.

Now, he qualified to compete for the money purses, payable to top finishers.

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In the course of racing, Hamilton became friends with young Navy veteran Dennie

Moore, from nearby Reedsville. Moore was selling and racing Hodakas at the time for the

Aurands for Sports store, but was simultaneously laying the groundwork for his own business: distributing a new German motorcycle, the Maico. Moore finished the application process a few months later, and began his Eastern Maico Distributors business in 1968. The first dealership franchise arrangement Moore arranged was with Gig Hamilton, up the highway in Osceola Mills,

Pennsylvania.

The young Hamilton, then working for an oil company, set up a small shop near his home, first in Smoke Run, Pennsylvania, in 1964, and moving a year later several miles away to

Houtzdale. The requirements for becoming a Maico dealer in the late 1960s were minimal: “Buy one bike, and that was about all.” It seemed like a good idea for other reasons; he could then buy parts at a discount and even make a few dollars selling to others. Hamilton purchased a new 400

Maico as his initial inventory, which he began to ride himself, and soon sold a few more Maicos to others. Hamilton also sold Hodaka, and briefly CZ-Jawa motorcycles. He worked fifty hours a week for the J.J. Powell oil company, maintaining equipment and driving trucks; and ran the owner’s small Yamaha dealership when time permitted. In the evenings, Hamilton worked at his own little dealership. Like Hamilton’s Maico franchise, the Powell Yamaha dealership he managed for his boss was easy to come by. Hamilton recalls, “All [Powell] had to do to get the

Yamaha franchise in the 1960s was to buy two motorcycles and $50 or $100 worth of parts and tools. And, of course a sign; actually, it was just a banner.” (In contrast, becoming a dealer for a major manufacturer like Yamaha, today, involves a complex and lengthy application and approval process, many hundreds of thousands of dollars, and stringent standards.)

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Hamilton named his shop “H&H Cycle,” for himself and a fellow enthusiast, Dick

Harvey, who loaned Hamilton start-up money for the enterprise. His business resembled thousands of other small motorcycle shops then springing up across the United States. The sudden, tremendous growth of interest in motorcycling world-wide had triggered older and previously-smaller manufacturers to aggressively market their machines. The United States, of course, with its population and per capita income, was the ultimate sales target. To gain access to this American market quickly, small or previously localized makers like Maico, Husqvarna, CZ-

Jawa, Puch, Monark, Hodaka, and KTM made becoming a dealer in the states as easy as possible. The larger Japanese companies were nearly as compliant. While established dealers of the then-leading brands—Harley-Davidson, Triumph/BSA/Norton, and Honda, to name a few— took on the smaller brands on as a sideline, tiny Mom and Pop franchises sprang up overnight, as well. These family-owned, usually single-brand dealers often paralleled Hamilton’s situation, in that the dealership was not a primary income source, and served to facilitate the family’s racing hobby. In many cases the dealer also operated another business; perhaps hardware, welding/construction services, or a service station/garage. This arrangement, for the time being, was fine with the small brands, who wanted to penetrate the American market quickly, in any way necessary. They could sort out the chaff, so to speak, later on. Japanese companies had begun heavily marketing their products in the United States several years earlier, and Honda, in particular, was already well established. Yamaha, Kawasaki, and Suzuki were hard on Honda’s lead, and their generally small, well-made, economical street motorcycles were becoming entrenched by the mid-1960s.

Hamilton continued working for the oil company during the day and operating his motorcycle shop at night. He was now repairing all brands, as well as selling Maicos. The salary

260 for a blue-collar worker in rural Pennsylvania at the time was minimal, and Hamilton made only two dollars an hour at his oil company job; he needed more money to provide for his family.

Motorcycles were the answer. “I had to make money. I was driving to Ohio, because they’d pay

$50 to win in dirt track; that was pretty good money in 1971. Pennsylvania tracks didn’t pay quite as much—$25 or whatever; maybe $50—if you were winning. In Ohio, if I’d win both classes I’d come out with a $100 bill. Not bad for a Saturday night racing. And you’ve got to remember that at the time I was making two dollars an hour, working for the oil company and running the owner’s little Yamaha shop. So, working fifty hours a week, I was clearing $80. I could make more money on one Saturday night [than I could working for Powell all week].”

Figure 73. Hamilton in the winner’s circle on his Maico, circa 1968. The money accompanying the trophy was his real motivation, and his status as a Maico dealer helped make the racing (and winning) possible. The

nighttime photo indicates an under-the-lights flat-track event. (Photo: Gig Hamilton)

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Hamilton not only raced motorcycles, but snowmobiles as well. During the winter seasons at the time, these events could be especially lucrative. A weekend’s snowmobile racing for Hamilton could gross him $350; no trivial amount. To win on the big “sleds,” however, a racer had to be aggressive, and this could bring physical retribution from other racers. “You had to get into guys, and hit them; get right out on that ice. It was pretty dirty racing. I was always the smallest, shortest rider, running against these other guys; all big men. I remember getting into so much trouble . . . being small really saved my butt. They’d come over to my pits [and threaten me]; I’d keep my helmet and gear on all night long, especially at the outlaw races.5 One time this farmer—I’d nailed him on the inside, put him out over the track—he came over. About six-foot- six and 300 pounds, screaming at me; me with my helmet on. He’d say something, and then hit me on the head with his finger each time. (I think his finger was the size of my arm!) This would happen all the time. I was always protested for hitting guys. I actually made extra side panels and took them with me, so that when guys would protest [and look for paint marks on the side panels of the sleds, to prove I’d hit them], I’d put these other panels on [to hide the evidence].6 . . . By the way, in snowmobile racing, if you won the points, it was a $1000 bill at the end of the year.

Polaris paid me $1000, two years in a row for winning the points.”

H&H Cycle continued to grow, with Hamilton still working his oil company job by day and the shop at nights and weekends. In 1970 he moved to his present location in Osceola Mills, first working from one side of the shed in which his daughter kept her horse, and building his own building in 1973. It was not until 1978 that Hamilton felt confident enough to quit his regular job and enter the business full-time. With a family of four to provide for; wife, son, and daughter; the cost of living in Osceola Mills was thankfully low. Hamilton became known as a

5 Outlaw races were not sanctioned by any recognized organization. 6 In racing, when one party believes a rule has been broken, that party files a “protest” against the alleged perpetrator. The protest is then investigated by the race’s controlling authority. 262 first-rate engine mechanic; local motorcycle shops found it was cheaper to send engines to him for repair, than to do the work in-house. In addition to engine work, he sold Maicos and used motorcycles, and did any other mechanical work that customers needed.

H&H Cycle is located at 136 Walnut Street, several blocks to the north of Pennsylvania

Route 53, the main road connecting Osceola Mills with Philipsburg. The Hamilton house, a fastidiously clean double-wide, sits near the north-facing entry door of H&H, making the quest for a lunchtime sandwich easy. As small business owners would understand, it also made the trudge back to the office, for many late nights of work, all too convenient, also. Walking up the lawn and across the loose stone driveway, the visitor enters through a single door, to the right of the overhead door. On a winter’s day the shop is warm with the constant humming of a forced- air oil heater and the mingling smells of heating oil and engine lubricants in the air. In summer, the lubricating oil mixes with the scent of sweat cut grass and hay from the horse stall next door.

A too-noisy air compressor kicks on with a clank and a BUH-buh-buh-buh when a tiny pressure sensor gives it the signal.

The rectangular garage is oriented east to west. Walking in the entrance door, looking south, the visitor naturally veers right, over towards the counter, piled with papers and boxes. A telephone and other electronic devices serve to identify this as the heart of the operation. Notes are pinned and stuck to the counter and around the phone, connecting the little operation to other tasks; past, present and future. The counter holds small boxes of inbound parts, likely from large warehouses in distant metropolitan locations very different from Osceola Mills. As was the case with Eastern Maico at the distribution level, the profit on parts and accessories sales is critical to the overall viability of such a small shop.

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Across the cement floor, against the south wall, sit the blasting cabinet, drill press, cylinder boring apparatus, hydraulic press, and other large shop machines. Motorcycles being worked on are parked on the floor, or held up by stands. The selection might normally include a modern dirt bike, a vintage dirt bike, and several nondescript “UJMs” (universal Japanese motorcycles), whose names change so often that it is hard to remember them (they are all pretty much the same, anyway). The UJMs work. They sell easily and are reliable. They also need periodic fixing, and these repairs pay the shop’s bills. Along the west side sits the long, metal- sheeted workbench. Twelve feet long, it holds various disassembled engines, pans of parts, oil cans, and tools. The shop’s only window channels natural light onto the bench, as it looks out on a scene quintessential to this part of Pennsylvania: little two-story frame houses across the street, an Orthodox church spire, a cemetery, and the hills beyond. Farther away, to the north and to the west, lay hundreds of square miles of the sparsely-populated hills of Pennsylvania’s northern tier, running on to Ohio. In past decades, it was the availability of these hills for riding that helped create tremendous interest in off-road motorcycles throughout Pennsylvania, West

Virginia, and the New England states; these areas which remain bulwarks of the sport.7

A line of motorcycles is arranged on the eastern side of the shop; these are Hamilton’s personal bikes, bikes awaiting pick-up, and bikes sitting because the owners currently lack the money to pay their bill. Above these motorcycles and behind the oil burner, a shelf holds trophies. Most are relatively new, from vintage racing; a few, though, are from the old days,

7 New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio are several states with important links to off-road sport riding, past and present. Topography, population density, and proximity to eastern ports all influenced this relationship. New York was home to the Ossa motorcycle importer and a hotbed for flat-track racing and enduro competition. Ohio was home to Penton motorcycles and always a popular racing venue. Pennsylvania was of course home to the eastern Maico distributor. West Virginia remains a major motocross racing venue, and is home to the respected RacerX Illustrated magazine, today. All these states continue to show notable interest in all forms of off-road riding. 264 when racing was more serious, and the winnings helped feed his family.8 Some of the trophies are ridiculously large; five-foot-tall plastic, marble, blue and gold constructions, commemorating a win that only a few people would still remember. Hamilton chides himself for having the trophies sitting about: “Gotta get rid of this stuff; taking up space,” he says.

Hamilton ordered a 125cc Maico in 1969, racing in both the 125 and open classes in scrambles and “scrambles/TT” events. He was very successful as a racer, encouraged by the income. Hamilton was awarded the “#1 Plate” (meaning the recipient had accumulated the maximum number of points in the past year) for six years in a row, in his home, western-

Pennsylvania District Five region. He never raced with the #1 plate, however, electing to stay with his original #37 racing number; perhaps to not bring undue attention to himself, as in his snowmobile racing. Racing on weekends and back in the shop during the week, it must be noted that Hamilton achieved the dream of many motorcyclists: making a living, doing the thing he loved. His racing career spanned the years from 1964 to 1980.

The scrambles racing in which Hamilton participated was also known as “TT” or

“scrambles/TT,” and generally as “dirt track” (though the term dirt track also encompasses the various oval-track events). Hamilton notes: “TT and scrambles were about the same thing: different districts would call the same type of course different things. They had to have the straightaway and the left and right turns. A jump wasn’t mandatory, but most [tracks] had it. This would be a high-speed, gradual, natural-terrain kind of jump. You didn’t go really high, about three or four feet, but you went really long. You’d usually hit this jump in third or fourth gear; it was really fun.” This type of racing, very dependent upon sliding technique, incorporating short heats over a smooth track, and requiring only moderate physical exertion, later put Americans at

8 Vintage racing is the modern racing use of older motorcycles. Vintage racing was very popular in the United States from the late 1980s through the present day, as riders from the 1970s restored old motorcycles and enjoyed their former passion once more. 265 a disadvantage for their lack of stamina. When the more physically-demanding sport of motocross and its European stars arrived in America about 1970, Americans riders would be on a steep learning curve.

Figure 74. H&H Cycle Center, Osceola Mills, Pennsylvania, 2014. This building was constructed in 1973, three years after Gig Hamilton moved to Osceola Mills from nearby Houtzdale. The shop is now operated by

another single dealer/mechanic. The wooden building to the right in the image is a shelter for horses.

(Photo: Gig Hamilton)

Hamilton spent years racing a 125 Maico, but was plagued by engine breakdowns. Awed by the little Maico’s excellent power output and handling, but unimpressed by its lack of reliability, Hamilton combined the best features of two manufacturers. He replaced the Maico

125 engine with one from a Yamaha 125, and now had a hybrid combining the best of two manufacturers; the solid Yamaha engine in the unsurpassed Maico frame; excellent-handling and very reliable. He emphasizes that “nothing handled like a Maico.” Racing as well in the open class, his 400 served him well until he obtained one of the very first 440s in the country from

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Dennie Moore in 1972. The racing success verified Hamilton’s reputation as an expert mechanic, as well, particularly with Maico motorcycles, and his mechanical work was sought out by other racers. He recalls that in addition to the local riders who he did work for, many other well-known riders frequented H&H Cycle. American riders Jimmy Weinert and Gary Chaplin would visit, along with the more famous European Maico team stars like Adolf Weil, Willi Bauer, Gerritt

Wolsink, and brothers Ake and Tore Jonsson.9 Visits by Weil, Bauer, Wolsink, and the Jonssons occurred while these factory racing starts were passing through the area on the InterAm or Trans-

AMA series races. Hamilton enjoyed all the international riders, and was particularly fascinated by Ake Jonsson’s professionalism and athleticism. The occasional personality differences, he felt, could have occurred in any culture, and he recalls most of the champion riders as being very unaffected by their fame; humble and friendly to everyone they met. The European star riders would occasionally eat dinner at the homes of area dealers and racers, an event fondly remembered by the locals. Hamilton got along with them all, yet expressed disaffection with

German attitudes, from his past as a Maico dealer. As does Dennie Moore, he professes to having experienced a suppressed but real harshness in the German psyche.

Hamilton’s accomplishment as a mechanic and tuner was his remarkable understanding of two-stroke engines, from early in the type’s rise to popularity in the 1960s. Maico had, since their inception, utilized two-stroke engines in all their motorcycles, and Germans long held a reputation for excellence in two-stroke engineering. The pioneering work of German motor company DKW in two-stroke design from the 1920s through the 1950s is particularly notable.10

For riders in the United States, long used to large four-stroke motorcycle engines, the practice of tuning two-stroke engines for racing was still a mystery the early and mid-1960s. Two-stroke

9 Tore Jonsson was Ake Jonsson’s younger brother, sponsored by Eastern Maico. 10 Mick Walker, Classic German Racing Motorcycles (London: Osprey Publishing, 1991), 45-60. 267 engines had previously been relegated to use in smaller, cheaper motorcycles in the United States and England, not being considered proper propulsion for a manly, full-sized motorcycle.11 Even

Honda Motor Company founder Hirohito Honda reportedly loathed the noisy, oil-burning two- stroke engines, and refused for decades to have the Honda name attached to one; the company finally broke tradition and entered the two-stroke market in 1973. Following World War II, the rights to build German DKW-designed motorcycles were awarded to the allies as part of war- reparations compensation agreements.12 In the United States, Harley-Davidson interpreted the

DKW design as their lightweight Hummer model, and in England BSA made a similarly low-end variant known as the Bantam. Still, the whining, smoking little bikes did not endear themselves to most Americans, whose open roads embraced large, sturdy four-stroke Harleys, Indians, and by then the bigger-displacement British imports. Further hurting the acceptance of two-strokes was the very limited understanding of their performance; specifically, that of cylinder porting and “expansion chamber” exhaust design.

The introduction of high-performance, large-displacement two-stroke dirt bikes to

America and around the world in the mid-1960s was transformative. This was a watershed development: before, the motorcycle culture had looked one way; afterwards it was forever changed. These motorcycles may have still belched blue smoke and their un-muffled exhausts could churn out excruciating noise, but they were undeniably powerful and fast. The CZs,

Maicos, and Husqvarnas of the era weighed much less than all the then-dominant four-strokes, and put out greater and more usable power. Furthermore, they were simpler and cheaper to build, operate, and repair than the four-strokes. Within just a few years, the large four-stroke singles and twins were completely supplanted by lighter, better-handling, and [at least] equally-powerful

11 One notable exception to this trend of using exclusively four-stroke engines in high-end big bikes was the Scott “Flying Squirrel” motorcycle from England. 12 Hugo Wilson, The Encyclopedia of the Motorcycle (New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1995), 37, 74. 268 two-strokes. Hamilton embraced two-stroke technology from its early introduction in the form of the small imported motorcycles that he first raced, and progressed into the maintaining and tuning of the larger Maicos. Maico engineers had, years before, understood expansion chamber design (that is, harnessing the exhaust shock wave to help “pull” the next exhaust charge from the cylinder) and were building powerful two-stroke motorcycles since the 1950s. Hamilton tuned both his own motorcycles and those of his customers to their utmost, extracting maximum horsepower and tailoring power output to the rider’s preferences. He became known for his understanding of all the Maico engines, from the “Swiss watch-like” 125, to the big 440s and

501s.13 Hamilton was also one of very few Maico mechanics or riders who understood the design flaws in the early 250 radial engines.14

In the course of his work with Maico and Dennie Moore that Hamilton met many of the

Maico factory-sponsored riders of the 1970s. During the early days of the Trans-AMA series, the

Maico entourage, including the factory stars and local American racers, stopped in at Moore’s

Eastern Maico Distributors location to prepare for the series. Since Hamilton was Moore’s first franchise and located within an hour’s drive, the factory riders would stop by Hamilton’s shop to convey the latest factory technical upgrades (part of the job description for the team), and also went riding with Hamilton and Moore, when in the area. One weekend, Hamilton and Moore decided to indoctrinate Swedish motocross genius Ake Jonsson in the techniques of American flat-track racing, a form of riding quite foreign to Jonsson. Hamilton recalled, “One of the neatest things was the night that Dennie and I talked Ake into going half-mile racing with us. It was a

13 Interview with Gig Hamilton by David Russell. 14 The port timing in these engines would require engine speeds of 11,000-12,000 rpm to work properly, far too high for off-road use. Thus, these early 250 radials, capable of achieving perhaps 7,000 rpm, never produced good power. Hamilton learned to correct this flaw prior to the factory’s redesign of the engine in 1975, and produced some very competitive 250 Maicos—so fast and so successful, in fact, that he was still being protested and accused of cheating by competitors at vintage races in the 1990s. In this work, Wilhelm Maisch Jr. and Charles Schank also remembered having understood the reason for the 250 engine problem. 269 pea-gravel track in Gratz, Pennsylvania. Gratz was a big half-mile; measuring half a mile on the inside of the turn, and probably three-quarters of a mile on the outside.15 We talked him into it.”

As Hamilton prepared the bikes, Jonsson watched in amazement as riders exceeded 100 mph down the straights, and then flung the motorcycles sideways in extreme two-wheel-drifting slides around the corners. “I’m getting this baby ready and we’re putting the sprockets on. And he keeps saying, ‘Oh, my, no . . . crazy Americans!’ But it was funny; we were all having a good time. He practiced, and then he wasn’t going to race, and then he was. Anyway, he decides he’s traveled all this way, so he might as well do it. He got a good start, not too far back; pulls ahead of several riders. But, then he enters the first curve, and he squares it off!16 Oh, my gosh! We thought the other riders were going to kill him! You know, you have to get in there sideways, but he squares it off! Oh, he hit a couple people, and it was bad. He made a lap, and then just pulled off and parked his bike, and said, “Crazy! Too fast; no good!’ And, that was it. We never talked him into going flat-tracking again with us.” Jonsson may have been the best motocrosser in the world, but in the traditional American venue of flat-track, even he had things to learn

Another time, Hamilton took Jonsson and Dutchman Gerritt Wolsink riding in the local strip-mine area; what they locals called “Northy,” north of Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. He recalled the Europeans’ skill on dirt bikes: “When they started riding, you just wanted to watch.

It’s funny because they were so fast after one or two laps, that I didn’t even want to ride with them. One part was a really neat, long hill; you went over the top, and then you went down around a turn and off this hill. You had to watch your braking coming down this hill, because at

15 Gratz, Pennsylvania incorporates the classic half-mile [former horse-racing] track into the community’s fairgrounds, outside the small town twenty-three miles north of Harrisburg. The presence of these horse-racing tracks across America was one reason for the rise and popularity of oval-track dirt racing in the early and mid- 1900s. 16 Jonsson, in “squaring off,” changed direction abruptly, motocross-style, midway through the turn. Since flat-track riders slide their machines round the curves, following the direction of the track, Jonsson’s sudden change of direction was an unexpected and potentially dangerous action. 270 the bottom were these two trees that you had to come down through, and you only had about six inches [clearance] on either side, so you had to be pretty precise. So . . . I watched them take a couple laps on this track. . . . They put in about three laps, and it wasn’t exciting enough for them, I guess. So, then they run this hill-climb, and almost at the very top they square off the top and make a left, and square again and made a ninety-degree turn right. So, they go up over this hill—that we can barely make it up, most of the time—make a left, and then a right over the top!

And then they make some little S-turns, and then they come flying down off the hill, where I was saying you had to be so precise . . . .like in third gear! They were so fast and amazing. I was just so glad to be able to ride with them, although I couldn’t have stayed with them at all on a motocross track.”

Hamilton has a unique friendship with another humbly-born American who pulled himself up through similar hard work, and who also benefited from Hamilton’s motorcycle repair skills. Hamilton’s cousin, nicknamed “Sasa,” has been rock-and-roller Chuck Berry’s manager for many decades. Berry is one of the genre’s pioneering stars and an early inductee into the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. An African-American, his career started in the 1950s and continues today. Through Sasa, Hamilton came to know Berry, and often stopped-in at the singer’s

Missouri estate. Berry’s career was marked by legal problems and mismanagement at the hands of white promoters, and his encounters with police were many. His misadventures, undertaken while pursuing a similarly unaccepted career path (rock and roll and motorcycle racing) has helped the two men forge the camaraderie that they did. Hamilton recalls, “He has a place in

Wentzville, Missouri, called Berry Park. . . . I used to go out every year and spend a week [with my cousin, Sasa]; most of the times, Chuck was there. He’s a real nice, straight person . . . for as much crap as he’s gotten in his life. He’s always treated me good. He came here to [play a

271 concert near our winter home in] Silver Springs, Florida a few years ago. Called us up, and told

Nancy and me to meet him back-stage. So, we went down on the bike. Of course, when we got there, the security didn’t believe us; I told them to go get Chuck. Me and Nance on the BMW, just sitting there . . . pretty soon I hear, ‘What’re ya doin’ over there, Gig? Come on over; where do you want to sit?’ Spent the whole day with him. . . . Seventy-nine years old, and in great health.”

Figure 75. Chuck Berry (left, atop Hamilton’s 450 Maico) and Hamilton at the Berry estate in Missouri: two

American boys who took roads less traveled. Berry is giving his blue Honda CM400 to Hamilton.

(Source: Gig Hamilton)

“And then, five or six years ago, I was racing at Peoria, Illinois, not far from Wentzville.

Another cousin was with me . . . so, we stopped to see Sasa for the day. Chuck just happened to be there; remember that his offices and recording studio are right there at Berry Park. My

272 cousin’s house is also there on the property. I went over to the studio where he was working, to say hello, and happened to ask if he still had that old Honda 400 we used to ride, back in the

1970s. He said, ‘Sure, let’s go find it.’ He was positive it was there, somewhere. Well, finally, in the fourth building we checked, there it was; that old Honda automatic with a couple hundred miles on it. He told me that that bike had never left Berry Park. He asked me if I wanted it. ‘You rode it, you worked on it; it’s yours. I want you to have it.’ He gave me a bill of sale that day; I still have it, with his name on it, along with a matching helmet. I bought it for one dollar!17

Chuck . . . he had an incredible, and not always easy, life. A hard-working guy. He’ll still do the

Duck Walk, but he says he’ll do it only one time each show, now.”

Hamilton is retired, now, living out in the country around Osceola Mills in the summer, and spending the winter months at his small home in rural Florida, where he hunts snakes, fishes, rides his old street bikes, and still works on an engine, if prodded. He remains proud of his work and cherishes his experiences. “The Maicos ran good from the 1960s when I sold them, and they run good today. . . . You couldn’t beat a Maico through the early 1970s; after that, the Japanese really had a good motor. But look at DeCoster: he was on a $30,000 hand-built motorcycle, and he couldn’t beat Ake [Jonsson] on a basically stock Maico.”18

Towards the end of Hamilton’s time as a Maico dealer, his relationship with the company soured. The old, casual understanding between the far-away German company that made excellent motorcycles, and the small, rural family dealers across the United States, deteriorated.

Dennie Moore was pushed out of the business in 1973, and for Hamilton, relations went downhill from that point. “A funny part of my relationship with Maico is that Maico told me, in

1982, that I wasn’t selling enough bikes. I really didn’t like their bikes in 1981 or 1982. Maico

17 Hamilton’s other stories of Chuck Berry’s experiences (to include crooked promoters, unimaginable racism, and inebriated, world-famous rock-stars hiding in the trees around Berry Park) are excluded at Hamilton’s request. 18 He refers to Jonsson’s domination of DeCoster in the 1971and 1972 American Trans-AMA seasons. 273 really got on me and told me I’d lose my franchise if I didn’t stock eight to ten bikes. I thought this was a bit funny, since I was the second dealer set up in Pennsylvania, and had sold, serviced, and raced them for years, winning motocross, dirt track, and scrambles with the #1 plate. And

Maico wants to pull my franchise? Do you know what they told me? ‘Times have changed.’

What kind of BS is that? One of the first dealers, putting out a good name, and here they are putting out bikes that needed to be improved upon—it was a proven fact—and they treated me like that? I really had a round with them; I told them that that was fine. They were making a bad bike, and I frankly didn’t need them. In 1982 I didn’t buy a single bike, because I was so mad at them. I got a letter that year, saying that they were going to pull my franchise in 1983; of course, that never happened [due to Maico’s bankruptcy that year].”

“Funny, too . . . right now, 1981 Maicos are so valuable; at the time, I didn’t think the

[1981] bikes were that great. They were a really good motorcycle up until the 1980s, but that’s when problems started: breaking hubs and gears; you really had to watch it. . . . There were lawsuits and I really backed off. I sold quite a few Maicos; pushed them pretty hard up until the late 1970s. I think they were starting to go downhill even then. In 1981 I believe I only sold two bikes. And, my goodness . . . the price! Yamahas were hundreds of dollars cheaper. Things change. . . . I became a bit burnt-out . . . Things change. Funny.”

The motorcycle racers of years past, like football players, are remembered for their physical toughness. Besides the physical courage inherent in high-speed riding, the men’s response to injury (in the pursuit of what was supposed to be fun), is notable. The idea of being injured, and then having broken bones temporarily “taped up,” to allow the rider to get back on the track, seems incredible today. None the less, Hamilton remembers: “I had a great time; I had a blast. It was a lot of fun; but I’ve had friends killed, paralyzed; broken necks, broken backs . . .

274 it can be bad. I was really fortunate. I once broke a bone in my foot; down near the middle. It was at Murraysville Raceway in the early 1970s. Boy, it hurt; evidently I caught a foot-peg or something. Took the boot off and there’s that bone; not sticking quite through the skin, but you could see it trying to. Back in those days you just taped it up. In the 1960s the ambulance driver would just get rid of the blood, tape you up, and get you back on the track. I could tell you stories for a week. We had a blast!”

Hamilton’s business model, a small building with a one-man operation, was common in the 1960s and 1970s. In time, the industry did change: less competitive and smaller manufacturers were pushed out, and the stronger surviving companies worked to create more compliant, efficient, uniform, and profitable dealer networks. The first casualties of this reorganization were small dealers. Other than a few businesses dealing with the several remaining “boutique” motorcycle brands still in existence, the small Mom and Pop dealership is mostly gone from the United States landscape. H&H Cycle remains, though no longer a dealer for new motorcycles; the present owner concentrates now on parts sales and mechanical work.

Had Maico remained viable, in the face of both its own missteps and the escalating competition from the Japanese manufacturers, H&H Cycle and other small dealers may have continued selling high-quality European imported motorcycles. But this was not to be, as other small manufacturers like CZ, Monark, Puch, and Husqvarna, suffering like Maico from bad assumptions and increased competition, continued to lose market share. The days of the small dealers, the men selling motorcycles from a shed or displaying them in a service station or hardware store, have largely disappeared. One case of a resurgence of the small dealer, currently, are the hardware and auto parts stores which sell Chinese-made (copies of Hondas) small motorcycles. As with the small European producers in the 1960s and 1970s, these new

275 companies desire fast market penetration above all else, and are not asking too many questions of prospective new dealers.

The small dealer, like Gig Hamilton’s H&H Cycle, is mostly gone in the United States.

While these dealers were able to leverage their advantage of savings (in parts and bike purchases at wholesale prices) for their own use, they helped defer the cost of amateur motorcycle racing.

To some extent, this advantage helped make sport riding in earlier decades more accessible, and made for a greater democratization of racing. As I stated earlier, the relative cost of owning a sport motorcycle between 1974 and 2014 has increased several-fold. The result, at least in observing motocross today, appears to be one of younger boys racing, supported by more affluent families. Having now examined two key elements of the motorcycle business—the distributor (through the story of Dennie Moore) and the retail seller (through the story of Gig

Hamilton)—I will now look at a third part of the sport motorcycle economic system in the

United States: the aftermarket parts supplier.

276

4.4 A SEASON OF INVENTION: GREG SMITH AND WHEELSMITH

Thus far I have discussed two aspects of the motorcycle distribution system in the United

States: the importer/wholesale distributor, and the retail dealer. Besides the manufacturer, another major player in this economic system is the maker and/or seller of aftermarket parts for the motorcycle. In the case of Maico, the premier producer of these accessories was a small business in Santa Anna, California, named Wheelsmith Engineering (later Wheelsmith

Motorcycles). This chapter will examine the need Wheelsmith filled for Maico riders, why such a business thrived for a time, and what these parts meant to buyers.

The personalization of motorcycles

The tendency of motor vehicle operators to modify their machines is readily apparent around us, and has been considered earlier in this dissertation. It can be witnessed daily on the streets of the United States, where men (and occasionally women) rev their engines and preen about in the cars which they have painted, hopped-up, and added wide tires. These personalized vehicles convey an assortment of messages to on-lookers: rebellion, the desire for enhanced physical power and performance, individuality, and perhaps the profession of a willingness to compete with other drivers. These cars also express the personality of, and values held by the builder. Members of street motorcycle subcultures behave likewise. The buyer of a $24,000

Harley-Davidson motorcycle will usually decline to be seen with a standard, utterly stock motorcycle; it like many others emerging from the factory, and does not adequately express his or her individuality. After all, he or she believes that they are not just standard fare; people like any other. That is why, in part, the owner is extending his or her resources to obtain such an expensive personal representation. By deciding to purchase such an expensive conveyance of limited utility (a motorcycle is of little use in bad weather, or with more than two passengers.),

277 the owner is likely foreseeing the vehicle as not simply transportation, but as an expression of his or her individuality. And buying the thing is not enough; it must still be modified in some way to make to ensure the motorcycle itself is individualized. Before it can represent the individuality of its owner, it also must differ from the hundreds or thousands of other like machines. It needs to be changed into something special—made to transcend its present state of post-assembly-line normalcy—before the new owner will allow his association with it. Maybe the owner will purchase extra chrome, invest in custom paint, add accessories, or alter the engine. Perhaps just tie on a bandana. In any case, the rider must make the machine his or her own. If the modifications actually help the machine to perform, so much the better.

Beyond measurable physical performance, all modifications and alterations to a car or motorcycle differentiate it and its owner. But (and this point is critical) these pursuits of individualism, with respect to motorcycle cultures, are also associative: they help to bond the owner to like-minded others. The jacked-up four-wheel-drive pick-up, the small Japanese car with a loud exhaust, and the “chopped” motorcycle all proclaim their owner’s identification with a group whose social image has evolved to include that specific material culture. As anthropologist Barbara Joans notes in her exploration of road biker culture in the United States, her rough men and women—who might stage a micro-rebellion with immediate family members or old friends (who cannot identify with the non-traditional dress and behavior of the new bikers)—are, on a macro level, reaching out to associate with a specific tradition, to provide them with the values, behaviors, and symbols they crave.1 Joans’ bikers, adrift in an America where moral relativism has replaced identifiable values and individuality has gone to extremes,

1 Barbara Joans. Bike Lust: Harleys, Women, & American Society (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2001), 17. 278 are seeking a support system; bonds of friendship, a dress code, and clarity on what constitutes right and wrong behavior.

We should then approach the motivations for, and practice of, modifying motor vehicles as a wide continuum. On one end we can place entirely practical alterations—adding knobby tires for off-road use, hopping-up an engine—and on the other place those changes which are decorative—painting a Civil-war era rebel flag on the gas tank, adding chrome wheels. Some of these modifications are purely rational attempts to optimize performance, while the purely decorative are emotional in nature. In both cases, the changes are on one hand individualistic, and associative on the other. They are, really, proclaiming the owner as an individual, but an individual who seeks to be accepted and affirmed by a larger group of individuals.

In the early days of off-road motorcycle riding, after the introduction of the purpose-built dirt bike (but before its rapid technological improvement in the 1970s and 1980s) stock motorcycles often needed performance modifications just to keep them running, or to lessen danger to the rider. Prior to 1981, Maico and most other motorcycles were certainly in this category.2 The Maico factory had done most things right, but several details needed correcting by the owner in order to ensure reasonably safe and successful operation. Some riders had the ability to fabricate their own parts and effect their own modifications. Many, however, with no access to machine tools and perhaps limited mechanical ability, needed someone else to make the parts for them. And, whether able to make parts or not, riders desired to use the same parts seen on the winning motorcycles of the day, and to associate themselves with these symbols of excellence. One of the most notable producers of these sought-after aftermarket parts for off-road motorcycles was Greg Smith.

2 By the early 1980s, motorcycles were well-designed and less likely to need any changes. Source: Interview with Craig Shambaugh by David Russell, September 11, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 279

Wheelsmith

Greg Smith was raised in California and grew up racing go-carts, his introduction to motorsports. During college at the University of California, Los Angeles, Smith gravitated more into motorcycles, a more practical motor vehicle for the dorms. He became a competitor of local renown, and placed well in the early Inter-AM motocross races. After graduation in the early

1960s, he went to work for an aerospace company, staying there until 1970, when a downturn in the industry five years later left him and other industry workers unemployed. Having worked alongside the prototype shop of his company as a production engineer, Smith had spent considerable time with high-performance alloy aircraft components. Mixing work with his motor hobbies, he modified his and others’ motorcycles, designing new parts and having the aerospace machinists fabricate them.3

When his job in the aerospace industry was terminated, Smith decided to investigate whether he could make a living from his dirt bike avocation. Teaming with a fellow unemployed aerospace engineer, Sam Wheeler, the two formed Wheelsmith Engineering. Smith continued to pursue his passion for motorcycle racing, and in the small shop’s early months, his occasional winnings helped pay expenses. Motocross was still new to America, but was then all the rage in southern California, Smith recalls. Smith and Wheeler made and sold parts and did custom fabrication, and Smith took advantage of absorbing as much as he could of Wheeler’s engineering and machinist skills. In a short time Wheeler left the small business. Smith continued on by himself.

Several years earlier, Smith remembered being introduced to a particularly ungainly- looking bike “with a geometrically-challenged gas tank; a Maico.” While riding the machine he

3 Interview with Greg Smith by David Russell, February 9, 2009, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 280 immediately realized that it possessed a rare ability for a motorcycle of the day: to actually go where it was pointed. This was thanks to the machine’s “front-steering” ability, provided by the unique Maico offset axle front fork design. He purchased his own square-barrel 250 soon after that. Smith was later given Adolf Weil’s factory Maico in about 1969 by Maico, in recognition of his wins in the Inter-Am races of 1968 and 1969. Although the Maico possessed many excellent qualities, Smith noted details that failed to live up to the machine’s potential: slippery foot-pegs, exhaust pipes that quickly smashed, and too-heavy steel parts, to name a few. He resolved to see these fixed, and in the process created a motorcycle sport legacy.

Figure 76. Greg Smith at work in the Wheelsmith machine shop, circa 1971. (Photo: Greg Smith)

The Wheelsmith shop in Santa Anna created high-quality hand-crafted parts for Maico,

CZ, and other motorcycles, while it also built items for the Japanese factories, including snowmobiles. Southern California was long the geographical heart of American interest in motorsports, and it had enthusiastically adopted motocross. New racing venues like Saddleback

Park, Carlsbad, and Indian Dunes were nationally known. The scene did not stop at nightfall,

281 either, and illuminated tracks such as Ascot Park, Lions Drag Strip, Fontana, Irwindale, and

Corona kept the action going long after dark. Southern Californian enthusiasts could not get enough of the dirt bike craze. Further afield, special longer-distance off-road competition events were held at Hopetown, Westlake, and Mammoth Mountain.

Even with all this motorcycling activity and reasonable sales, Smith realized that his business was limited to the number of Maicos and other dirt bikes in southern California.

Knowing enthusiasts in other areas would want his products, he began to advertise Wheelsmith items in the emerging off-road motorcycle magazines. The results were tremendous; soon the company was shipping parts across the United States and around the world.4

Figure 77. Early Wheelsmith Engineering print advertisement as posted in leading motorcycle magazines,

targeting Maico owners, circa 1972. Wheelsmith made products which addressed specific weaknesses in

Maicos; purchasing the part indicated that the owner understood these subtleties. (Source: Cycle News)

4 Wheelsmith was one of the pioneers of mail-order motorcycle parts, a field that was later exploited by J&P Cycles, Custom Chrome, and others. 282

Wheelsmith’s creations tended to be gleaming works in aluminum, full of holes for lightness and using high-quality fasteners. Given Smith’s origins in the aeronautical industry, these creations were “aircraft-quality” in design and construction. The pieces were aesthetically pleasing and exhibited levels of craftsmanship equal to their shining appearance. The items were stamped, cut, and machined using industrial machines, but still required significant personal involvement by metalworkers and were largely hand-crafted.5 Finish of the pieces was more than suitable to their end utilitarian use: reasonable, but not excessively polished. Any Wheelsmith installation became an instant visual focal point on the motorcycle on which it was mounted.

Wheelsmith continued growing, and in 1974 Smith was able to purchase the Maico inventory from a local motorcycle shop. Smith then went to the west coast Maico distributor,

Frank Cooper, and convinced Cooper to allow him to take over the Maico franchise for the area.

With Cooper’s acquiescence and the addition of an actual motorcycle line, Wheelsmith

Engineering became Wheelsmith Motorcycles. The small company eventually sold a variety of boutique European motorcycle brands, and continued to prosper for the next ten years. In addition to creating new products, Smith sponsored and mentored promising riders. Among the young American nationally-known racers who passed through Wheelsmith’s doors were Gaylon

Moser, Jeff Jennings (Figure 84), Steve Ryhan, Donny Hanson, Jimmy Weinert, Marty Smith, and Marty Tripes. Wheelsmith’s sponsorship of international Maico phenomenon Ake Jonsson in

1972 particularly increased the company’s visibility and business.

Wheelsmith crafted a reputation for producing the best aftermarket parts available, and the company’s “W-M” logo was synonymous with performance. For the consumer, installing a

Wheelsmith component was not only performance-enhancing, but also constituted membership

5 David Pye, The Nature and Art of Workmanship, Rev. ed. (Bethel, CT: Cambium Press, 1998), 25. 283 into a realm of higher awareness of quality and a heightened dedication to competition. The acquisition of Wheelsmith parts showed understanding and commitment; a rider affixing a “W-

M” part to his motorcycle could claim association with other committed, winning riders. Just as the Hell’s Angels and other clubs had their “colors” as a badge of acceptance and entry into the club, serious off-road riders could point to their Wheelsmith-equipped motorcycle as evidence of their understanding, passion for, and inclusion in the dirt bike fraternity.6 Among the company’s most recognized products (many for Maico) were its exhaust systems, foot-pegs, chain guides, and brake pedals. In 1973 Wheelsmith began modifying motorcycle frames to long-travel, by mail order. The company also did engine work, which, in the case of Maico, was outwardly visible by the “wedge” cut of the radial cylinder and head. The Maico factory took notice of the wedge look and its popularity in the United States, and implemented the style on its 1977 and later engines.

Figure 77. Now also a motorcycle dealer, the shop became Wheelsmith Motorcycles; note the “W-M” logo.

This advertisement from about 1974 also shows that Wheelsmith was a Montesa as well as a Maico dealer.

“Frame Mods” suggests that the introduction of long-travel suspension (for which the modifications were

intended), predates the advertisement. (Source: Cycle News)

6 See Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (New York: The Modern Library, 1999), 44-5, 61, 71-3, for discussion of the meaning and attainment of individual riders’ “colors” (club jacket) and the symbolism of clothing within biker and gang culture. 284

A major Wheelsmith innovation was the creation of functional, very-long-travel frames, designed as the motorcycling world was still struggling to understand long-travel suspension.

Working with industry engineers, Wheelsmith in one case adapted seventeen-inch Monroe velocity-sensitive shock absorbers to a Maico rear end, resulting in nearly fourteen inches of rear travel. The industry eventually settled on a maximum travel of about twelve inches, but

Wheelsmith’s accomplishment was noteworthy. Any amount of long rear wheel travel created immense problems for early long-travel motorcycles, owing to the fluctuating distance between the front and rear sprockets, caused by the relatively large separation of the front sprocket from the swing-arm pivot point. As the rear wheel moved through its arc of motion, this arrangement resulted in changing distances between the front and rear sprockets. Upon compression, the change in linear distance slackened drive chain tension, making chain derailment common.

Chain wear and friction (due to the ever-changing chain tension) and chain contact with the swing-arm were also problems. Ideally, the engineers realized, if the front drive sprocket were on the same axis as the swing-arm pivot point, none of these issues would exist. Wheelsmith took exactly this route, creating a three-sprocket, or “jack-shaft” drive system. In this system, the engine sprocket drove an intermediate sprocket on the swing-arm pivot, and this shaft turned another sprocket, which became the forward sprocket of the final drive chain. Wheelsmith rider

Gaylon Mosier won the Los Angeles Coliseum Supercross 500 class on this system in 1978.

Mosier successfully campaigned the machine during the regular outdoor Trans-AMA season as well.7 Although the system worked, manufacturers chose instead to move engine drive sprockets

7 Gaylon Mosier died following a bicycle/truck accident while training in New York in 1979; Smith was a pall- bearer at his friend’s funeral. 285 to the most rearward position near the swing-arm pivot, negating the need to adopt Wheelsmith’s invention.

Figure 79. The problem with long-travel suspension: the swing-arm pivot point on this 1977 Maico is about six inches aft of the front chain drive sprocket. As the swing-arm pivots—and the large rear sprocket moves up and down—sprocket-to-sprocket length and chain tension change. Smith’s jack-shaft drive system placed the front chain drive sprocket on the same axis as the swing-arm pivot, eliminating the problematic change in

distance between front and rear drive chain sprockets. (Photo: the author)

Wheelsmith was still a major name in off-road riding (as well as one of America’s biggest Maico dealers) when Smith concluded that major changes were imminent in the international motorcycle market. The Japanese factories were pouring money into motorcycle development, to the detriment of the smaller European boutique brands like Maico. He could see that eventually the small brands, on which his business relied, would be at best pushed to a more distant periphery in sales, and at worst be forced completely out of business. While the company

286 was still vibrant in the industry, the wary Smith sold out to the Roy Richter family in 1979.8

Wheelsmith continued under the Richter family for several more years, before they closed in

1985, two years after Maico’s demise, and the fulfillment Smith’s prediction. Greg Smith moved first into finance, and then into information technology, where he worked for the next thirty years. He withdrew almost completely from motorcycles during this period. Upon re-entering it decades later, he was amazed at the degree to which Maico and Wheelsmith creations had become objects of value.

Examination of selected items

Taken as items of material culture, these parts hold meaning for observers today, and help us to identify the motivations and values of American motorcyclists. Following are examinations of several of the most common Wheelsmith items made for Maico motorcycles. Using material culture historian Henry Glassie’s definitions, each item can be considered a “non-folk, popular culture object.”9 By this I mean that they are manufactured items, their design experiencing minimal variation over space but changing over time. All the items are made with significant human involvement, but with the use of industrial machines. For our purposes, each item examined is representative of the piece in general and as-new, without consideration of any subject item’s wear or changes due to corrosion over time. E. McClung Fleming’s four-part process (identification, evaluation, cultural analysis, interpretation) is briefly applied to each item.10

8 Roy Richter founded the Bell Helmet company as well as Cragar Industries, two enduring entities in motorsports. Together with Dean Moon, Ed Iskendrian, and Vic Edelbrock, Jr.—three other famous names in motorsports— Richter created the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) in 1963. 9 Henry Glassie. Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United States (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968), 7-33. 10 E. McClung Fleming, “Artifact Study: A Proposed Model,” Winterthur Portfolio 9 (1974), ed. by Ian M.G. Quimby, 153-73. 287

The Wheelsmith brake pedal (Figure 80) examined is of the type used on pre-1977

Maicos. It mounts in place of the stock item, and utilizes the originally-fitted screw-and-washer assembly. The design identifies it as a Wheelsmith item, and, when new, it would have borne a company decal. This is the pedal referred to by Dennie Moore as having been developed jointly by Wheelsmith and Eastern Maico.11

The pedal is made from a single ¼ inch-thickness piece of aluminum-alloy plate. The serrated front part, which the rider’s boot would contact, is bent back in a “U” shape and welded to the pedal body. The upper part of the pedal has been bent inwards, receding towards the motorcycle. This part attaches to the brake rod, which runs behind the right-side frame and right shock absorber, in turn connecting to the rear brake actuator on the brake backing plate. The roughly 10.5-inch pedal has been drilled with six 1/2 inch holes to further reduce weight. The holes are nicely chamfered where they meet the surface of the aluminum plate. The completed pedal appears to have been lightly polished, but overall is simply functional.

11 Interviews with Dennie Moore by David Russell, March 27, 2007 through November 14, 2013, Lewistown, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 288

Figure 80. Wheelsmith rear brake pedal (center) and footpeg (lower left). (Photo: the author)

As has been discussed, the reason for the use of aluminum as the base material for a competition part such as this is two-fold. First, aluminum is light-weight and strong. Second, aluminum is and remains a metaphor for high performance. The substance resonates with technical possibilities. Aluminum embodies lightness, modernity, and an aeronautical/space-age aura that has long been associated with performance. 12 And, as Dennie Moore contended,

“always looks right.”13 These qualities apply to all the aluminum Wheelsmith items evaluated here.

The pedal illustrates the relative inferiority of the factory-installed steel and later aluminum pedals, along with the importance Maico riders attached to improving the design and operation of the motorcycle. The Wheelsmith pedal is lighter in weight, more protected, and offers great contact area for the rider’s boot. It is noticeably superior to either stock item. No one

12 Sarah Nichols, ed. Aluminum by Design (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2000), 175-7. 13 Interviews with Dennie Moore by David Russell. 289 made aftermarket aluminum brake pedals for early Japanese motorcycles, which were, like

Maico, originally equipped with heavy steel pedals. Given Maico owners’ installation of the brake pedals, we can deduce that the Maico motorcycles were considered worthy of the expenditure by their owners; more so, at least, than the many other motorcycles with similarly deficient parts and no aftermarket replacements available for them.

The multi-piece Wheelsmith rear brake stay arm (Figure 81), incorporating a chain roller, is another commonly-discovered item on old Maicos. Like most other Wheelsmith pieces, it carries no identifying cast or imprinted marks, and was originally labeled with a foil decal. Even if the original foil label is missing, the Wheelsmith item can be identified and dated through company advertisements.

The arm measures approximately sixteen inches in length by six inches in height, and is, like the brake pedal, made from ¼-inch plate aluminum. The three major sub-components (arm and two sides of the chain guide) are drilled for lightness. A nylon roller, at the bottom of the guides, limits the downward droop of the chain. All fasteners are steel.

The stay arm assembly offers little, if any, performance improvement or weight savings over the stock assemblies. Earlier 1968 through 1971 bikes used a chrome-moly steel guide, and from about 1972 the bikes were fitted with an aluminum arm with thin steel guides. Both of these assemblies were lightweight and functional. Owners of Maicos purchased this item as either a replacement for a damaged stock item or, far more likely, as a good-looking visual enhancement for their motorcycle. Its purchase was, to quote the editors of Dirt Bike Magazine in the 1970s, an expenditure of “fun money” (as opposed to the unenjoyable purchases necessitated by normal wear or negative circumstances, such as broken parts or blown engines).

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Figure 81. Wheelsmith brake stay arm/chain guide (bottom center of image). The holes in the parts

accentuate the goal of achieving the lightest weight and utmost performance. (Photo: the author)

Wheelsmith footpegs (Figure 80) are easily identified by their appealing chrome-steel and bronze construction, along with the company name cast into the bronze mount. Wheelsmith made these assemblies for Maicos only, though other motorcycles could have benefited from better footpegs, as well. These items were a very popular, given the unsuitability of the stock units, and are commonly found on old Maicos. The left and right footpeg assemblies are mirror- image. The units consist of the footpegs themselves, constructed from 1/8-inch steel, and the bronze mounts. The steel pegs are bent in a U-shape, then welded with a brace on the bottoms.

The pegs incorporate serrated top edges, and are chrome-plated to ward off rust. The pegs are attached with steel bolt and nut to the bronze mounts, which are cast in bronze. Bronze is reasonably strong, is non-corroding, and is attractive. This material is ideal material for this application for these three qualities, and is as well an economical casting substance, melting at a lower temperature, and exhibits a beautiful sheen when new or when polished. The forging itself

291 is a bold, angular shape, echoing the lines of the Maico motorcycle (particularly the gas tank) and the conveying the image of a serious, purpose-built racing motorcycle. Bronze was the perfect material for this application, and conveyed meaning in itself: strength and imperviousness to the elements, an appropriate message for a rugged off-road racing machine.14

Whereas most folding footpegs from this period and later incorporate a coil spring to apply downward tension, Wheelsmith apparently felt the weight of the steel pegs themselves was sufficient, and no springs are used.

Maico original-equipment footpegs were poorly designed. Very early Maico pegs bolted directly to the frame and were non-folding; “ankle breakers” were an apt period description of their potential danger, should a rider’s foot slip off the peg and be caught between peg and the ground. Footpegs used from about 1970 through 1975 folded with upward impact, but were constructed from steel tubing, slightly bent up at the ends and incorporating small dimples to help hold the rider’s feet in place. In wet conditions, these footpegs could become very slippery.

The Maico factory continued to fit these units for years after other manufacturers had switched to better serrated-type units, and the company’s insistence on the design was a common criticism of

Maico. As Gunnar Lindstrom noted with rival Swedish Husqvarna, the European factories could be illogically intransigent in their insistence upon old ideas, despite the obvious consumer preferences. Some observers, like Dennie Moore, suggest that this stubbornness was nationalist in origin and related to residual post-World War II tension.15 In any case, riders who purchased the Wheelsmith units made an investment in safety and performance, and proclaimed their understanding of both the problem and the solution to anyone who viewed the motorcycle.

14 Robert Friedel, “Some Matters of Substance,” in History from Things: Essays on Material Culture, ed. Steven Lubar and W. David Kingerly, 41-50 (Washington: The Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 42-3. 15 Interview with Dennie Moore by David Russell; also Interview with Gunnar Lindstrom by David Russell, January 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 292

Wheelsmith’s fork extension system can be identified by a one-inch finned aluminum extension, welded to the bottom of Maico external-spring 36mm forks (Figure 82). A different internal damping rod is also fitted, but not visible from the exterior. Surviving examples of this modification are rare.

Figure 82. Wheelsmith fork extension. The quality of the aluminum weld indicates the welder’s high skill

level, and was evident to members of the racing community. (Photo: the author)

The fork extension modification was done by Wheelsmith in California, with the attachment of the fork leg extension aluminum-welded at low temperature. The entire assembly consisted of the external fork leg extension, the longer internal damping rod, and associated valves and small parts. This modification seems to be an investment in extending the useful life of the motorcycle for economic reasons. The long-travel Maico rear suspension first appeared in

1973. In the months that followed, but prior to the incorporation of long-travel in production motorcycles, from mid-1974 on, Maico owners were modifying their motorcycles to the general

293 measurements of the early factory forward-mounted bikes. Wheelsmith also marketed this service, with owners shipping their frames to the California shop for modification. The rear alterations worked so well on Maicos in large part due to the already excellent front Maico suspension, at which time provided 7.5 inches of well-damped fork travel. Since the front end was not in great need of alteration, at least with the rear end stock, or reasonably modified without excessive travel, there would have been no great need for such an extension system in

1973 or 1974. As the race to increase and improve motorcycle suspensions continued, in 1975 and later, owners of these older Maicos desired to keep their machines up to date. With the appearance of the 1975 five-speed Maicos, equipped with 38mm internal-spring, longer-travel forks, modifying the old 36mm units would have been attractive to racers without the means to purchase a new motorcycle. Thus the few fork extension units marketed by Wheelsmith were likely sold to owners of the older four-speed motorcycles, for a brief period in 1974 through

1975. Their presence suggests either an inveterate tinkerer or a rider unable to purchase a more up-to-date motorcycle. In a few years, and by the time even stronger and longer-travel forks appeared, owners of these earlier Maicos were unlikely to spend the money and time modifying their forks in this way, and thus this product only sold well for several years.

Wheelsmith offered engine rebuilding and performance upgrades throughout its existence. One external mark of this work was the “wedge” design (Figure 83). The name came from the removal of metal from the rear of the cylinder and head fins of the engine, which formed something of a wedge shape.

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Figure 83. “Wedge” cylinder/head design, as interpreted on factory 1977 Maico 400cc engine. The Maico factory adopted Wheelsmith’s innovation and implemented it on all their 1977 and later radial 250cc through

450cc engines. (Photo: the author)

Engine modification was and is commonly performed on racing and high-performance motorcycles. Wheelsmith was no different than any other specialist shop in this case, and modified engines to different states of tuning, based upon the owner’s desires. In the course of experimenting with Maico engines, Wheelsmith engineers came to the conclusion that the sensitive two-stroke engines would perform better if slightly more heat was retained on the intake (rear) side of the engine’s cylinder. To facilitate this temperature increase, technicians removed some of the alloy cooling fins in the rear of the cylinder and head, creating the wedged look.

The wedge design not only affected the previously-mentioned heating changes, but also functioned as a visible advertisement that one’s engine was more than just stock. The look became a Wheelsmith signature, expressing the owner’s dedication and investment in his

295 motorcycle. It became so popular that the Maico factory, which first took notice of Wheelsmith innovations in 1970, incorporated the wedge design in their 1977 Adolf Weil (AW) replica line.

Whether Maico concurred with Wheelsmith’s theories on optimal cylinder temperatures or not, the outward appearance of the design became thereafter an identifying Maico feature. The adoption of this modification, as well as with exhaust pipes and other ideas, shows that

Wheelsmith’s popularity with buyers in the United States had an strong influence over the Maico

Company.

Wheelsmith functioned as a boutique hand-craft and service industry for another hand- built product, the Maico. At the time, motorcycle buyers faced a much clearer delineation in the nature of their prospective machines. The old way of manufacture, that of less automation and greater human involvement in the product, was still prevalent, but was on its way out. The type of motorcycle produced in this way, to include the British bikes and the European off-road bikes like Maico, were clearly threatened. At the time, however, these motorcycles, built by the companies who had invented the modern motorcycle over the last half a century, still possessed thoroughbred qualities that offset their accompanying shortcomings and annoyances. Through at least 1973, it was still better to work with the lovely-handling Maico and improve its quirks, rather than to attempt to re-engineer the fundamentally inferior handling of a production

Japanese competitor.

Still, the more automated Japanese manufacturing model was the future of the motorcycle. While the Japanese perfected their products, the old British/European production model retained its adherents for a time, its pedigreed machines still able to best the raw Japanese bikes—at least with a little help. Once the Japanese product could perform with (or even out- perform) the boutique brands, the contest was all but over. In the street motorcycle world, the

296 issue was decided in large part by the arrival of the near-perfect Honda CB750 four-cylinder, in

1969. As the 1970s progressed, motorcycle buyers (and car buyers, as well, as Datsun, Honda, and Toyota took hold in the United States) found themselves attracted to foreign-made competition bikes that were faultless in their watch-like precision, and did not leak, break, or come with defective parts or antiquated designs, as did those from England and Europe. The choice for slightly better handling (the Europeans) and lower price and far-superior finish and reliability (the Japanese) became harder to justify as the decade progressed.

In the mean time, the boutique brands still benefitted from the work of the aftermarket parts suppliers. If the United States had lost its craft tradition after World War I, the work of

Wheelsmith and other small producers of hand-made performance parts suggest rejuvenation.16

Its creations, though made in a process utilizing machines, still retained the marks and imperfections of the human hand, a melding of hand-craftsmanship and the industrial age.

Considering the joint human/machine interface of the riders who bought the footpegs, chain guides, and other items, these were the ideal “art objects” for their audience. Even today, a layman encountering an old Wheelsmith product in a pile of greasy parts would find the piece difficult to discard; its aluminum material and design make it special. Greg Smith’s successful adaptation of the new off-road motorcycle media to market his products by mail-order, his creation of a distinct brand, and the company’s innovative engineering all helped fashion

Wheelsmith parts into virtual cult items among motorcyclists of the 1970s. For modern “vintage” racers, those racing old motorcycles and seeking to recapture the enjoyment of years gone by, finding and installing performance parts by Wheelsmith and others is a key component of the pastime. It is the items manufactured by Wheelsmith that are particularly in demand, and the

16 Simon Bronner, Grasping Things: Folk Material Culture and Mass Society in America (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1986), 119. 297 name connotes extra value when affixed to any vintage Maico. Greg Smith, having disappeared from motorcycling for decades, became something of a cult figure himself, owing to his

“disappearance.” Rumors of his death circulated around the vintage motorcycle community for years. In fact, Smith had moved on to other pursuits and lost contact with most of his old associates in the motorcycle industry.

Smith was reintroduced to vintage off-road motorcycles several years back, when he and his daughter were taken by a friend to visit the shop of a modern purveyor of Maico accessories.

Many of the shop owner’s expensive creations channel the old Wheelsmith look. Smith recalls,

“[My friend, John] had done some business with the owner, and took me out there unannounced.

What a surprise for me; all of the new stuff that looks like the old stuff. I was kind of roaming around the shop looking at things while John was talking to the owner. Then the guy asks John,

‘Who the hell is that guy [referring to me]? I didn’t tell him he could go back there!’ And John says, ‘That’s Greg Smith.’ Geez! . . . I thought he was going to wash my feet! I had my fourteen- year-old daughter with me, and she said to me, ‘Dad, were you something special?’ Ha! First time she realized I wasn’t just an old fart whose joints make funny noises when he walks!

Interesting experience.”

Smith continued, “I guess I’m still working on what I’m going to do when I grow up, but at least I’ve made the most of the [Psychology] education my parents sponsored me with . . .

[laughs] I’m happily married and am the director of engineering at a global IT security company in Orange, California. . . . And, I race the karts and worry about where my teenage daughter is. . .

. It was hectic, but it was a lot of fun, looking back.”

The roles of Greg Smith, Gig Hamiliton, and Dennie Moore in motorcycle sport culture were primarily as businessmen, though they were enthusiastic racers, as well. Each was

298 intimately and passionately familiar with the Maico motorcycle and with the environment in which it and its riders competed. As racers-turned-motorcycle-dealers, these men represent the ideal sales model that made Maico in the United States so successful during the brand’s great years, from the late 1960s through 1974. Depending in their respective businesses wholly or in part on Maico, a thoroughbred machine nonetheless retaining noticeable weakness, each man spent a great deal of his time improving the machine: Hamilton through his engine modifications, and Moore and Smith mostly through the creation of aftermarket parts. For each of the three, making the product they were selling better was an important part of his business.

Finally, each of their roles; as accessory producer, retail dealer, and wholesale distributor; supported the sport’s focal point: the individual rider. Having thus examined his support system, we can now turn our attention to that rider.

Figure 84. Wheelsmith-sponsored rider Jeff Jennings focuses intently on the first turn, with Wheelsmith

technicians Wayne Mooradian (left) and Tom Serba, unidentified starting line, 1978. (Photo: Greg Smith)

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Chapter 5: RACING: HOPE, IMAGE, REALITY

5.1 THE SUCCESS YEARS: AKE JONSSON

“Watch Ake slice inside his line and pass him, seemingly with no effort. What makes a man ride like this?1

“I think Ake was probably the best motocross rider, ever.”2

Figure 85. The man most identified with Maico’s “success years:” Ake Jonsson, circa 1971. (Photo: Ake Jonsson)

Having discussed several components of the sport motorcycle economic model—the distributor, the dealer, and the aftermarket parts supplier—I now will consider a focal point of the system: the professional rider. To illustrate the uppermost level of the professional, factory- sponsored rider in the 1970s, there can be no better example than Ake Jonsson. Jonsson’s story reveals not only the life of one of the finest motocross riders in the world, but also the struggles and strategies of the small Maico factory as it competed against the giant Japanese corporations.

Jonsson’s story is also a lesson in the unpredictable nature of motorsports competition.

1 Dirt Bike Magazine, “Ake, The Top Moto-cross Jockey,” Dirt Bike Magazine (March, 1973), 27. 2 Interviews with Dennie Moore by Ake Jonsson, March 27, 2007 through November 14, 2013, Lewiston, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 300

The professional or “sponsored” rider is a professional athlete, paid to display his skills for the entertainment of fans and for the advancement of the sponsor; his job is to race, to place as highly as possible in the standings, and to be the public face of the brand. The professional rider, though racing as an individual, is generally also part of a team (usually that of the brand manufacturer in the 1970s, but sometimes that of a related business).3 During the period of great interest in motorcycle competition in the early 1970s, all motorcycle manufacturers sponsored international teams as a way of both promoting and improving their product. Racing has long been considered an important way to validate the quality of a motor vehicle in the public’s perception. While successful results by amateur racers were welcomed and publicized by the manufacturers, there was no substitute for the public relations value of success in elite, international, highly-funded and highly-visible racing.

To achieve the status of being a sponsored rider was the dream of most any enthusiastic sport motorcycle rider, then and now. As is the case in other professional sports, only a tiny fraction of the aspirants will ever be good enough or fortunate enough to achieve full factory sponsorship. In off-road motorcycling in the United States in the 1970s, the premier motorcycle sport venue was undeniably motocross, and young American motocross racers shared this dream of being “paid to race.” Motocross had its roots in Europe, however, and the European riders were initially superior to riders from the United States. This was due to not only their experience, but also to their acceptance of the physical demands of the sport.4 In time, American riders would dominate the sport. In the early 1970s, though, the Europeans were the professionals, the

3 In the 1970s, teams in professional motocross, other than those sponsored by manufacturers, included related businesses such as Wheelsmith or ProCircuit. More recently, teams are often organized around an unrelated product, seeking to associate itself with the glamour of motor racing (Team Monster Energy or Team Rockstar). 4 The forty to forty-five minute motos (heat races) in motocross were far more demanding in terms of muscular endurance and cardio-vascular fitness than the short duration scrambles events which preceded motocross in the United States. 301 sponsored riders and the stars. It was they who amazed fans as they travelled Europe and North

America along the professional motocross racing circuit. Young aspiring professional riders in the United States watched the Europeans enviously, and some began racing with partial sponsorships from dealers and other businesses, or lived month-to-month on a combination of sponsorships and race winnings. Several of these riders will be discussed in the next few chapters. Denny Swartz and Brian Thompson pursued their dreams of following the professional circuit as partially-sponsored riders, enlisting the help of family. Other American racers, such as

Tim Hart and Barry Higgins, were fortunate to enjoy “full” sponsorships, though their salaries and benefits were certainly not lavish, and they mostly raced mostly in the United States. At the very top of the ladder, and holding the position which all these riders aspired to one day fill, was the elite factory rider. He campaigned on the international racing circuit on the best machinery, earned at least a modest salary, and benefitted from the full resources of the sponsoring factory.

In the case of Maico, during its glory years of the 1970s, these top-level riders included Germans

Adolf Weil, Willi Bauer, and Hans Maisch; Dutchman Gerritt Wolsink; and the rider most often associated with Maico, Swede Ake Jonsson.

Ake Jonsson was born in Hammerdal, Sweden on October 5, 1942. Sweden was neutral during World War II, but the nation’s situation was hardly peaceful. Neighboring Finland, invaded by the Russians in 1939, fought on to recover lost territories while Norway was occupied by the Third Reich. Sweden managed a precarious neutral existence throughout the war. Her economy, however, was essentially militarized as a precaution, and production of military equipment took precedence over civilian goods.

The young Jonsson was drawn to sports, skiing and skating at every opportunity. The

Jonsson family moved south to Vasteras, about 100 kilometers west of Stockholm, in 1956.

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Southern Sweden had less snow than Jonsson’s northern boyhood home, so he transitioned from skiing to the sport of speed-skating, a pursuit in which his older brother Arne was already involved. Jonsson trained hard for speed-skating, a sport requiring extreme stamina, and competed for about four years. Then, after he turned fifteen, he bought his first motorcycle, an old DKW. By age sixteen he had begun to compete a bit, and was riding a homemade

Husqvarna. He achieved early success due to his physical conditioning for skating; something he would remember throughout his career. Eventually, since the competition seasons for speed- skating and motorcycle racing occurred at the same time, Jonsson had to choose one over the other. Motorcycle racing won out, he remembers, “. . . because it was more fun.”5

Figure 86, Ake Jonsson on a homemade Husqvarna, circa 1961 (left), and Figure 87, Jonsson on his 250cc

Husqvarna hybrid, built with his homemade cylinder, 1963 (right). (Photos: Ake Jonsson)

Jonsson discovered that he was a natural rider. He progressed in recognized skill level from Junior to Senior standing in 1963, which allowed him to compete for the Swedish national championship. Jonsson, however, shared a problem with most other young riders of his day: lack of both money and good equipment. The old motorcycle he rode as a Junior was woefully

5 Interview with Ake Jonsson by David Russell, November 25, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 303 inadequate for higher levels of riding. Even if he had had the money, there were precious few competition motorcycles to buy at the time. The great Swedish Husqvarna company had just begun to produce off-road competition machines, but they were economically out of reach for an average young Swede.6 Beginning a series of creative steps to remedy his dilemma, Jonsson decided to build his own motorcycle from parts. Purchasing a 250cc piston, he had older friends cast a cylinder, which they then machined to fit Ake’s piston. After attaching their hand-crafted top end to an old Husqvarna 175cc engine, Jonsson had his 250cc motorcycle (Figure 87). He modified the frame himself, fitting a Norton fork and Girling shocks, finishing his custom motorcycle. Racing this one-of-a-kind machine, Jonsson placed ninth in the Swedish championships that year. By virtue of his high standing in the 1963 season, he pre-qualified to start in every race in the coming 1964 season. Once again, however, he was frustrated by primitive equipment. The three-speed gearbox on his home-made machine could not compete with the new four-speed boxes then made by Husqvarna and being raced by his competitors. He had the talent, but needed a modern, competitive motorcycle.

Soldiering on, Jonsson trained hard all winter for the coming season, managing to save enough money to purchase at least a new Husqvarna engine with the new four-speed gearbox.

Yet, he still did not have the resources for a whole new motorcycle. His current home-made machine had allowed him to almost beat Husqvarna factory star Torsten Hallman at the first

Swedish championship race; quite an accomplishment. In so doing, however, his old

Husqvarna’s Silverpilen frame had been reduced to a loose assembly of cracked metal tubing.

6 The old Husqvarna company, located near the village of Huskvarna on the shore of Lake Vattern, Sweden, began by producing arms for the King of Sweden in 1689. Like other arms manufacturers, such as BSA and CZ, the Husqvarna factory was in an advantageous position to move into machine production (and motorcycles, specifically) in later years. Husqvarna, like Maico, was an early producer of high-quality, lightweight competition motorcycles. The 165-pound Husqvarna “Silverpilen” (Silver Arrow) was the introductory sporting machine for many European racers. 304

Only about two weeks out from the next championship race, Jonsson thought to ask a friend

“who knew people at Husqvarna” whether he might be allowed to purchase just a frame, to allow his by-now tired, homemade bike to run again. Jonsson heard nothing more until arriving home from school one day (coincidentally, the same school where Hallman was also studying engineering) and received a message from his mother. The Husqvarna factory had phoned, she informed him. Jonsson called back immediately, speaking with production manager Bror Jauren.

“You can come down now; we have a bike here for you.”

Jonsson took off from school the next day to race over to the Husqvarna factory, undoubtedly one of the happiest teenagers in Sweden. There, he picked-up his brand-new, factory Husqvarna 250. Jonsson won the first race on his new motorcycle, won the championship race after that, and placed second in a following race. By then, with his new Husqvarna, he had decisively beaten Hallman and was the Swedish National Champion. Later that year, Jonsson was selected for the Swedish Trophees des Nations team, competing in Markelo, Holland, where he won the first of his six World Championship Team gold medals.

Continuing to attend school and race, Jonsson stayed with Husqvarna through 1968. He completed his engineering degree in 1967, but delayed entering the engineering profession and continued to compete. He kept placing highly, although his adjustment to the 500cc class in 1967 was a challenge. 1968 saw Jonsson back on top in the Swedish circuit, and competing internationally was the obvious next step. Yet, despite his successes, there again were substantial challenges. For one thing, the meager racing budget of the Husqvarna company left it unwilling to sponsor the young racer with anything more helpful than a limited supply of parts. Jonsson did all his own mechanical work at the time and was also paying all his own expenses, and he realized this situation needed to change. The Swede noticed that the German Maico company

305 was active in international racing, and appeared to support its team better than did Husqvarna.

Later that year, Jonsson’s manager contacted Maico to inquire about the possibly of a better sponsorship arrangement for Jonsson. Maico was interested. Jonsson soon found himself in

Germany, testing a Maico, and an agreement for sponsorship for the coming 1969 season was reached.

The Maico years

1969 was a year of great readjustment for Jonsson. His new teammates were friendly and helpful all around, but his Maico 360 continually failed to finish races. “Everything broke down .

. . in every race. . . . I was just unlucky with it. I don’t know. . . . Stupid things, which I knew shouldn’t happen.”7 Despite the problems with the motorcycles, Jonsson noticed a very positive trait evidenced by his new team; that was the degree to which the entire Maico organization communicated and cooperated amongst themselves. “One thing that was good about Maico was that you could get so close to the R&D department. You could talk to everybody. Everyone was very familiar. We could see everything the racing department was doing; we were all very close.

Adolf Weil and Willi Bauer were very good teammates. They helped me with everything; they were used to Maico. The basic bike was good, and we improved it; made it better and better. It didn’t take long . . .” One remarkable Maico employee in particular caught his attention. This engineer and racing enthusiast was Reinhold Weiher, who would be instrumental in the development of the coming Maico long-travel suspension and in many other aspects of Maico’s success. Weiher’s time at Maico was to be limited, but his impact on Jonsson and on Maico motocross machines was long-lasting. As Jonsson recalled, “They had a very good engineer at

7 Dirt Bike Magazine, “Ake Jonsson, Top Moto-cross Jockey,” 26-33. 306 the Maico factory; a young guy named Reinhold.8 He was also racing a bit himself, but was not that successful. He had one race in Germany, later, where he [was involved in a] crash; he died, accidentally. Very sad; he was tremendously good with the bikes. . . . That’s what marked the kind of people who built Maicos. When we came to the States, in 1970 through 1972, we had a very good bike.” Jonsson’s comment emphasizes Maico’s long history (and strength) of being a factory where riders built bikes for other riders. He knew both he and Maico were ready, as the

German factory increased its presence in international competition.

Figure 88. Jonsson signs with Maico export Figure 89. Jonsson in 1969, working with Maico chief engineer

manager Hans Kresin in 1968. Gunter Schier (c) and former Maico rider Christopher Specht.

(Photos: Bo Persson)

One other early adaptation Jonsson had to make with the Maico hardware was with the clutch system. Earlier Maico clutches tended to require a very heavy pull. In response to customers and dealers who complained about the hard-to-work clutch, Maico designed a new, easier-pulling clutch in 1969. This clutch is often called the “large” clutch (and the earlier,

8 Maico held Reinhold Weiher in very high esteem. After his death, Wilhelm Maisch Jr. offered his brother Frantz Reinhold Weiher’s former position, and Frantz accepted. 307 harder-pull and smaller-diameter item the “small” clutch). The new large clutch certainly reduced the amount of clutch pull required, but it came at a cost. As Jonsson remembers of his early days on a Maico, “Willi Bauer and Adolf Weil told me, ‘You should get [the easier clutch], because you are not used to Maicos.” So, I got the [easier-pulling] clutch. Well, at one of the next races, I got to test Adolf Weil’s bike; his bike was so much faster than mine! I couldn’t understand this—we had the same cylinders, everything was the same . . . except for the bottom ends. There should have been no difference. It should have been the same. And then I figured it out: it must be the clutch [slipping and not transferring all engine power to the transmission]!

You know, I had the [new] triplex chain with the bigger clutch on, and he had the old duplex chain with the smaller clutch, and the old crankcase cover. So, I changed my set-up back to the old clutch, and then my bike was as fast as his. From then on we used the old clutch all the time; that’s why we used the old [square-barrel] crankcase. The new clutch-transmission was taking away so much power . . . the bike was much faster with the old clutch.”

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Figure 90. Jonsson astride the breakdown-plagued and slightly underpowered Maico 360 in 1969; mechanic

Curt Oberg is behind Jonsson. Note the leather riding jacket. (Photo: Ake Jonsson)

Thus, the easier-to-pull clutch sapped rear wheel power, due to slippage. Jonsson’s early

Maico 360 was converted back to the old clutch for optimal power transmission. When the radial

400s appeared, a complete engine re-design, Jonsson’s racing bikes initially retained the old square-barrel bottom-ends, to allow continued use of the old clutch. This combination was no simple task, as it required the four cylinder studs be re-located on the square-barrel crankcase to match the radial cylinder. The appearance of these unique motorcycles and the reason for the unusual combination of old and new engine parts have long been of interest to classic motocross enthusiasts. This modification to Jonsson’s engines is illustrated at Figures 91 and 92.

Figure 91. Radial top-end paired with old bottom- Figure 92. Jonsson’s old round-case bottom-end. Note

end, allowing use of the stouter “small” clutch. the studs moved outboard, to match the radial top-end.

(Engines from the collection of Dennie Moore. Photos: the author)

Jonsson’s first exposure to racing in the United States came in 1969. He was by then comfortable with the venerable Maico 360, most of its problems having been mediated and the machine finally reliable. He found it lacking in power output, however, for competition at the

309 international level. With his sights already set on the world championship, Jonsson considered this issue so critical that he was ready to leave Maico for the 1970 season, if no relief was in sight. Just prior to embarking for the United States in 1969, his complaints reached the ears of an older machinist in the engineering department, Gottlieb Haas. Haas, another successful competitor turned Maico employee, considered the problem and offered an easy solution. In order to achieve more power quickly and inexpensively, he proposed an old but ingenious idea: that they simply “stroke” the existing engine to obtain greater displacement. The basic concept, familiar to Indian and Harley riders in the United States decades earlier, was to move the crankpin (which attaches the connecting rod to the crankshaft) slightly farther out from the center of the crankshaft. This change increases total piston travel and, ultimately, displacement.9 This plan required a minor redesign of the crankshaft, but allowed continued use of the existing rod, sleeve, and piston assembly. The idea was cheap, effective, and fast. By adding only 32cc of displacement, Haas created an engine with a completely different personality. Jonsson recalls, “I hadn’t even tested the bike. I went over to Boston, to that first race at Pepperell (Massachusetts); and that was the first time I rode that bike. I remember the straights . . . my arms were straight back [from the acceleration]! It was such a big difference from the old 360, you couldn’t believe it!”10 Now, there was power enough to match Jonsson’s skills.

The 1970 season developed into a good one for Maico, now that the 400 bike was available. Jonsson scored wins all across Europe and was poised to take the world championship title. At the last race in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg, Jonsson experienced the kind of fluke occurrence that would repeatedly plague his world championship attempts: during the race, a

9 The term “stroker,” in biker lexicon in the United States, refers to a motorcycle engine which has received this modification. 10 The longer-stroke 400 (actually 386cc) used the same bore as the 360 (354cc). Maico 360, 400, 440, and 490 models share an identical rod assembly. 310 fork tube loosened in the triple-clamp, coming up far enough to puncture the gas tank and costing him the win and the championship. Despite this personal disappointment for Jonsson, the

Maico team did well, overall, and Jonsson continued to win other events. He returned to the

United States for the fall Inter-AM series, taking that title handily and further cementing his reputation in American motorcycle racing. There was a definite glamour associated with the fast- moving Swede on board the stark German machine, not lost on American fans or the media. An interesting photograph from several years earlier caught Jonsson and fellow Swedish racers

Torsten Hallman and Steffan Eneqvist with actors Jimmy Stewart, Raquel Welch, and Dean

Martin on a movie set; no small amount of star appeal. From the outset, motocross in the United

States brought a sexy, modern, athletic attraction. Jonsson and Maico helped this image, lending the circuit (along with his fellow European imports) an element of international interest at the same time that European automotive sports were seen across the culture as ultimately glamorous.

This was a heyday in auto racing circles for European-style car racing in the United States, as well, with events such as the Six Hours at Watkins Glen, New York, which began in 1968.

American movies and television shows featured European drivers and vehicles. Jonsson and his fellow European motocross stars conveyed this same colorful cachet to American off-road motorcycle racing, helping to elevate it above the old sweat-and-black-leather aura it previously conveyed.

Jonsson’s motorcycle was famous, as well. His consistently-winning 400 Maico was one of the most photographed and analyzed factory machines of the day. The idea that this simple, stock motorcycle could do so well against the expensive, one-of-a-kind creations of the giant

Japanese factories found purchase with the old individualistic, egalitarian, class-resistant sensibilities of United States enthusiasts. It was, quite literally, a motorcycle that an everyday

311 rider could own, something the Maico advertising department was eager to highlight (Figure 93).

The Japanese factory machines, especially the Suzukis of Roger DeCoster and Joel Robert, were elite motorcycles; thinly-veiled imposters, outwardly resembling the production machines, but in actuality the extravagantly-expensive and unattainable creations of massive Suzuki research and development efforts.11 The factory Maicos looked strikingly similar to stock motorcycles, and, essentially, were exactly that. The Maico racing team, whether intentional or not, reinforced the point by exhibiting little concern with superficial paint scratches and the like, while the Japanese teams were fastidious about cosmetic appearances. This apparent disdain for superficiality again pleased American sensibilities (possibly touching upon anti-class feelings): the rough, outwardly-unkempt Maicos of common stock, beating the effete, image-conscious and unapproachable Suzukis and Yamahas. Translated into American history, it harkened to disheveled American frontiersmen facing down British aristocrats in battle—and winning.

It is important to note, however, that while Jonsson’s machine, like those of the other

Maico pilots, was created from standard Maico components. It was, though, very carefully built; made of precisely calibrated and tested parts. Jonsson used stock porting and engine parts as well, though he and Maico were periodically accused of employing specially-built pieces in his engine. Otherwise, went the reasoning, how could he possibly go so fast? In 1972, after the final series race at California’s Saddleback Park, Jonsson famously allowed the press to disassemble his championship-winning motorcycle. “I don’t remember what newspaper it was, but I remember reading how they took it all apart and examined it, and there were no special parts.”

The magazine was MotorCyclist, and, aside from personal modifications, the magazine reported in March of 1973 that Ake’s bike was indeed entirely stock. To further make the case, the writers

11 Terry Good, Legendary Motocross Bikes (Minneapolis: Motorbooks International, 2009), 23-41. 312 compared, photographed, and measured off-the-shelf Maico parts with those in Jonsson’s machine; they were found to match exactly.12

Figure 93. Advertisement placed by German Maico in late 1972, noting that Jonsson’s winning motorcycle was “the same kind of Maico” that anyone could buy at their local dealer. Maico’s ability to truthfully make this claim was a perpetual and successful advertising strategy for the company. (Source: Dirt Bike Magazine)

The comparison of the obviously very different motorcycles raced by the Japanese teams with those of the smaller teams, such as Maico, also suggested to fans in the United States two major points. First, if Ake Jonsson could regularly best DeCoster and his $30,000 Suzuki with an essentially stock $1,600 Maico, Jonsson was indisputably a phenomenal talent. Second, it confirmed the idea that the basic Maico was an excellent motorcycle, capable of winning on the international stage. And, most importantly, it was within the financial reach of the amateur rider.

On a Maico, it appeared, anyone with enough talent had at least the chance to win. In a way,

Maico brought fairness to racing; anyone could buy the same motorcycle Jonsson was riding.

12 Jonsson’s championship bikes were examined by the press in this way on at least two occasions. The first published examination was in Cycle Illustrated in July, 1971 (“A Very Special Maico”), dissecting the #4 square- barrel motorcycle. The champion #27 radial motorcycle was taken apart by MotorCyclist, and reported by Dave Holeman in the March, 1973 issue (“The Incredible Ake Jonsson and his Magnificent Maico”). 313

Maico’s success effectively democratized motocross racing, in the face of the exclusive and unobtainable Japanese machines.

Maico, like most other motorcycle factories, used racing as the ultimate laboratory in which to test the viability of new parts and ideas. Elite, professional-level racing was the ultimate test for any racing motorcycle. Furthermore, and equally as important, the rough and no-excuses caldron of professional racing improved not just the factory bikes; the lessons learned trickled down to and benefitted the entire line, racing or not. Experimental cylinders (Figures 55 and 56, discovered with the remnants of the Eastern Maico inventory in Pennsylvania) show the considerable experimentation (in this case with cylinder porting) that was being done in the 1971 through 1973 years. Jonsson notes that the factory also experimented with titanium axles, nuts, and bolts; and with aluminum swing-arms and exotic frames. Adolf Weil tested an all-alloy

Maico frame, but it broke early-on and the idea was apparently abandoned.13 Jonsson stated that, to the best of his knowledge, all testing was done in Europe, and not in the United States. The presence of the experimental cylinders suggests this might not always have been the case.

13 Jonsson refers to Maico testing a titanium frame in the Dirt Bike Magazine interview (Dirt Bike Magazine, “Ake Jonsson, Top Moto-cross Jockey,” 26-33) and to Weil testing an alloy frame in his interview with the author (Interview with Ake Jonsson by David Russell). 314

Figure 94. Ake Jonsson and Maico as popular icons: following his 1972 Trans-AMA series domination,

Jonsson and Maico were the uncontested image of motocross success in the United States.

(Source: Popular Cycling)

Jonsson’s personal alterations to his motorcycles included black paint on the engine

(believed at the time to increase heat transfer), a custom steel rear brake pedal, footpegs moved 1 inch rearward, 1.5 inches additional foam on the seat, and his specially-made aluminum gas tank.

Other changes could be effected as needed to suit individual tracks and conditions. The shock absorbers were Konis, with the damping valve altered at the Maico race shop, due to the stock valves’ tendency to break. Jonsson’s assigned mechanic in 1971 and 1972 was his old friend,

Curt Oberg (Figure 90), who would later accompany him to Yamaha.

In terms of engine power, Jonsson remained comfortable with the 400 Maico’s power output, and considered this engine superior (for his purposes, at least) to the more powerful 440. 315

He was certainly familiar with the 501, but rode it only for publicity events and never raced it.

Maico experimented with another 500cc engine in 1970, Jonsson recalls, which was different from the 501 and legal for the European championships (where capacity could not exceed

500cc). Like many other industry experiments with massive, raw power output, Maico found that a good racing motorcycle does not necessarily respond well to additional horsepower: “That bike

(the 500cc engine in the standard Maico chassis) was bad-handling; it just wasn’t possible for the bike to handle all the power. It also had the wrong power-band.” The Yamaha team, which

Jonsson would soon join, dealt with this conundrum as well. Yamaha leadership, new to motocross but accustomed to road-racing, seemed to believe that the highest power output by itself should ensure race wins, as it generally did in road-racing.14 They would see this idea proved wrong.

“Everything was possible:” the 1971 World 500cc Championship

1971 was another successful year for Maico and Jonsson. It did, however, also hold one of motorcycle racing’s bitterest stories of poor luck and defeat, for both him and Maico. Jonsson, while leading the 500cc championship series in Europe, was poised throughout the end of the series for his third and possibly best chance yet of winning the individual championship. Going into the final race, he led Roger DeCoster (Figure 96) in the series by one point, overall. While out in front in the first moto at the St. Anthonis, Holland, world championship race on August

22, Jonsson’s 400 Maico lost power and came to a stop. The motorcycle’s spark plug had come unscrewed from the experimental light-weight cylinder head, recently installed by his mechanic.

Of a very thin alloy, it had, in the process of expansion and contraction (due to heating and

14 Colin MacKellar, Yamaha Dirt Bikes (London: Osprey Publishing Limited, 1986), 38, 42. Among Yamaha’s other notable attempts and failures in this direction were the 1972 490/420 factory bikes that Jaak Van Velthoven was “happy to leave on the trailer” at the races, and the ill-fated SC500 production bike, the “big, bad apple” with the “forty-horsepower on/off switch” of 1972-3. 316 cooling, and as yet unbeknownst to Maico engineers), allowed the new short-reach ½ inch spark plug to vibrate loose and come out. This situation occurred on two other occasions in the preceding weeks to other Maico team riders, but had both times been attributed to simply insufficient tightening of the spark plug. Maico’s ignorance of the true nature of the problem would be painful. While Jonsson easily won the second moto, his overall score suffered and

DeCoster jumped ahead to gain the 500c world championship yet again for Suzuki. It was an example of the ever present role of chance on racing, and a heartbreaking day for Jonsson, clearly the better rider that day, but destined to not be world champion.

Finn Heikki (“The Flying Finn”) Mikkola (Figure 95, left) and Belgian Roger (“The Man”) DeCoster (Figure

96, right); two of Jonsson’s greatest rivals. (Photos: The Dick Miller Collection)

Jonsson was, by his own estimation in 1972, at the absolute pinnacle of his skill. Even

DeCoster, perhaps the most famous single name in motocross over the decades and currently mounted on the amazing RN73 factory Suzuki, was unable to ride with him. Jonsson felt released from mundane human limitations, transcending even his superior abilities: “In the second moto [at St. Anthonis], I remember thinking, while going down the straights . . . that I

317 had so much time. So much time to the next corner; everything was possible. I was going very fast; sometimes when you’re not in good shape, you can’t think about anything on the straight.

But this time it was so . . . easy. Everything was going so well; there was no problem. I remember the race after that—the Motocross des Nations race in Vannes, France—I won both motos there, easily, too.” Although Jonsson and his teammates did take the des Nations title for

Sweden, his best career chance at the individual world championship had eluded him. Soon after the spark plug incident in Holland and with the real cause of the incident still elusive, a fourth occurrence happened while Jonsson was practicing. His team was certain this time that the plug had been correctly tightened, and the actual chain of events, relating to the new, thin head, was finally deduced. Additional metal was welded to the top of the new heads, allowing the use of the old, longer spark plug, and the problem did not recur.

The new physicality of motorcycle racing

The crowning achievement of Jonsson’s time on Maico, the core of the “success years” for both, in his words, was certainly his phenomenal winning streak in the 1972 North American

Trans-AMA series. Jonsson won nine of the eleven races outright, placed second in one race and third in another. His style, as Dennie Moore notes, was “Flawless. . . . like watching the Silver

Surfer—something you’d animate and see made perfect. I remember him crashing in the first moto at Puyallup, Washington, and working his way up from last place to second place behind

Mikkola (Figure 95) in that one forty-minute moto, then coming in first in the other for the overall win. I think Ake was probably the best motocross rider, ever.”15 Racer and Maico shop owner Gig Hamilton likewise recalls Jonsson’s control and grace: “When Ake rode, he was just

15 Interviews with Dennie Moore by David Russell. 318 part of the motorcycle; he never man-handled anything.”16 Jonsson’s riding style was a lesson in near-perfection: arms and legs notably straight back and weight aft on the jumps; fluid and seemingly-effortless over bumps and in the turns; always aggressive but ever under control.

Jonsson’s grace on a racetrack had much to do with his practice of cardio-vascular and muscular conditioning, learned from training for speed-skating. While motocross has occasionally been referred to as the “world’s toughest sport,” it was also a very new sport, and sports trainers and physiologists had yet to consider it and develop training programs. The

Swedes were early proponents of a solid training program; Husqvarna’s race team trainer in the

1970s and 1980s, motocrosser Rolf Tibblin, conducted organized physical training programs for team members during the winter months at the Husqvarna headquarters. In Germany, Maico rider Adolf Weil developed and shared his own regimen for strength-training and conditioning with Maico riders. The Europeans’ propensity towards physical training for motocross racing’s more intense demands was one factor in their early dominance over riders in the United States— who appear in photographs and film footage of the time often spitting out a cigarette as the starting gate drops. Over the years, this realization that athleticism must lie at the heart of the sport widened the gulf between motorcycle sport riders and the by then entrenched American biker-rebel-outlaw formula. In motocross, at least, no longer could a rider in the United States ignore physical conditioning, show up at race and execute a few fast laps around a scrambles track, dependent upon skill alone, and succeed. Motocross, with its two forty-five minute motos, was a far different event, and Jonsson and his fellow Europeans showed the way forward.

Gig Hamilton was able to observe Ake Jonsson closely in these years, through his relationship to nearby Maico distributor Dennie Moore, who assisted the Maico factory team.

16Interviews with Gig Hamilton by David Russell, June 19, 2007 and April 7, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 319

Hamiliton enjoyed having Jonsson and the other team members visit his shop, and taking them into the Pennsylvania hills and flat-tracks to ride. Hamilton recalls Jonsson’s use of his off-time:

“Ake practiced and trained a lot. For example, when it would rain, he would go out and ride in the wet grass and practice braking. He would just lock up the front brake; practicing keeping the bike straight. We grass will put you down quick, so Ake would just practice this all the time. One of the workouts I saw him do was to take a broomstick, tie a rope on it along with a weight, throw it over a bar a bit taller than he . . . and wind that weight in, using his hands! He’d wind that ten-pound weight up and down. I’ve tried it, and I can’t do it more than once or twice.”

Attesting to the champion’s conditioning, Hamilton remembered a mid-western race in Ohio.

“It’s eighty degrees, high humidity, and Ake pulls off the track after a forty-five-minute moto. I happened to notice the back of Ake’s neck; he had, like two beads of sweat on his neck. After a forty-five-minute moto!”17

Changing mounts and cultures: from Maico to Yamaha

1972 was the end of Jonsson’s time with Maico. Yamaha offered him a contract with far more pay and the advantages of Yamaha’s vast engineering and financial resources, and Jonsson signed with them for the 1973 season. In hindsight, he believes the world championship would have been attainable in 1973 if he had stayed with Maico, but the Yamaha contract was too attractive to turn down. Jonsson was married with two children, and felt that he had perhaps three years left being competitive on the world class level. The actual earnings for motorcycle racers at the time, even the star European riders, were anything but phenomenal. Jonsson stated in 1971 that he estimated that his pay the following year (1972, when he was generally considered to be at least one of the finest riders in the world) would about equal that of an average professional

17 Ibid. 320 engineer in Europe.18 Considering the physical demands, the risk, and the short career of a professional racer, versus the expected working conditions of an engineering professional, the comparison is startling. (Salaries have changed over time. Within two decades, teenage motocross stars were earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.) Thus, whatever his reasons were, Jonsson left Maico, where he had for three years been on the cusp of not only being successful, but being world champion. He threw in his lot with Yamaha.

Jonsson rode for Yamaha from 1973 through 1975. 1973 in particular proved to be a difficult year, with Jonsson riding a 360cc machine which, like his old 360 Maico, he felt was not powerful enough. Apparently not satisfied with the Yamaha suspension as well, Jonsson’s machine featured Maico forks, something quickly noted by the press and surely an uncomfortable situation for Yamaha management.19 A more powerful, long-stroke engine was provided in 1974, but half-way through that season he was arbitrarily told by Yamaha management to revert to the old 360 engine again. Yamaha was fairly new to motocross racing, and management sometimes held unrealistic, simplistic expectations. Jonsson recalls, “We riders had to explain to them that motocross wasn’t like road-racing . . . where the one who has the most power wins. Yamaha in Japan had a hard time understanding that.” Despite the success

Yamaha was having in the 250 class at the time, the early Yamaha open-class motorcycles, to which he was assigned, were “impossible to ride, at first.” It was not until 1975 that Jonsson received an engine he was comfortable with, and also when he felt that development of the large- capacity Yamaha motocross bike was finally adequate. Time, however, was not on his side.

Jonsson had unfortunately spent his recent, prime racing years refining the Yamaha 500-class

18 Eric Raits, “Ake Jonsson Profile,” Cycle Guide (March, 1971), accessed November 24, 2014 on www.akejonsson.com/interviews-html. 19 Paul Boudreau, “The Scene:Hang Ten United States Grand Prix,” Motocross Action Magazine, (October, 1973), 30-31. The photograph shows Maico forks on Jonsson’s Yamaha. 321 machines, rather than riding a competitive motorcycle which could compliment skill level. He spent his most promising years refining the motorcycles on which others might win. It had been a matter of economics for Jonsson, but the time with Yamaha was, overall, another bittersweet experience. Capping it all was Yamaha’s decision to drop out of world championship competition for 1976, for reasons which are not entirely clear.20 This was perhaps Jonsson’s last year to race at his full potential. The former star, suddenly without a contract and after a false start with the small Italian Beta company, returned to Maico for two more lackluster seasons in

1976 and 1977. Interestingly, although Yamaha chose to withdrawal from team motocross competition that year, they actually had factory 1976 machines (that Jonsson had developed and could have adapted to immediately) ready at the season’s start. Jonsson, if he had known this, and with his now intimate familiarity with the bikes that he had largely developed, states that he would have obtained one of these bikes and campaigned it as a private rider, without sponsorship, in 1976. Once more, Jonsson’s career displayed the unfortunate reality in racing that “time and chance happen to them all.”21

Not yet ready to leave racing, Jonsson rode a Kramer in 1978. The Kramer was made by a Maico dealer in Germany, using Austrian Rotax engines and monoshock frames of his own design and manufacture. The Kramer’s frame, however, was inferior to other world-class machinery, and the Rotax engine proved to be less than adequate. Jonsson left Kramer after the

1978 season. With the traveling continuing to bear down upon him and his family, he elected to race yet one final year for his local Swedish brand, Husqvarna. In 1979 Jonsson left racing for

20 Yamaha’s temporary departure from racing in 1976 is reputed by some sources to be related to the tragic May, 1973 racing death of Yamaha road-racing star Jarno Saarinen. Author Colin MacKellar cites a need by Yamaha management to get the team “properly organized after the shambles of 1974 and 1975” (source: MacKellar, Yamaha Dirtbikes, 64.) 21 Ecclesiastes 9:11 (Revised Standard Version). 322 good and opened his own motorcycle shop, selling Husqvarna and Yamaha. He prospered for the next three decades, selling the shop and retiring in 2007.

Maico, Yamaha, and long-travel rear suspension

An adjunct to Jonsson’s racing experiences on both Maico and Yamaha is his presence on the two teams at precisely the time period when long-travel rear suspension (LTR) was introduced. After considering the juncture of Jonsson, Maico, and Yamaha in the previous paragraphs, I will now briefly discuss the intersection of these three entities with LTR. LTR is possibly the single most important innovation in all of motorcycling since 1970, and certainly so for off-road motorcycles. Maico and Yamaha, coincidently, are the two companies which were to introduce this concept in 1973. Very soon after Jonsson left Maico to ride the new Yamaha monoshock LTR machines in 1973, Maico introduced its own twin-shock LTR machines.

Having been with the two teams which pioneered LTR at the time of its emergence, he is in a unique position to recall the innovation’s history. The inevitable “Who thought of LTR, first?” question is a difficult and complex one to answer. To begin, let us consider the question in a

1973 microcosm of simply Maico and Yamaha. While Jonsson concedes that Maico engineer

Reinhold Weiher was the first to arrive at an obviously effective LTR arrangement with his modified twin-shock LTR Maicos, he cautions that “they (Maico) were also watching

Yamaha.”22 As noted previously, Yamaha did enter LTR monoshock machines in European

Grand Prix competition several weeks prior to Maico. Yamaha had actually first revealed its monoshocks as early as the previous year in Japan, in 1972, but whether word ever reached the other manufacturers is doubtful. To what degree Reinhold Weiher and Maico stumbled upon

LTR independently or under the influence of Yamaha remains unclear. Weiher’s motivations

22 Reinhold Weiher and his innovation will be discussed further in chapter 6.1. 323 were either to simply solve the rear wheel problem (as Selvaraj Narayana recalls in chapter 6.1); to increase rear wheel travel, after Yamaha’s lead; or, some combination of the two.23

Now, looking at LTR in a macro way, motorcycle engineering history must be considered. Both monoshock and forward-mounted (and “laid-down”) twin-shock LTR systems had been conceived and built long before 1972. The great Vincent-HRD machines of the 1930s incorporated a centrally-located shock-absorbing system, attached to the rear sub-frame, which allowed it to pivot and move independently of the forward engine/frame assembly. The Vincent arrangement is, in fact, very similar to the early Yamaha “single-long-shock-under-tank” systems. A variety of motorcycle makers incorporated twin rear shock absorbers in ways which could be called “forward-mounted” or “laid-down” by 1970s standards, though they did not provide significantly more suspension travel. British AJS Stormer motocross machines of the very early 1970s had the shocks mounted nearly as far forward on the frame and swing-arm as did Maico’s LTR design. In the United States, inventor Charles Cornutt manufactured long- travel shocks for use in the desert. And, interestingly, Husqvarana’s Silverpilen, used by Jonsson and many other Swedes as their first competition motorcycle, used a rear shock mounting design that surely would have been considered forward mounted and laid-down. Author and racer

Gunnar Lindstrom recalls that, owing to the Silverpilen’s use of very light-duty shocks, early users were quickly ruining the highly-stressed units, and in response consciously un-did the arrangement which was to be a revolution ten years later in motorcycle suspension. The

Silverpilen riders understood that it was the extreme stress of the forward-mounting that was so hard on the shocks. To remedy this, they mounted the shocks in a more conventional upright manner, farther to the rear of the swing-arm (and with less mechanical advantage), to lesson

23 Interview with Selvaraj Narayana by David Russell, June 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 324 stress and make the shocks last.24 (In one final turn on the Silverpilen story, Husqvarna would come around nearly full-circle. The factory used an almost identical laid-down frame design for their 1975 and later models.)25

Jonsson after Maico

Jonsson remained friends with other Swedish riders, but admits to having lost contact with most of those outside his home country. A personal tragedy for Jonsson occurred when old

Maico teammate Willi Bauer, with whom he had often stayed while visiting the Maico factory, was severely injured. Bauer had signed with the German Sachs company, and was practicing on a prototype motorcycle in Scotland in 1978. While running at only moderate speed, Bauer hit an unseen hole and was catapulted over the bars. He was paralyzed for life.

Jonsson’s Maico teammate and mentor Adolf Weil (Figure 97) passed away on May 12,

2011. He had long ago left racing behind him, and, after retiring from the motorcycle shop he ran with his two sons, preferred a quiet life in Germany.26 Unlike Jonsson, Weil remained with

Maico for his entire racing career. If Jonsson’s is the face most associated with Maico, Weil’s is the second most familiar Maico representative.

24 Interview with Gunnar Lindstrom by David Russell, January 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 25 Gunnar Lindstrom, Husqvarna Success (Stillwater, MN: Parker House, 2010), 25-8, 131. Although all these earlier designs would not be considered “long-travel,” in that they did not provide any more than the normal [pre- LTR] four inches of rear suspension travel, they do approximate the designs that later 1970s engineers would use to achieve greater and faster suspension travel. The AJS and Husqvarna Silvepilen designs did meet one aspect of LTR, though, in that they provided increased rate of rear wheel travel, by virtue of their mounting farther forward on the moment arm, assuming a similar damping rate as later shocks. 26 Adolf Weil was contacted on behalf of the author by Wilhelm Maisch Jr. in 2009. He declined, however, to be interviewed, and “just wanted to enjoy retirement and his sailboat.” 325

Figure 97. Jonsson’s teammate and friend, Paul Newman look-a-like Adolf Weil, circa 1972. Behind Weil is

multi-year world champion and Suzuki rider Joel Robert. (Photo: The Dick Miller Collection)

Jonsson visited the site of the old Maico factory in Pfaffingen in the autumn of 2007. He had not seen it for thirty years. Part of the original complex still stood, including a machine room and the main assembly room. Fading Maico stickers were still affixed to the windows, as men in long robes and turbans strode about the grounds.

Ake Jonsson is now retired from the motorcycle business. When still running the business, he had on display in his shop two of his Maico racing bikes: the #27 (American series) and #2 (European circuit) machines. The #27 bike was a surprise gift to him by his son, Tomas, on the occasion of Jonsson’s fiftieth birthday. Tomas had obtained the motorcycle from ex- patriot Swede and long-time American citizen Lars Larson, who had purchased the bike in 1972

326 after the final race of the Trans-AMA series at Saddleback Park.27 Jonsson also retained his 1975

Yamaha factory OW26 motorcycle.

Figure 98. Jonsson in front of the Hotel Lamm, Pfeffingen, Germany, 2007. The Hotel Lamm was near the

Maico factory, and was a usual resting place for factory riders and visitors. (Source: Ake Jonsson)

Jonsson is justifiably proud of his racing successes, and still recalls his opportunities at the world championship, foiled by the occasional bad luck inherent in racing. Remembering the spark plug incident in Holland is still painful. Though fellow Maico team member Selvaraj

Narayana recalls Jonsson as being so calm as to be smiling, Jonsson disagrees: “Smiling? No . . .

I wasn’t smiling. No . . . it’s hard to lose.”28

Ake Jonsson is strongly remembered by riders in the United States who were part of

1970s off-road motorcycle sport. Several have even constructed replicas of his factory Maicos.

These are the same men who were there at the birth of modern motocross in the United States, who read the magazines and were entranced by the smooth Swede on the exotic Maico. They

27 The multi-faceted Lars Larson was an assistant to Edison Dye in the latter’s importation of Husqvarna motorcycles and the promotion of lightweight sport motorcycles in America. Larson was also a nationally-ranked motocross competitor and a gold-medal winning member of the American International Six-Day Trials (ISDT) team. 28 Interview with Selvaraj Narayana by David Russell. 327 perhaps were even able to watch him in person, smoothly pulling away from all challengers.

Jonsson figures prominantly in some motorcyclists’ reconstructions of their own careers. Jonsson was the image many of them aspired to: a factory rider, successful, famous, and paid to do what he loved.

A significant aspect of Jonsson’s allure is his history of beating the finest riders in the world on a motorcycle that anyone could buy. Jonsson’s Maico was known to be a basically stock motorcycle; if he could win with one, perhaps they, on a Maico, could as well. As they grow older, this memory of talent fairly trumping advantage intensifies: “Ake, Ake, Ake!”29 He was the best rider, mounted on the motorcycle that anyone could have. Ake proved that with hard work, desire, and an equal playing field, that any of them might triumph, as well. Jonsson broke the myth that winning at elite levels required something else that they, being common, were denied. He proved that motocross could be (if it not always was) a democracy and a meritocracy, not a sport where expenditure necessarily determined outcome. A million-dollar motorcycle was not required; Ake had shown them that.

With the passing of years, Jonsson likewise fixes on the significance of what he accomplished, beyond the painful missed opportunities. Whether he was world champion or not, he is still recalled by many as the greatest rider there ever was. A loose spark plug does not lesson Jonsson’s abilities. Jonsson values the time he had with Maico, as well: “The best and most interesting racing years I’ve had, were during the Maico years.”

Among the young riders in the United States who held Jonsson in high regard were three young men from California, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Tim Hart, like Jonsson, raced for Maico and Yamaha; Denny Swartz was an Ohio farm boy who won the last national race in the United

States ever to be won on a Maico; and Brian Thompson is the suburban Pennsylvanian who

29 “Ake! Ake! Ake!” was the headline of a British Maico advertisement, circa 1972. 328 helped to break the “color barrier” in American racing. They, like Jonsson, believed “everything was possible,” and next I will examine the lives and motivations of these young men.

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5.2 IMAGES, ICONS: TIM HART

“We were just kids who wanted to race.”1

One of the most recognized images of off-road riding, and possibly the sport’s most iconic photograph, comes from the early years when motocross first captured the American imagination. It is that of a lone, airborne motocross racer. The image was first seen on the

December, 1972 cover of Dirt Cycle magazine (Figure 99). The photograph is that of a single rider, standing on the foot-pegs of a flying square-barrel Maico 250, evidently having just launched from the crest of a jump. The motorcycle appears to be descending; awaiting reconnection with the ground. The rider’s face is hidden, but the viewer notes that “TIM” is stitched onto the chest protector he is wearing. He wears bulky leather pants and boots. Long hair streams from under the rider’s helmet, held straight by the slipstream. Several fans are visible beyond the snow-fence; some look at the photographer (and now the viewer), while others focus their attention elsewhere. The sun is out and the sky is blue. Taken collectively, the elements form a romantic picture of 1970s racing.

The motorcycle traditionally conveyed ideas of speed, danger, power, freedom, and excitement. More recently, since the 1960s, popular motorcycling connotations seem to have changed, and begain to include more suggestions of violence, glamour and sexuality. At the beginning of the motorcycle boom in the United States (in the late 1960s), however, we can state that, with the notable exceptions of print advertisements by the British motorcycle industry and

Hollywood’s promotion of outlaw biker movies, images of motorcycling tended towards

1 Interview with Tim Hart by David Russell, March 28, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 330 excitement, youth, and physicality.2 Racing coverage further focused these latter ideas, and the image of Tim Hart, described above, is an example. This type of image, conveying the excitement of off-road motorcycle riding in general and that of motocross racing, specifically, accelerated the interest of youth across the United States. For many young males in the country,

Hart’s image and ones like it, of young men flying an exotic motorcycle off a jump, was the distillation of their dreams for the immediate future.

Having discussed in the preceding chapter a key figurehead for both Maico and off-road sport riding, Ake Jonsson, I will now turn to one of the early native-born professional motocross racers in the United States. Unlike Jonsson, Tim Hart raced exclusively in the United States. He represented a more localized idea of a professional racer to other American hopefuls; Hart was, as a sponsored “boy next door,” a peer that American young men could readily identify with. He personified what they aspired to be, with hard work and luck. Beyond his personal racing results,

I believe Hart’s greatest legacy to be the rich images of him in action; particularly the two photographs that will be analyzed in the next pages. Also discussed is a mid-1970s advertising illustration featuring Hart and Yamaha teammates Pierre Karsmakers and Mike Runyard, containing allusions to military struggle. In summary, Hart’s images are key markers for the meaning of early motocross racing to American observers at the time. When deconstructed, they can also inform us about the men, the motorcycling subculture, and the greater United States culture in which they existed.

2 The British motorcycle industry in the 1960s and 1970s was known for its use of sexually suggestive female models in their advertisements. Particularly recognized were the “Norton girls.” 331

Figure 99. Image #1: Dirt Cycle, December, 1972. (Source: Dirt Cycle)

Timothy Hart was born December 25, 1949, and was raised and still lives in Torrance,

California. It is near the beach, on the southwest corner of Los Angeles, in the heart of “SoCal

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(southern California).” The region has spawned many of the fads, cultures, and movements of the modern United States; these include beach music and surf culture, Hollywood and the movie industry, hotrod culture, and outlaw motorcycle clubs, to name a few. Though physically located in the same state, SoCal is nearly 400 miles and equally as far removed, culturally and politically, from the more liberal San Francisco, Berkeley, and other areas to the north.3 SoCal is also the birthplace of desert motor racing and the hotbed of off-road motorcycling before, during, and after the boom period of the late 1960s and 1970s. Nurtured in such a place, Tim Hart lived and experienced the American off-road motorcycling movement, first-hand.

In a timely life-meets-art way, Hart lived out the Beach Boys’ song, “Little Honda.”4 He began riding motorcycles at the age of fourteen on just such a little Honda 90. He showed immediate promise as a rider, and coincidentally came to the attention of Greg Smith, later of

Wheelsmith Motorcycles, who lived in the same area and rode with Hart’s father. Situated at off- road riding’s epicenter, Hart rode one of the very first CZs brought into the country, and took motocross lessons from stars Malcolm Smith and Torsten Hallman. Hart’s introduction to riding came soon after Hallman had come to America at the request of Edison Dye, to assist Dye in promoting the new European import sport of “moto-cross.” Hart recalls his involvement with one of the most famous motocross tracks in the United States: “I actually went down to Carlsbad and helped dig the Carlsbad raceway with a shovel when I was sixteen years old. I started my racing right there, and did quite well.” Hart was present at the very beginning of motocross in America, literally helping to create one of the shrines of the era.

3 Eric McGhee and Daniel Krimm, “California’s Political Geography,” Public Policy Institute of California, February, 2012, www.ppic.org/main/publication_quick.asp?i=1007, accessed December 8, 2014. 4 Brain Wilson and Mike Love, “Little Honda” performed by The Beach Boys, All Summer Long, Capital Records, 1964. 333

Figure 100. Lions Drag Strip, an early public racing park designed to give enthusiasts a safe, legal venue.

The local Lions Club took the initiative to find a location for young men to race cars safely and legally, away

from public roads (note text at lower right of the image). As motocross supplanted drag racing as the new

motor sport of the young, Lions added a motocross track. (Source: Brian Thompson)

Hart’s evident promise was such that a local businessman gave him a hand-built

Guazzoni motorcycle and $100 a week to race it, while still only a sixteen-year-old. Competing against stars like Gary Bailey, Hart won nearly every race he entered. Finally prevailing on local racing authorities in his request to turn professional, he was granted his license while still a high- school student. Besides attending school, Hart raced three different motocross classes on different days of the week: Ascot on Wednesday night, Lions Drag Strip (Figure 100) on Friday night, and Saddleback on Sunday.5 He had the support of his parents, especially his father, who

5 Built on an old railroad facility near Long Beach and Alameda, California, Lions Drag Strip is a cultural icon of an earlier motor sport phenomena, drag racing. The idea came to a local judge, who found himself dealing with greater and greater numbers of teenagers caught drag racing on the streets. With the help of local Lions Club financing and the strip’s first employee, auto racing legend Mickey Thompson, the strip opened on October 9, 1955, to 10,000 would-be racers and fans. As was later the plight of many local motocross tracks, the strip was closed in 1972 after 334 always came to see young Tim race. Hart’s mother, on the other hand, was afraid to watch, for fear her young son would be hurt. One learning experience for the young prodigy was as a sponsored Montesa rider. As Hart remembers, “One Sunday race . . . I was racing the Montesa.

The US Montesa distributor was then part-owned by [auto-racer] Dan Gurney—he was a “silent- partner” with them. It was at Ascot, and my bike broke. Bob Bailey, the promoter of the track, had a Maico, and said ‘Here, why don’t you ride my Maico?’ And, I did . . . I just wanted to ride.

I didn’t know that I shouldn’t have ridden this [other bike], when I was riding for someone else.

At any rate, Montesa didn’t pay me to ride; they just gave me bikes. Well, I hopped on the Maico and proceeded to beat everybody in the next two motos. The next week my picture, on the

Maico, was on the cover of Cycle News. I guess that wasn’t a good thing with Montesa! I got a call from Dan Gurney a little later during the week, and he told me that I shouldn’t do that when

I was sponsored by another brand of bike. We didn’t know these things; we were just kids who wanted to race.”

suburban sprawl increased noise complaints from nearby homeowners in the burgeoning local area. In a bizarre case in 1988, Mickey Thompson and his wife were murdered at their home. The convicted planner of the killing was Thompson’s old business associate from their days promoting stadium Supercross (motocross races on artificially- made tracks in an existing sports stadium), Michael Goodwin. 335

Figures 101 and 102. Two images from circa 1970 (left) and 1972 (right): Tim Hart flying Maicos in

competition. (Photos: Tim Hart)

Hart was an early sponsored rider, in the days before the Japanese companies entered international motocross and when actual pay for American racers was rare. Going from the

Guazzoni to Montesa, then to CZ, Maico, and Yamaha, Hart was a living example of the career many young American boys dreamed of. Hart rode Maicos for only about a year and a half, though the iconic images of him on Maicos make his association with the brand seem much longer. His “sponsorship” by Maico was typical of that time: free motorcycles to race and some parts, but no actual pay. Hart’s home shop was Bob Bailey’s “Cycle Land” in Gardena,

California. Bailey, the little shop’s co-owner, was also a top-ranked road-racer and TT rider. On the square-barrel 250 Maico, Hart did exceedingly well in the Trans-AMA series races of 1971 and 1972, hailed as “America’s best 250 rider” by Dirt Bike Magazine.

Near the end of 1972, Yamaha had taken note of the young racer’s successes, and offered

Hart a more lucrative sponsorship. Yamaha’s agreement with Hart illustrated the evolving model of a factory racing sponsorship, and was far more generous than the motorcycles-and-parts-only allowances offered by the harder-pressed, smaller European factories. Not only were the riders paid salaries, but the deal included expert mechanical support and transportation. Hart recalls, “I rode for Maico from May of 1971 to the end of 1972—though it seems like longer. After that,

Yamaha hired me. Pierre Karsmakers was my trainer and got me really into shape back then.6 I rode for Yamaha for three years and did pretty good. I didn’t win a lot, but I did win a National .

6Dutch ex-patriot Karsmakers was hired by the Yamaha motocross team and served not only as a team rider, but also as “team trainer” to Tim and fellow American rider Mike Hartwig. The three were pictured in a series of contemporary cartoon ads by Yamaha. In 1973, Karsmakers, by then an American citizen, was the 500cc American national motocross champion and later the 1974 Supercross champion. His overseas motorcycle parts ventures also brought him into business with Greg Smith of Wheelsmith. 336

. . and did all-right. It was great; it spoiled me. We worked out twice a week. We would fly to the races Friday, practice on Saturday, ride Sunday, and fly home Sunday night. We’d have one rest day off, and then I’d go to Pierre’s house and we would train . . . and then practice on our bikes, Tuesday through Thursday. That was our schedule. It was a great job. We used to get on the plane and carry an engine on in our luggage . . . maybe bring a frame back to our mechanics, who were always on the road. I had a great mechanic; Ed Schiedler was his name. Pierre had Bill

Buchka as his mechanic. Those guys were involved with Yamaha for many years after that, too.”

Hart continued, “The bikes Yamaha gave me were very advanced; lots of magnesium and titanium. I believe my 125 weighed 180 pounds, which is about what I weighed. This was the bike that I won the 125cc World Cup Championship on at Zoar, New York, in 1974.7 I recall beating Marty Smith for, I believe, the only time at this race; and also Harry Everts. I raced 125s,

250s, and open-class bikes for Yamaha.”

7 The “World Cup” 125cc championship took place after the AMA US 125cc and FIM 125 Junior Championship series races, the object being to showcase the best US riders against the best of the rest of the world. This event at Zoar Valley Moto Park in Springville, New York, was the second such event in the US, the first being held in 1973 in St. Louis, Missouri. It was won overall by Nils-Arne Nilsson of Sweden on a Husqvarna. In 1975, the FIM began its 125cc World Championship Grand Prix series, with a US round being held at the Mid-Ohio Motocross Park. 337

Figure 103. Hart in 1973, now in Yamaha colors and with an obligatory haircut, teaching a motocross school

in the Oho rain; probably at the Mid-Ohio course near Lexington, Ohio. (Photo: Tim Hart)

Three images of Tim Hart at the peak of his career, between 1972 and 1974, are worthy of careful analysis. The first two are photojournalistic pieces, while the last is a drawing. These are:

1) Dirt Cycle cover, December, 1972 (Figure 99; photographer unknown)

2) Hart, Gunnar Lindstrom, and Gary Chaplin at an unidentified race-track, circa 1972

(Figure 104; published in Dirt Bike Magazine, November, 1973; Jim Gianatsis may have been the photographer)

3) Yamaha advertisement, circa 1974 (illustration; Figure 105)

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The first image (Figure 99), the Dirt Cycle jumping motorcycle, was pervasive during the era and beyond. It was often reproduced, probably without permission, and was used for various purposes for years to come. The image appeared most notably on the cover of the Clymer

Publications’ Maico Service Repair Handbook, still floating around vintage garages forty years after its Dirt Cycle introduction. The second image (Figure 104, the possible Gianatsis group photo), was never again published (to the author’s knowledge), but the work’s implications and meaning invite further consideration. The third image (Figure 105, the Yamaha advertisement), ran in off-road enthusiast magazines for a limited period in 1974.

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Figure 104. Image #2: Unidentified motocross starting line. Primary figures are: Gunnar Lindstrom (#194),

Tim Hart (sitting, in front of #2C), Julie Grig (on Hart’s #2C), and Gary Chaplin (#7K).

(Photograph attributed to Jim Gianatsis)

Americans, prior to today’s digital manipulations, have long thought of photography as a factual medium. Alan Trachtenberg, however, has suggested that many American photographs, from historical work to even family snapshots, are best understood as “constructions,” as opposed to verbatim visual transcriptions of an event in time.8 That being said, surely non-posed, factual images still remain; at least we certainly hope this is the case with that segment of photography we refer to as documentary or journalistic. Beyond the documentary/journalistic category, we find several definitions and cross-categories: the “social photography” of Lewis

Hine and Dorothea Lange; the “fine art photography” of Alfred Stieglitz and Ansel Adams; and endless variations of other images to suit other purposes. Trachtenberg allows that photographs can still be evidence and convey fact, but warns that the viewer should be careful in the process of interpretation.

The two photographs, of the three selected images, are of a documentary/journalistic nature. We can assume the photograph of Hart jumping his motorcycle, at what appears to be an actual race, spectators and all, was not in any way staged. Likewise, the photo of Lindstrom,

Hart, Chaplin and others, apparently prior to the start of another race, appears largely natural and un-staged. Of course, the photographer could have motioned to one man to move slightly; for the girl to sit on the motorcycle, for another man to stand elsewhere. The fact that the subjects in the frame knew their picture was being taken, and are directing their gaze at the photographer (and

8 Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs: Images as History (New York: The Noonday Press, 1990), xvi. By referring to them as “constructions,” Trachtenberg suggests that even in snapshots, the photographer imparts some degree of control and manipulation of the image, and that, overall, very few photographs are literal images of reality. 340 now at the viewer), confirms that some interruption of the scene did occur; the attention of most of the subjects elsewhere suggests a minimum of manipulation on the photographer’s part.

Both the photos are a microcosm of the American condition of the last 150 years: that of nature invaded by the machine. The “pastoral ideal” of the prairie-like landscape, so traditionally linked with America and described at length by Leo Marx, has been complicated through the introduction of technology into the picture; in this case, motorcycles.9 The machine is very much in the two “gardens,” and it is fast and loud. Man is highly evident in both photos, utilizing the machines/motorcycles in what the naturalist might consider a domination of or a contest with nature, while the less machine-phobic observer might more charitably consider the relationship as one binding the man to nature. The machine might be intruding to an extent, but it also brings man into nature, and gives him elemental experiences that are faster-higher-stronger: citius, altius, fortius, as the Olympic motto reminds us. To be fair, we must allow that many off-road motorcyclists do describe their activity as that of a contest between two entities: themselves-and- motorcycle, versus nature. Still, the figures in the second photograph are at ease, doing or preparing to execute their task of navigating motorcycles over and through the earth, for their enjoyment. In this case, one can dispute Marx’s contention that nature and technology, previously reconciled, must always remain in opposition to one another. The riders may be contending with nature, but they also exist very close to it, and would likely profess their love and respect for the natural environment. The participants are very nearly within the earth; touching, resting on, and deeply intertwined with it. The dirt itself covers their machines and themselves; it is part of this world and the riding process, and they are not ashamed of it.

9 Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964). 341

The two photographic images also reveal a vernacular response to the impact of the motorcycles with nature. This furthers our understanding of early off-road motorcycling as a non-elite past-time and sport. John Kouwenhoven contends that this type of homespun,

“anonymous and undignified” response—the snow-fences, the improvised clothing, the rough and impromptu re-shaping of the environment—is the result of “the peculiar blend of technology with democracy . . . as opposed to merely technological forms.”10 Hart, his companions, the people who built the race-track, and even the people watching, are left to their own devices in the way they appear and in the ways they have structured the track environment. The two Hart photographs present an early, more individualistic, more nonconformist period of motorcycle culture in the United States. In later generations, these factors (what the racers and spectators wore, and how the motorcycles appear) would be much more highly influenced and constrained by established motor-sports fashion convention. At the time of the pictures, however, this more rigid paradigm had yet to be formulated. The 1970s were, as David Frum writes, the time of the

“democratization of social life.” When the pictures were taken, Hart and his friends were pioneers, inhabiting a brand-new, democratic 1970s riding culture; fashion (and other) rules for the new sport were not yet established.11 In a few more years, a recognized and much more binding fashion ethic was in place.

Analysis of the images

In the image of Tim Hart airborne on his Maico, from the Dirt Cycle cover of December,

1972 (Figure 99), we see that the sky is blue and the sun is shining; it appears to be warm when and where this picture was taken. From most places other than the southern California location where the picture likely originates, the balmy scene had to be intoxicating. The handwriting on

10 John A. Kouwenhaven, The Beer Can by the Highway: Essays on What’s American about America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 148. 11 David Frum, How We Got Here: The 70’s (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 183. 342 the upper right of the magazine cover states “Library,” so we can assume this magazine inhabited the shelves of a school library, imported there by some sympathetic librarian. The young teenage boys who picked up the magazine were probably struck right away by the climatic difference between what appeared in the photograph and that of their own locales. A November/December day in St. Paul, Minnesota; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Yakima, Washington; Hickory, North

Carolina; or most other places would have differed greatly. The lure of the California myth, so powerful an archetype during that era, is extolled in the picture.

The mid-ground/background of the scene (we can only see about fifty yards from the photographer’s location) reveals several on-lookers behind a snow fence. Of the five heads that are visible, three look generally towards Hart and the viewer, with the eyes of the hat-wearing man on the left of the image seemingly looking through Hart, directly into our eyes. His mouth is slightly open; perhaps impressed by the flying motorcycle, and as if he had something pressing to convey. Our gaze flows around the image in a somewhat triangulated eye movement; from the onlooker on the left, to the motorcycle, to Hart’s hidden eyes, and back to the hat-wearing onlooker on the left.

The motorcycle and rider are, of course, the focal point of the image. The sun-dappled man and machine are caught by a fast camera shutter in mid-air, apparently after launching from the crest of the bare dirt hill, behind. The motorcycle itself is a 250cc Maico “square-barrel,” made from 1968 through 1971. It appears to be unaltered from factory condition, with the exception of the CHAMPION spark plug sticker on the gas tank and the fitting of an alloy rim on the front, yet retaining a steel rim on the back.12 The motorcycle is painted orange; the color of

12 Such a mismatch of aluminum and steel rims was possible on a factory-fresh motorcycle, but in this case was probably the result of replacing wheels, bent from racing. 343 sweet fruit from warm, tropical places. It is a simple, bright, unnatural, attention-inviting, fun color.

The Maico motorcycle is not an object commonly seen, either. It is muscular, serious, and exotic. Boys reading the magazine in 1972, if they were motorcycle fans, would have heard of these machines, and they may even have seen one. To most young readers, though, it was mythical; nothing like the small Japanese motorcycle they hoped to buy, with paper-route money and some help and permission from their parents.

The rider, likewise, was not a person to be found walking into the library or into their world. Wearing bulky leather riding pants, boot, helmet, and gloves, he looks like a spaceman.

Here was another archetype, the astronaut, guaranteed to appeal to young male readers during this era. The helmet hides the rider’s eyes, and we cannot ascertain where he is looking; presumably, it is straight ahead. The helmet itself is different. Most other riders at the time wore open-face helmets; this one is a full-face design. It is also decorated with bold white stripes; probably tape. A decade later, Eddie Van Halen would use a similar design on his guitar. Both

Hart’s helmet and Van Halen’s guitar are instantly recognized by most fans of the two genres, more than could be said for the equipment of other more famous personalities in motor racing or music. In each genre, rock-and-roll and motorcycling, the bold, off-hand look had instantaneous visual appeal. Exiting out from behind the helmet is Hart’s long hair. In 1972, this visual detail would have initiated differing responses, depending upon the viewer’s age and social conditions.

To young teenagers of that year, living in conservative areas which had not yet accepted long hair (although most would within several years), this was a signal of freedom and independence.

For older viewers, the hair may still have instigated negative responses.

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The rider was likely unknown to some regular magazines readers. The letters TIM are affixed to his chest protector, helping to identify him. CYCLELAND MAICO appears on the front of the protector, implying a vast expanse of rare German motorcycles; a heavenly stable of serious racing equipment. The man in the photo appears young, strong, and well-built. He is a

James Dean figure on a dirt bike; and he is effortlessly cool.

Behind the image are realities. First, we now know that despite the long hair, Hart was no hippie. He was the hard-working son of a blue-collar family. In fact, California, the mythic land of the 1960s counter-cultural and rebellion, was never as surreal as recent legend portrayed it.

Southern California, particularly, was populated overwhelmingly by the sort of middle-class, conservative people that Hart was descended from.13 We might think of these people as the descendants of Steinbeck’s Joad family, refugees from hardscrabble Depression America who found work and a future in greater Los Angeles.14 Their jobs were frequently in factories, involving machinery, and the motorcycle industry was not an unlikely occupation for such a worker in Southern California. We also know that Cycle Land Maico, in reality, was just a small motorcycle shop in Gardena, California, operated by similarly hard-working, enthusiastic men, embracing a new era of motorcycle sport. The warm climate and dynamic excitement inherent in the photograph were, of course, very real, and may indeed have been a world apart from the environments and life experiences of most of the viewers of the photo. The image is not at all staged, yet it elicited its own unique constructions in the minds of viewers.

The second image (Figure 104) shows Gunnar Lindstrom, Tim Hart, Gary Chaplin and others on a starting line at an unidentified race-track, in an un-credited photograph (possibly by

13 McGhee and Krimm, “California’s Political Geography.” McGhee and Krimm note that Southern California votes “solidly Republican,” and that the average Californian is characterized as “slightly conservative.” Since World War II, California has been governed by six Republican governors and four Democratic governors. 14 John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (New York: The Viking Press, 1939). 345

Jim Gianatsis) in Dirt Bike Magazine, November, 1973. This image appeared in Dirt Bike, along with other un-credited images, illustrating an essay entitled “Results of the Second Great First

Annual Dirt Bike Bench Racing Contest,” a collection of humorous reader essays. The depicted scene is clearly the starting line at a motocross race, captured by a fairly-short focal-length lens on black and white film. Given the earlier square-barrel Maico motorcycles in the photograph, it probably dates to early 1972. The location of the racetrack is not known, but we can see that the background is very flat with no mountains. The location might be other than southern California; perhaps the American mid-west. Those figures which can be identified are: Swedish immigrant and racer Gunnar Lindstrom, sitting on his Husqvarna #194; Tim Hart’s then-girlfriend Julie

Grig, sitting on Hart’s #2C Maico; Hart, sitting on the ground; and California racer Gary

Chaplin, sitting on Maico #7K. Another Maico, #55Z, stands to the left of the image. Given that

Chaplin’s bike is a 250cc machine, and all three racers were known to specialize in this class, the race is almost certainly a 250 class race.

Various other figures populate the scene. These include a man holding a signboard

(perhaps the start signal), two young men behind Lindstrom (possibly mechanics), a helmeted racer in the background, and others. The gazes of most of the figures in the photograph appear to be fixated on something happening off the image’s right (to the right-rear of the photographer- viewer). Lindstrom, relaxed and leaning on his handlebars, stares at the photographer. Grig looks downward, her face hidden. Chaplin is reaching his right hand over to Hart’s motorcycle, on which Grig is sitting. We cannot determine if he is steadying the motorcycle, touching Grig, or just stretching his arm. This ambiguity may be the reason for Dirt Bike’s inclusion of the image in the humor-oriented “Bench Racing” special feature.

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The strengths of the photograph are in its composition and richness of content. Hart’s long hair, again, reflects a prevailing personal style norm for a young man of the era, and dates the image. (He now dismisses the hair as “a 1970s thing.”) The presence of the beautiful, blonde

Grig, even without her face being visible, injects interest and a curious female presence into the otherwise all-male situation. Grig’s archetypal “California girl” appearance further links the image to the idealized, “sun and fun” west coast lifestyle. Lindstrom’s utter calm and Chaplin’s mysterious right arm add to the visual interest of the assembly. We wonder: What are they looking at? And what are they waiting for? To young boys, the scene was especially inviting: the independent young racer, his lovely girlfriend, exotic motorcycles, and racing as an occupation.

There is literally nothing for a young male viewer not to like about such a situation, and much which would be explicitly, extremely attractive. The image creates mythic appeal.

Additional details further inform the viewer about early motocross racing in the United

States. The right knee of Hart’s leathers appears to be repaired with duct tape, implying that the racers did not have the financial resources to buy new equipment for solely cosmetic reasons. All three foreground riders are wearing the same brand of boot, which suggests that choices in good riding apparel were limited at the time. Another racer’s chest protector lies on top of Chaplin’s front fender. Given that several of the racers are not yet helmeted and otherwise ready, the start of the race must be more than just a few minutes away. Noting that three of the four motorcycles visible are Maicos, the claim that the brand was a common tool of professional racers, even in

1971 to 1972, is reinforced. Other details of period early 1970s dress and fashion are visible on the other figures. The flat, undeveloped background is obviously rural, but we cannot know where. Trees appear to be visible in the extreme background.

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Other than Tim Hart’s recollections of the persons in the photograph, we do not posses any further historical data with which to compare viewers’ immediate reactions. Gunnar

Lindstrom did not recall the photograph being taken. Hart’s girlfriend Julie eventually married another racer, who has since passed away. Gary Chaplin, sponsored at the time by Dennie Moore in Pennsylvania, was not located. Jim Gianatsis, the alleged photographer, did not remember the photograph, although former Dirt Bike editor Rick Sieman believed Gianatsis to be the photographer.15 Our remaining questions must remain unanswered for now.

Figure 105. Image #3: 1974 Yamaha advertisement featuring Mike Hartwig, Pierre Karsmakers, and Tim

Hart. (Source: Brian Thompson; specific magazine unknown)

15 Rick Sieman, email with the author, October 28, 2012, and Jim Gianatsis, phone conversation with the author, October, 2012. 348

The third image (Figure 105), the circa 1974 Yamaha advertisement entitled “The

Motocross Commandos,” ran in various off-road magazines briefly in 1974. The image is from an original drawing, taken in turn from photographs of Yamaha motocross team members Mike

Hartwig, Pierre Karsmakers, and Tim Hart. The drawing has a comic-book quality, probably to enhance its appeal to younger readers. It is black and white. The primary frame in the ad pictures the three Yamaha team riders. Smaller frames picture the trio exercising in a sort of “motocross boot camp” environment, with Karsmakers characterized as a demanding drill instructor.

Comments from the three characters are lettered-in, cartoon-style.

The advertisement constructs a heroic struggle among the teams of racers, who race for the makers of their motorcycles against one another.16 The struggle (motocross racing) is compared to military conflict, in that the three are “commandos,” elite professionals, united in a joint endeavor, and are undergoing military-type training. In the main frame, Karsmakers, the assigned team captain and trainer in real life, is pictured in the middle; confident and smiling, with arms crossed. The caption reads “Pierre Karsmakers is Pierre Karsmakers,” suggesting that the Dutchman needs no introduction; that he is a famous racer, and we all know it. Michigander

Hartwig and Tim Hart cover Karsmakers from either side, slightly heads-down, in deference to

Karsmakers, as the text describes their various accolades.

The technique of the artist is reminiscent of a number of period and earlier styles.

Certainly the overall feel conveys Superhero art, still very popular with young boys through the

1970s, though without the stylized physical exaggeration. The art itself strongly channels Robert

16 In motor racing, sponsored racers compete on behalf of their sponsor (often a manufacturer, or, in the case of most professional automobile racing, a private team owner). Non-sponsored racers are, of course, riding for themselves, but also tend to display the name of the vehicle manufacturer. This apparent desire to identify with a product may serve to bond these racers with other fully-sponsored racers, who race for the same brand. It may also indicate a desire to be competing for something beyond one’s self, just as scholastic athletes do. 349

L. Ripley. Ripley’s wildly popular “Believe it or Not!” cartoons, published in both daily papers and in book collections in the 1930s and beyond, used a highly realistic, representational black and white art, very similar to “Motocross Commandos.” Millions of Americans who read the cartoons each week in Sunday papers from coast to coast recognized Ripley’s work. Like Ripley, the “Commando” artist used stipple and hatching techniques to create mid-values without modern half-tone printing, and conveys both a sense of drama and a respect for his subjects.

And, similar to a Ripley cartoon, the “Commando” art serves to pull the reader in, ready to share titillating information that the reader wants to know.17

The advertisement can also be compared to Bill Mauldin’s Up Front cartoons of the late

World War II years. Mauldin’s black and white renderings of his bedraggled infantrymen

(primarily the two buddies, Willie and Joe) are less realistically drawn than Ripley’s subjects or our “commandos.” They are, however, engaged in very real combat, where people really are hurt and do die, and where innocents are abused. By combining a cartoon style and conveying the actual mortal consequences of war while posing moral questions, Mauldin created a comic genre with immense acceptance. The acknowledgement of danger in Mauldin’s vignettes is implicit, but this does not preclude humor. Instead, the danger sharpens it. The artist/observer/participant

Mauldin served as an enlisted soldier in the Army’s 45th Infantry Division during World War II.

His work confronted issues of class as well, often citing the tensions arising from the relationships between officer and enlisted status. In his heart, Mauldin desired a classless citizen- army. In motorcycle racing, the only class lines (if they may even be called that) are those delineations based upon skill and achievement. Here, Mauldin’s soldiers and our “commandos” share a key value: the non-acceptance of social class. For Hart, Karsmakers, and Hartwig, it does not matter that one is from Michigan or from California, or even that another is a foreigner. What

17 Robert L. Ripley, The New Believe it or Not! (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1931). 350 matters is that they are all three warriors in the cause of speed, and their successes, not their upbringing or their wealth, constitute their rank in motocross land. Mauldin’s drawings were comics, but his subject was immensely serious; the scenes were humorous, but drew from the realities of war, privation, and suffering. He also illustrated the border between the mythic World

War II soldier and the regular GIs who did the fighting. The Yamaha advertisement appeared in

1974, after most United States troops were withdrawn from Vietnam, but with the war very much in memory and the fall of Saigon yet to come in April, 1975. Without conflating riding and war, it is reasonable to note that there was a mythos associated with motorcycles that did not give adequate credit to the people actually doing the (often dangerous) racing—just as we sometimes glance past the suffering and sacrifices of real soldiers. While his artistic style is less realistic, a bit of Mauldin’s inherent believability carries over into the “Commandos” piece. Both artists suggest motifs of struggle. In the end, we want to believe the “Commandos” narrative as much as readers accepted Mauldin’s caricatures as unquestionably truthful.18 We accept the riders’ star status, and look forward to the great potential for each rider, of which the writers assure us.

But Hart’s star status in the rough, always-contested arena of motocross was fleeting.

After his Maico period, Hart enjoyed three years of Yamaha support. Then, with his knees bad from years of “sticking them in the ground and twisting,” he was no longer able to perform to the company’s expectations. The twenty-six-year-old star and veteran of ten years of professional competition, now over-the-hill racer, was unceremoniously dropped. Hart then went to Canadian manufacturer Can-Am, salvaging partial support, but nothing like the arrangement he had had with Yamaha. Driving around the vast American landscape, racing in the 1976 series, he was once again on his own, paying his way, like in the old Maico days. Hart recalls that he “. . . just wasn’t able to remain competitive with my bad knee. I never did have it worked on. So . . . I quit.

18 Bill Mauldin, Up Front (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1945). 351

I didn’t ride a motorcycle for four or five years after that.” Like fellow Yamaha teammate Mike

Hartwig would do when medical problems terminated his riding, Hart walked away from motorcycles entirely for a time.

Tim Hart became an icon of motocross racing and off-road sport for Americans increasingly passionate about the subject. While his racing record was impressive, it was his visual image that had the greatest impact on the identity of American riders. His long hair and decorated helmet were different than the look of the European riders, and likewise differentiated

Hart from other early American racers. He preceded fellow Californian Brad Lackey, whose

“love beads,” plastic dove on his handlebars, and similar long hair would help solidify the image of the free-spirited American dirt bike rider in the 1970s. Later, heart-throb-handsome racers such as Marty Smith and Danny LaPorte would embellish the image of what a motocross star looked like. Hart, Lackey, and the others presented a picture far removed from the previous black-leather-clad dirt riders (racers who may have been visually akin to road riders and the

“biker culture,” but who in reality shared little with the street-riding motorcycle element). To his contemporaries and those who followed close behind, Tim Hart was the young man they wanted to be, or at least to emulate.

Hart’s image (at least early on, before his Yamaha days) also contrasts with the general movement in the 1970s, as David Frum points out, to a new image of manhood. The 1960s’

“craggy, expressive” Clint Eastwood-type figure of manhood gave way to a more emotional, sensitive creation. Alan Alda (star of the M*A*S*H television series) was this “new man” for the new decade, in which “courage, hardihood, and the defense of one’s own were devalued, and expressiveness and emotionalism” assigned as new essential manly traits.19 Hart’s visage—long-

19 Frum, How We Got Here: The 70’s, xviii, 203. 352 haired, battle-worn, and squinting intensely at the first turn of the racetrack—defied this soft, new construction of manhood. Young males, at the time, relished it.

Hart became a longshoreman, and as of this writing operates the huge cranes used to load and off-load ocean shipping vessels. The work takes precise hand-eye coordination, something the former professional racer possesses. Hart still lives in his hometown of Torrance, California, and has recently enjoyed re-uniting with other riders from the early days. “My best buddy from back then is John DeSoto; I just spoke to him, the “Flyin’ Hawaiian.” He was a councilman in

Hawaii for about twelve years, but he still comes to the mainland a lot. People always want him to come to their vintage races. He’s still strong as an ox! I attended a reunion recently which was put on by the sons of one of the old valley CZ dealers, Andy DeLatorre (Mid-Valley CZ). There were so many people there: Joel Robert, Roger DeCoster, Dave Bickers . . . Those are guys who

I hooked up with back then; we all stayed in the same hotels. I bought my first pair of real leathers from Roger DeCoster; I still have them, actually. In the beginning, I had an old pair of riding pants that were just straight legs and quarter-inch leather, and I wore Chippewa lace-up boots. Then I went to Pepperell Massachusetts, while still racing the Montesa, and I figured I couldn’t be around all these Europeans with all their trick stuff, looking like this. So, I asked

Roger, ‘Do you have any spare leathers?’ And, he had a pair which he sold me; the Belgian yellow and red colors, with the stripes down the side.” Hart’s experience transitioning to the updated European style of riding gear brings to mind Dennie Moore’s criticism of the American

“football players in black leather” style of the early days of motocross in the United States.20

Hart realized he wanted to be identified with the winning look of the European stars and the

20 Interviews with Dennie Moore by David Russell, March 27, 2007, through November 14, 2013, Lewistown, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 353 image of motocross he could see coming to America. With his new leathers, he moved into the future.

The fraternity of the travelling racers is a fond memory for Hart, and reestablishing relations with them is important to him, now. “I’d travel with those guys hotel-to-hotel, and got to know them all pretty well. We all went to the same places for the series; that’s when Edison

Dye started the whole thing here. No one was a problem. Peter Lampuu . . . he was from Finland.

I heard he was working for the movie industry, and passed away a few years ago; he was a neat guy and another Montesa rider . . . Tom Rapp . . . Mark Blackwell . . .21 I just attended the Trail

Blazer’s Motorcycle Club Banquet. You know, I’ve always been left out of these things! [Laughs]

There were so many old friends and heroes there; it was a Who’s Who of motorcycling from the past. Ron Nelson, who first went to Europe with John DeSoto; Preston Petty; Dave Ekins; Stu

Peters, who has promoted more motocross races than anyone; Kim Kimbel, who hired me to race

Montesa; Sammy Tanner; Gene Romero . . . and many more.22 I had the biggest smile on my face; it was great!”

Hart remembers his Maicos as being capable racing machines. “As far as the old Maicos .

. . they didn’t need much. They were pretty amazing bikes. The gearboxes might have given us a few problems, but like I said . . . I’d take my bike apart every weekend to make sure it was ready.

I certainly did that for all the races in the 1971 series I won. We didn’t do any trick suspension, or trick anything, really. When they figured out how to lay down the shocks, about the year that I

21 Mark Blackwell was the 1971 American 500cc motocross champion, and one of the first Americans to successfully compete on the international motocross circuit. Blackwell later moved into industry, after managing Suzuki’s motocross team, becoming a Vice President at Husqvarna, and most recently serving as the General Manager of Victory Motorcycles. 22 Preston Petty was a champion racer and founder of Preston Petty Products. Bud Ekins, along with brother Dave Ekins, was an ISDT gold medal winner, Triumph dealer and Hollywood stunt rider who is best remembered as Steve McQueen’s friend and stunt double in the movie The Great Escape. It was Ekins, in the film, who actually jumped the motorcycle over the barbed-wire fence of the POW camp, when McQueen’s request to attempt the jump (and who was eminently as well-qualified to complete it) was denied. 354 switched to Yamaha and the monoshock, that was an amazing thing that no-one had figured out till someone actually did it. Back then, we had six-and-a-half inches on the front and four inches on the back, and we didn’t know any better. But, it worked fine for us.”

“That old photograph of me, jumping the square-barrel Maico . . . Well, the hair—that was a Seventies thing. Yamaha made me cut my hair when I started working for them. The full- face helmet, I got that simply because I didn’t want to bust my teeth out. At Ascot one time, I crashed really hard. I had my full-face helmet on, but the cross-brace of the bars went perfectly through the opening. Boy, it just busted my nose up! That was the first time that I ever went out in an ambulance; guess it didn’t save me that much, after all! And, you know . . . everybody crashed a lot back then. Nineteen years old in 1969. Those were the early days; how it began.

Nowadays [parents] start them so early, three or four years old. When I was starting, my parents put me in a motocross school; it was taught by Torsten Hallman and Malcolm Smith.23 It was out in Riverside, California; a two-day school. And, I recall Malcolm taking me off to the side—I was one of the better riders—he took me off to the side and tutored me separately. That was kind of a neat thing. Now, every time I see Malcolm, I ask him if he remembers me! It was in the early days, when I was riding my CZ, my twin-pipe CZ . . . I was able to get together with

Torsten Hallman, Malcolm Smith, Roger DeCoster, John DeSoto, and many more great racers a while back. When I got up to speak . . . I thanked Torsten, Joel, Roger and the others who started motocross here. I was so lucky to have been a part of it all.”

In looking at Tim Hart’s images and career, we see the arrival of motocross as an amateur sports phenomenon, and the beginnings of professional motocross racing in the United States.

23 Malcolm Smith was one of the most gifted early off-road American racers. Smith starred along with racer Mert Lawwill and Steve McQueen in the Bruce Brown-directed On Any Sunday, the 1971 documentary about off-road racing that had much to do with advancing off-road motorcycle interest in North America. Smith was still operating his California motorcycle dealership in December, 2014. 355

Hart’s years in the sport came at a time of discovery; the sport was new, rules of dress were not yet dictated by large clothing manufacturers, and young men around the country could participate with relatively little financial backing. In the next chapter I will examine the career of another young American rider from Ohio, who began racing at the same time Hart stopped.

Maico rider Denny Swartz’s career illustrates motocross in the United States for the many young men who grew up in the early 1970s, idealizing the image of the new sport, and who took to the road to pursue that image.

Figure 106. A tough career: Hart’s pay voucher from a Valencia, California, motocross race in June, 1971.

The receipt shows that Hart’s final overall standing in the 250cc race, in which he raced a Maico, was 8th

place. His winnings were $140. (Collection of the author)

356

5.3 THE FACTORY RIDER: DENNY SWARTZ

“I’d do it all over again.”1

The “American dream” always meant many things to different people. Perhaps deriving some part of its power from this ambiguity, the dream has, over time, incorporated a range of disparate hopes and goals. Jim Cullen, in his study of the dream, cites varied and changing focuses such as religious freedom, democracy, upward mobility, wealth, fame, freedom, home ownership, equality, safety, and, some would say, most importantly, unlimited opportunity. 2

Alexis de Tocqueville, describing the gritty, determined Americans he observed a century and a half earlier, in Democracy in America, wrote of the dream’s essence to include “the excitement of competition,” and “the charm of anticipated success.” 3 Looking back at the young men around the United States who took to the road to try their hands at racing in the 1970s, Cullen’s and de Tocqueville’s descriptions resonate. Certainly, it was a hope for some better, greater destiny that moved these young men to depart from the standard American script by which their parents navigated the 1950s and 1960s. Then, the dream seemed most to suggest a home, a family, the chance of some upward mobility, and a life lived in peace. The revised American dream, to these young men, was more than just upward mobility, and was not limited by state or race or age; it was the belief that truly anything was possible. They chased after this ultimate success; living out of a van, camping under the stars, and carrying a racing motorcycle around their country. This was their dream.

In this chapter I will tell the story of these many young men through the experience of one boy from Ohio. Denny Swartz was a “factory (or sponsored)” rider, in that he received help

1 Interview with Denny Swartz by David Russell, January 16, 2009, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania(Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 2 Jim Cullen, The American Dream (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 8-10. 3 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Bantam Books, 2004), 588. 357 from the Maico factory. Unlike Ake Jonsson or Tim Hart, Swartz was given a minimum of assistance: essentially a motorcycle and some parts, technical assistance, and clothing. Yet he was similar to a great many other men who grew to adulthood in the 1970s in the United States.

As we consider Swartz’s story, we will be able to also envision the motivations of many hundreds of these other boys who, armed with a dream, left their homes to compete in the popular new sport of motocross. Unlike many of the others, Swartz did have his brush with stardom in American motocross. Yet, soon after that time, he walked away from the sport, only to return back to it decades later. This is the story of one young man, but also of others like him.

Figure 107. Denny Swartz and mechanic Jim Wilhelm with their van, on the American motocross ciruit,

1978. Note the disassembled motorcycle. (Photo: Denny Swartz)

As did most other boys in rural Ohio, Denny Swartz began riding motorcycles on his family’s farm. He was fourteen years old. The farm was in Reno, Ohio, a tiny village in the southeastern part of the state, near Marietta, Ohio, and north of Parkersburg, West Virginia. Soon after starting to ride, he was racing. Not long after he began to compete, Swartz purchased his first Maico motorcycle from a local dealer, a 1976 250 (Figure 108). The dealer was emphatic:

358

Swartz needed a better motorcycle if he was going to grow into his potential, and the dealer felt this strongly enough that he would even sell it at cost. Swartz agreed to buy the 250, but only if he could go faster on it than on his Suzuki. The dealer knew that that would be the case and had it delivered to the farm, knowing perfectly well that Swartz would have to keep it after his first ride. The dealer was right.4

Figure 108. Denny Swartz’s 1976 Maico MC250. The motorcycle has been modified with an Aaen exhaust,

Fox air shocks, and Wheelsmith or 1977 Maico cylinder and head. (Photo: Denny Swartz)

The 1976 250 was the last motorcycle Swartz would have to buy during his professional racing career. After distinguishing himself on that bike, U.S. Maico noticed the young man and sponsored him with a factory 1977 250. Later that same year, a 400 arrived for him. He continued doing well, and Maico provided him with a 1978 400 the following year. Swartz remembers, “Of my 1977 250, I don’t remember much. It was basically the same as the ’76, with

4 Swartz adapted easily to the Maico, and eventually fitted an Aaen Engineering up-pipe on the bike, along with Fox shocks. Otherwise, the motorcycle stayed in stock condition. Aaen Engineering pipes can be differentiated from the more-common Wheelsmith aftermarket up-pipes by Aaen’s use of separate conical sections, a heat shield, and the pipe’s routing outside the air box. Wheelsmith units were fabricated from larger “half-cone” pieces, joined in much the same manner has modern expansion chambers. 359 more suspension, better handling, and overall a bit more refined. Now, my ’77 400 was my first big-bore Maico, and I totally fell in love with it. . . . The extra power made it so much more fun to ride; it really fit my riding style. The 1978 bikes had major improvements: they were lighter, had a lower center of gravity, and handled even better. Compared to all the other production bikes at the time, Maico was the best.”

Flush with local success, Swartz decided to commit himself to racing, full-time.

Motocross in the United States had hit its high point in 1974, and interest in the sport was strong.

With the inclusion of all four of the Japanese factories into international motocross, factory sponsorships were now common and could be lucrative; this was a big change from Barry

Higgins’ first American paid-to-ride Ossa sponsorship in 1970.5 Young men around the country were infatuated by motocross and dreamed of “being paid to race.” Denny Swartz was one. He certainly had the talent, and Maico agreed. Swartz took to the road, returning to help at the farm when he could.

After Swartz’s eleventh place overall finish in the 1978 American National Motocross series, U.S. Maico presented Swartz with his first “works” motorcycles, a 1979 440 (Figure 109).

“Factory” and “works” designations implied that the motorcycle was more than just another machine off the production line. These motorcycles were specially prepared in ways which optimized performance. Swartz’ works 440 motorcycle, while sharing complete parts interchangeability with production Maicos, was significantly lighter and faster than the standard machines. Sent to him directly from the factory race shop in Pfeffingen, Germany, every part on the 440 was carefully prepared, and lightened wherever possible. All opportunities for weight reduction were exploited, including removing metal from the underside of the piston forging,

5 Barry Higgins is recognized as the first United States motocross rider to be fully sponsored. He was paid $200 a week in 1970. 360 drilling-out the clutch basket, and the use of two-row primary chains instead of the stouter (but heavier) three-row chains. Light-weight brake housings were incorporated, as well as magnesium engine outer cases. Swartz’s factory 1979 440 motorcycle was eight pounds lighter than his stock

1978 400, and the power output was without equal, in Swartz’s opinion. The bike took Maico’s traditionally excellent power delivery, and made it even better; the bike was perfect to Swartz:

“It had a great amount of usable power that I could hold wide open ninety-five percent of the time; I had never ridden anything like it. With the 400, you had to work to get it to go; there wasn’t as much traction. The 440 was total traction.”

Figure 109. Wilhelm, Swartz, and the 1979 factory 440. Note that both men worked on the motorcycle.

Another Maico is under the next tent, while vans can be seen as the common race transport vehicle. The logo stickers on Swartz’s bike could result in extra money from the companies that the stickers represented, if he

placed highly. (Photo: Denny Swartz)

The young rider’s first racing experience with the 440 did not allow much of an introduction. As soon as he received the new machine at home in Ohio, Swartz loaded it into his van and drove it all the way back to U.S. Maico, in Virginia, where it had arrived from Germany

361 several weeks before. Once at the Maico headquarters in Virginia Beach, he and United States service manager Selvaraj Narayana disassembled the entire motorcycle, carefully inspecting every part, screw, nut, and bolt.6 The engine was taken completely apart, and “anything that slid or rubbed against something else” was polished to a mirror-finish. The two men reassembled the machine, and Swartz wasted no time, heading back to Ohio for the impending Mid-Ohio

National Trans-AMA race. At home, he replaced the short factory swing-arm with the longer unit from his 400. This would slow the motorcycle’s reactions, improve stability, and help to keep the front end on the ground during acceleration. Nearly finished, though not yet having good rear shocks for the bike, Swartz loaded the 440 into his van and headed northwest to the

Mid-Ohio national race.7 Somewhere, there were riders as committed as Swartz, but probably few more so. Narayana followed from Virginia, and arrived soon after.

“That weekend at Mid-Ohio, everyone was there,” Swartz recalls. “[Roger] DeCoster,

[Bob] Hannah, [Brad] Lackey, [Marty] Smith, everyone. After talking with Selvaraj about my shocks, Sel went over and talked to the Ohlins [shock absorber] people. They then came over, measured what I’d done, went back to their truck, and fixed me up with a pair of custom-made shocks. Well, the Ohlins mechanic put the shocks on, let the bike come off the stand, pushed down on it and said, without even sitting on it or having me ride it, ‘These pre-load springs are too soft.’ So, he took them back off, put some different springs on, and said that now it was OK.

And so, after spending all week working on the bike, throwing it together and not even having time to break it in, much less it being the first time racing it, I went out and got second! The first moto I finished seventh, and then on the second moto I came out second on the start, behind

6 Selvaraj Narayana was the national service manager and technical writer for U.S. Maico, as well as continuing to have oversight over Maico’s racing team. 7 The Mid-Ohio Sports Car facility, near Lexington, Ohio and about a forty-five minute drive north of Columbus, was and is still today a stop on the national motocross circuit. 362

Marty Smith, then passed Marty on the fifth lap with ease and was leading for thirty minutes before being passed by some rider by the name of Bob Hannah! [Laughs]8 [And we just] threw this thing together. The first time I rode it, got a second overall! That was pretty neat. That bike didn’t let me down for the whole Trans-AMA series; I finished ninth overall for the year. If I wasn’t getting the hole-shot, I was right there with them.9 The power and traction were just awesome. I knew Maico had then jumped ahead of the other manufacturers.” The Mid-Ohio results, showing Swartz ahead of several past and future world, national, and Motocross des

Nations champions (DeCoster, Lackey, Weil, and Danny LaPorte) are impressive.10

Figure 110. U.S. Maico advertising Swartz’s Mid-Ohio success in 1979. The writer portrays Swartz as a

“privateer,” despite his partial sponsorship from Maico. The claims made by Maico about the reputation of

Maicos by self-sponsored 500cc class riders in the text are essentially correct. (Source: Cycle News)

8 Bob “Hurricane” Hannah, a Yamaha rider, was known for his aggressive, nearly-out-of-control riding style and sometimes combative personality. Hannah later became an airplane racer. Marty Smith was an early Honda star who exemplified the California motocross rider image. 9 “Hole-shot” describes the first rider off the start to reach the first turn, an advantageous position. 10 1978 Mid-Ohio Trans-AMA Open-class results (Maico riders highlighted): 1)Hannah, 2)Swartz(Maico), 3)Smith, 4)DeCoster, 5)Tripes, 6)Lackey, 7)Sun, 8)Croft, 9)Staten, 10)Noyce, 11) Kessler, 12)LaPorte, 13)DiStefano, 14)Weinert, 15)Mosier, 16)Wilson(Maico), 17)Moroney, 18)Stackable, 19)Semics, 20)Shultz(Maico). 363

Swartz’s 1979 440 was his favorite motorcycle. It even surpassed his next Maico, a pre- production 1980 factory 490 (the prototype for the 1981 motorcycle that would be considered so exceptional), in terms of quality of power, overall handling, and steering. While he recalls that the 490 was without peer in total horsepower output, the 440 better met his preferences. Swartz ideally wished to be able to ride a motocross bike at full throttle for as long as possible, in order to minimize the distractions and loss of speed and control from throttle changes. He states: “I never wanted any more power on my Maicos, but I liked to be able to use every bit of power the bike produced. If that rear tire’s spinning, I’m wasting time. I wanted to keep traction all the time, and with all the power the 490 made, that could be hard to do.” (Swartz’s theory of optimal

“full-throttle” power for a motocross bike is entirely rational. He is the only rider interviewed to have related this theory, and mentions it again, below.) “Overall, I think what made the Maicos stand out was the low weight and the power characteristics of the bigger motors.11 What Maico did was to produce an engine that revved slowly . . . that wouldn’t spin so fast, and you would actually get more traction that way and be better able to corner more quickly. Even today, I

[compare any motorcycle’s performance to that of] my 1979 440 bike. I try to get my modern bike so that I can hold it wide-open almost all the time, especially through the corners. That’s because when you have to worry about throttle control, you’re basically riding with one hand.

When set up so that the bike could run wide-open, without the rider having to fiddle with the throttle, you can use both hands to control the bike, and have so much more strength through tough sections where you need it.”

11 Swartz believed that while the big-bore Maicos produced the finest power output obtainable, Maico 250s left much to be desired. The requirement to wind-out the 250s to high rpms, in order to extract adequate power, was never as attractive to Swartz as the easy, low-rpm pull of the big engines. 364

The young racer’s “works” Maicos were assembled in Germany, specifically for him.12

These were carefully-built and precisely calibrated motorcycles. While their assembly was specially overseen, they incorporated mostly standard-production components, and were always nearly identical to the production bikes in appearance. As the unfounded “protests” of Ake

Jonsson’s racing bikes demonstrated years earlier, both production and works Maicos always shared complete parts interchangeability, as opposed to the unique and limited production

Japanese works machines.13 The Maico works bikes were lighter than the stock items, according to Swartz, and produced better traction and accelerated faster. Swartz further modified his motorcycles to suit his personal style. Having to work on the bike at home, he credits Maico’s simple, straightforward design with permitting him to make changes easily. Two of Swartz’s most-used modifications were his lengthening of the swing-arm to compensate for increasing suspension travel, and altering the motorcycle’s expansion chamber in order to produce power characteristics to suit different tracks. Regarding exhaust systems, Swartz recalls, “The longer that first section of straight pipe was, the slower the engine would rev. So, like for the national I won in 1980, a mud race, I made a pipe with an extra three-and-one-half inches added to that section [to slow the engine’s response characteristics]. And, I’d bring that pipe and use it on any track where it had rained.” Prior to the 490, Swartz had likewise changed his 1979 440 Maico into a more slow-revving and tractable motorcycle for the first National Hare Scramble race, at

Mount Morris, Pennsylvania, in 1979, which he won.

Although he was equipped with an excellent motorcycle, Swartz was never satisfied unitl he exhausted every other possible route to improvement. He focused on weight reduction: “Of course, I’d drill holes in anything I could drill a hole in, to save weight. Anything you could

12 “Works” in motorcycle racing lexicon implies a bike which has received special attention at the factory. 13 The “protests” (formal accusations of cheating in racing) and insinuations that Jonsson’s 400 Maico could not be stock (as Jonsson was so fast on the machine) are described in Chapter 5.1. 365 make out of aluminum, I’d make out of aluminum. Anything for weight. If I wasn’t the first to drill out the ball on the brake and clutch levers, I was one of the first. I remember having my bike weighed at Carlsbad, California; it was just a half-pound over the F.I.M. minimum weight. The minimum was 224 pounds, I believe, and my 440 was 224 ½ pounds!”14 Swartz feels that from

1979 through 1981, no better production motorcycle was available to the private rider. Maicos were, he remembers, “. . . simple; a decent design that worked.” The Maico motorcycle was, at the time, he and others believed, the best machine the “privateer,” a term for a wholly or partially self-sponsored rider, could own. U.S. Maico in turn capitalized on this belief in their period advertising (Figure 110).

Swartz held no other job during his professional racing years. Money was tight, as Maico paid little money for wins, and sponsorship at the time consisted of “bikes, parts, and gas money.” Occasionally, clothing and other items might be provided by Maico or another sponsor.

At this early time of professional motocross in the United States, there were vast differences between the small European manufacturers could afford and the Japanese factories, which paid their top ten riders base salaries in excess of $30,000 a year. Driving an old van with home-made beds, motorcycles, gear and tools, back and forth across the United States, Swartz represented the Maico Company virtually without compensation. In order to save money, he slept at campgrounds and rest stops. Occasionally his friend and unpaid mechanic Jim Wilhelm accompanied him; later, his wife MaryAnn sometimes came along. Fortunately for Swartz and his companions, many races were within a day’s drive of his home in Ohio. Longer trips still

14 The International Motorcycle Federation (F.I.M.), is the governing body for international motocross. After extensive factory involvement in developing works bikes that were extremely light (notably by Suzuki), and thus putting less-affluent competitors at a distinct disadvantage, the F.I.M. dictated a minimum weight for international competition. The AMA subsequently accepted this standard for its series events, as well. 366 needed to be made, however: to New York, Florida, California, Washington, and to many dusty rural racetracks in between, following the national series.

The drives to and from races were often all-night affairs, as both Jim Wilhelm and

MaryAnn had full-time jobs. One night, the trip was especially challenging: “In ’76, after a Red

Bud (Michigan) race, we stopped to get gas in Bowling Green, Ohio, about 1:00 am, five hours from home. After getting gas, the van went about one hundred yards before stalling and coming to a complete stop. We coasted back to the gas station, pulled the top of the carburetor off, and found muddy water instead of gas in the line! We complained to the station attendant, who claimed we must have gotten the gas somewhere else. After we went over to the pump and showed him the muddy water coming out, he believed us and offered to put us up in a hotel and have the van fixed the next day. But MaryAnn and Jim had to be back at work by 8:00! Thinking quickly, I took off the famous Maico coffin tank, grabbed some fuel line, set the tank on the motor cover of my old Ford van, and hooked it up. We needed to refill frequently, but it worked.

MaryAnn and Jim both made it home in time to shower and get to work by 8:00.” Swartz’s support by family and friends was critical, and he was careful to not allow their efforts for him to negatively affect their own lives.

Swartz routinely traveled to Florida for the winter motocross series. There he could practice riding in the sand and work on his physical conditioning, as well as ride the racing series. Wilhelm would sometimes accompany him, since he was usually laid-off from his job as a motorcycle shop mechanic over the winter months. The young men camped at Croom National

Park, northwest of Orlando, Florida. Not only did Croom offer cheap camping, but its 2,500

367 wooded acres boasted a motocross track on which Swartz could practice.15 Swartz drove to

Florida in his first years for just a few weeks at a time, returning to Ohio in between races. After a season or two, he noticed that the longer he stayed in Florida, the better he fared in the often hot, humid, and sandy southeastern United States motocross events. Eventually, he remained in

Florida for the entire season. Sustaining the Maico flag-bearer and his friend were a Wendy’s drive-in, several miles from their campsite, along with the readily available nourishment of cold cuts and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

Figure 111. Swartz comes to the forefront: panels from Cycle News, October 4, 1978, showing Swartz (#33)

trailing Honda star Marty Smith (#1, top) and leading ex-world champion Roger DeCoster (#104, bottom

left). Successfully competing with the stars on even infrequent occasions validated a young man’s hopes of

likewise “making it” one day. (Source: Cycle News)

15 The presence of a motocross track in a United States National Park, as well as the many tracks established on military bases around the country in the 1970s, is testament to the popularity and acceptance of off-road riding. The Croom riding area in Florida still exists, though many other tracks have disappeared. 368

Travelling around the United States in the late 1970s, Swartz enjoyed meeting hundreds of other motocross enthusiasts. But he is also a quiet, insular man. It took time to make real friends; usually more time than the professional racing circuit allowed. He recognized that the men he met and admired were like himself; young Americans who had fallen in love with the new sport, and had to pursue the dream. Just as he did, they lived meagerly on partial sponsorships (if they were fortunate) and on the periodic winnings from racing. Sustaining them was the hope of the possibilities for their lives in motocross; that they, against the odds, might become champions in this great new sport.

Like previous institutions from American history—land grants, the gold rushes, professional sports, or the military—motorcycle racing offered a trajectory out of small town anonymity and the predictable paths into their fathers’ lines of work. Feeling they were free to try something different, these young men hoped to not just work, but to gain a living doing what they loved, rather than what they were expected to do. Perhaps they would be famous. Their quest followed a common popular ethos of the 1970s, promoted in best-selling books like

Richard Bach’s Jonathon Livingston Seagull, which encouraged readers to navigate their own paths, to their own greatest potentials.16 The revised American dream has also been described as

“the prospect of unlimited individual achievement.”17 Motocross overlapped the Me Decade, in which the discovery and maintenance of the self was given priority, and invested with near- nobility in popular thought. Their endless road trips, not on a motorcycle, but carrying it with them, channeled Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and adapted its principals to their

16 Richard Bach, Jonathon Livingston Seagull (New York: Scribner, 2006). 17 Will Kaufman, American Culture in the 1970s (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 28. 369 own, different purposes.18 This alternative life course, motorcycle racing, fit perfectly into the

Zeitgeist of the 1970s. Like Americans before him, Swartz and other young men from California to Pennsylvania left their homes and took to the road. They possessed little, but they were young and had big hopes for their futures. Equipped with a sleeping bag, a fast motorcycle, and enough gas money to reach the next race, they migrated around the United States, as other boys their age went to work or to college.

A few other Maico factory-sponsored riders like Swartz became his acquaintances, if not friends. They envisioned the same model for success: place well enough to attract the larger factories with their racing records, and obtain full sponsorships. The plan was not unrealistic: breaking the top ten in a few national events had garnered sponsorships for other racers, with the

Japanese factories. Of those that did break into this top tier and were “making it,” Swartz remembers those who started on Maico: “There was Danny Chandler, who I think was one of the most talented riders back then. He and I never really became close friends, because that takes a bit more time, but he always treated me with respect.19 He was from the west coast. And then there was Steve Stackable, from Texas; Alan King from Michigan; Gayon Mosier and Darrel

Shultz.20 I’d see them at the races, but that would be it. I was more friendly with some of the other riders . . . other privateers, like Kenny Adams and Gary Pustelak, who might be staying at the same campground. I stay in contact with some of them. I pretty much drove to the races by myself. Dick Sidle from Pennsylvania became a friend; I used to ride around with him and his son, Rick, a bit.21 I really wasn’t around the European riders that much. I seemed to be around

18 Robert Persig. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (New York: HarperCollins, 1974). 19 Danny “Magoo” Chandler was a fan favorite, noted for his flamboyant riding style. Chandler was paralyzed following a motocross crash, and died in 2010 from complications resulting from his condition. 20 “Gassin” Gaylon Mosier was killed in a vehicle accident while training on his bicycle near Unadilla, NY in 1979. 21 The Sidles, from Lebanon, Pennsylvania, later took Brian Thompson with them on the national circuit in 1981, the year that Thompson’s crash at Indian Dunes ended his professional career. Kenny Adams was another District-Six Pennsylvania rider. 370 their mechanics a bit more, and I did pick up a few things from Herbert Schmitz’ and Gerritt

Wolsink’s mechanics. And Gaylon Mosier’s mechanic [Rocky Williams]; it amazed me how he could tune a bike while being totally deaf! He went by feel; sensing the vibration of the bike. The

European riders would tend to come in and say “How’s it going?” you know, and then just leave.

So, I never got to know the Europeans.” The Europeans’ apparent lack of familiarity may also have been affected by a language barrier.

Even without being tied to any other job, the time demands of driving across the country and working on his motorcycles himself prevented Swartz from getting adequate physical training. Earlier American riders, racing flat-track or scrambles, could depend on several moments of athletic brilliance to win, in short four-lap heats. For these racers, cardio-vascular physical and muscle conditioning were largely superfluous. Motocross, however, was an entirely more demanding activity. It consisted of two forty- or forty-five minute motos, run at high physical and mental exertion levels; it was anything but a sport for marginally-prepared athletes.

Swartz tried to fit in push-ups, sit-ups, jogging, and occasional work-outs on weight machines, but conditioning remained his weak point. While other riders, sponsored by the larger companies, where being flown around the country, had mechanics to maintain the bikes, and were in professionally-run workout programs, Swartz was driving and tending to all the details.

Even with his immense talent and the support of his family and friends, the effects of inadequate training time could not be discounted. That he had natural ability, though, was undeniable, and his chance to leverage that ability to its greatest extent came during one of the most challenging and memorable races of American motocross.

The zenith of Swartz’s career came on June 1, 1980, at the Red Bud Trans-AMA national race in Buchanan, Michigan. Swartz, carrying his new pre-production 490 Maico in his van,

371 arrived at the rain-soaked track to find a morass of water and mud. Evaluating the hours he had available to prepare, he made the unusual decision to not ride in practice, and to conserve both the motorcycle and himself. Using the extra available time, he went about altering his motorcycle for low-traction and wet-weather conditions, installing his modified, slow-revving exhaust system and shorter swing-arm, and water-proofing the bike for the horrendously wet course.

When the starting board dropped, Swartz, physically fresh and aboard the carefully-prepared

490, plowed ahead through the lake of mud to take the lead, and dominated both motos. He won the race overall, his first and only National win. It was also the last national motocross event ever won in the United States aboard a Maico. Following the elation of the tremendous victory, change was coming for both Swartz and Maico, though neither would have predicted it at the time.

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Figure 112. The Red Bud, Michigan national race on June 1, 1980: a career highlight for Denny Swartz, and a departing grasp as success for Maico. Swartz powers the pre-production 490 into the lead, out of the gate,

and continues for the victory—the last United States national event ever to be won on a Maico.

(Source: Cycle News)

Less than a year after Swartz’s national win at Red Bud, events in Ohio altered his course. In early 1981, the Swartz family farm was put up for sale. Realizing this was his only chance to buy the farm and raise his own family there, Swartz, at the top of his career, had to confront the idea of leaving racing. Realistically, he was beginning to “feel his age,” and knew the prudent time had come to leave one dream behind for the sake of another. He submitted a successful offer for the farm, and, knowing his life had changed, returned the factory’s motorcycles. Swartz drained the fuel and parked his original 250 Maico in a barn; leaving his former life behind with the old motorcycle. Like Greg Smith, Tim Hart, and many other racers before him, he walked away cleanly, breaking abruptly from both racing and motorcycles. The bike would sit for nearly three decades.

As the old Maico collected dust, Swartz settled into a life of cattle farming with his wife and family.22 He existed quietly, in the rural Appalachian setting of Reno, Ohio, having put the driven young racer he had been out to pasture as well. In later years he reflected on his former days, without regret and with thanks. It was a good life. He offers that, “If I were to do it all over again, I’d train more. And, you know . . . I never really asked for anything from Maico; I just took what they gave me. They never flew me anywhere or gave me much. But . . . it was still the best time in my life. Got to see the country; pretty good for an old farm boy like me.”

22 Swartz and his wife Mary Ann have three children: Jaime, Nathan, and Darren. 373

Swartz feels affection for and a kinship with the racing culture: “Motocross people are a great group of people—you know the people I’m talking about—all the people you raced with and the people in the pits. The folks running the races and those that owned the tracks. I think it kind of ruined me, though, for the rest of my life. There’s just nothing else that compares to all that. I haven’t yet found anything that I enjoy doing, as much as I did that! I just loved a really nice track . . . I’m the type of guy who’ll go out and ride by myself. You know, some people will only go riding if they’ve got friends who go, but I could go just by myself. I have a street bike, but I don’t care to ride street bikes very much . . . not crazy about them.23 No, I never found anything that really came close to racing. I did race Loretta Lynn’s a couple of times as a senior, but, you know, with this artificial hip, the doctors don’t want you within a hundred miles of a motorcycle . . . let alone a race track. But, my hip actually feels better after a good ride. And I’m happy with my speed. I’ve gotten a little faster the last couple of years. And in a little bit better shape.”

Several years ago, as appreciation of motocross’s beginnings has solidified (at least among older fans), the AMA initiated a “legends” program to remember the sport’s beginnings and original stars. As motocross in the United States has evolved from the democratic, low- budget, all-inclusive sport it once was, to the much more expensive, elite, and youth-oriented event it now is, older enthusiasts appear to feel obligated to impart a sense of history on the young riders who currently dominate the sport. The “glue” that binds the racing subculture, the motorcycle enthusiast print and on-line magazines, has been especially positive in this respect.

23 Nearly every motocross racer I interviewed shared the same general antipathy towards street riding, sensing it to be either not as fulfilling as off-road racing, excessively dangerous, or both. A Pennsylvania rider from the 1970s, Paul Wawrynovic, expressed this sentiment succinctly: “After racing motocross . . . riding on the road? I mean, what’s the point?” (source: Interview with Paul Wawrynovic by David Russell, November 8, 2008,Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg).

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RacerX Illustrated, Dirt Bike, and Motocross Journal (now defunct), in particular, all have taken pains to inject motocross history into their coverage. In speaking with members of the motorcycle sport community of all ages, and also with magazine editors, I note an attitude on the part of the community’s elders that they intend for the young to be educated in the history of the sport, whether the youth want it or not. This sense of responsibility to history on the part of the sport’s elder participants and media suggests a strong sport motorcycle culture in the United

States that is very much cross-generational; the history, heroes, and mores of which will be perpetuated.

Swartz was one rider thus honored and recognized for his contributions to the sport. “I was invited to go to Mount Morris [Pennsylvania] and Red Bud [Michigan] and ride this parade lap before the start. So, I got my old Maico out of the barn, dusted it off . . . cleaned the points and put fresh gas in and a new air cleaner on . . . and dug out the old riding gear and headed to the track. I was extremely honored and proud to be able to ride my old bike around a track I had enjoyed racing on years ago. I also bought a 1983 Maico a few years back to fix up, but that’s going to take a bunch of work and a bunch of money . . . and that hasn’t happened yet. Now, that one I intend to ride some. You won’t believe this, but I bought a bulldozer in the spring, just to build a motocross track on the farm. To play around on. I raise beef-cattle on my farm. Of course, with a job like mine, you just can’t go home and get away from the work. I’d say I’ve gotten everything I’ve ever wanted . . . though sometimes it seems there’s just no time to enjoy it.” [Laughs] “But, the friends I’ve made and the memories that I have will be with me for the rest of my life. And, you know . . . I’d do it all over again.”

Swartz’s profession of no regret speaks as well for the other riders interviewed for this work. Despite whatever damages to their future careers or their bodies may have been done,

375 none would undo their involvement with motorcycles. Many are newly interested in re-kindling that passion for riding, and participate in “vintage” reunions as they seek to reestablish contact with their friends from years ago. Some have created online sites to communicate and share old photos.24 If their adventures had been just isolated activities, lacking any perceived higher purpose, perhaps they would regret aspects of “time wasted.” But these experiences were more than just disjointed diversions; their racing was part of a shared American Dream for these men, and this knowledge grants their youthful adventures worth and legitimacy. Like time spent in the military or on a demanding job, their experiences do not ignore the disappointments, difficulties, and sacrifices; rather, these men include the negative components in the overall mix, granting their quests gravitas and value. The Dream (of racing success) was more than a fling; it was a noble attempt at greatness and an honorable fight against prevailing odds, energized by hope and the prevailing American idea that anything is possible. It was worth any expense, and they all would “do it all over again.”

A few years back Swartz visited the Mount Morris, Pennsylvania, racetrack as a spectator. Walking around the pits, among the sea of young riders and vehicles, he decided to look for the rider holding his old national AMA racing number, #33. Locating the current #33 rider’s campsite, Swartz was amazed to find a half-million-dollar motorhome on the spot. Many things had changed in the intervening years. Swartz was glad they had.

Tim Hart and Denny Swartz are representative of the young men who embraced United

States motocross in the 1970s. Hart and Swartz were young white men from solid working-class, conservative, and often rural backgrounds, growing up within national and family cultures that permitted (and encouraged) them to explore new things. Conversely, the presence of non-white

24 The Facebook page “AMA District 6 Motocrossers from the 70’s and 80’s” is an example of this effort to reestablish relationships and to collect old images for public viewing. 376 participants in sport motorcycling was and remains rare. Next, I will consider the story of just such an alternative participant, Brian Thompson, who was no less passionate about motorcycles.

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5.4 RACER AND RACE: BRIAN THOMPSON

“’Team Chocolate,’ we used to call ourselves. All from one spark being lit. Light another one!”1

Since sport motorcycling’s beginnings, and even during its explosion in popularity during the 1970s, motorcycle racing in the United States remained mostly white and male. Tim Hart and

Denny Swartz, discussed earlier, represent the typical motorcycle competitor, then and now: young, male, raised in suburban or rural settings, and from skilled blue collar backgrounds.

Participation by minorities and women has always been minimal. The lack of female involvement will be addressed later in this dissertation. The issue of low racial minority participation, and specifically low black ridership, can be better understood through the story and experiences of a one-time Maico rider from suburban Pennsylvania, who is an exception to the norm. The racing career of Brian “BT” Thompson allows us to perceive the off-road subculture through a racial context, and to grasp the reasons for the racial imbalance of its participants.

1 Interview with Brian Thompson by David Russell, November 5, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 378

Figure 113. Brian “BT” Thompson, Unadilla Motocross Park, New York, 1981. Thompson is wearing the

same “Maico USA” jersey as Denny Swartz (Figure 112). (Photo: Brian Thompson)

As an African American, Brian “BT” Thompson (born 1957) is unique as an off-road motorcycle rider. He remains a well-known personality in the sport, a figure who was successful enough to break into the top standings in national events. Thompson was a pioneer in this respect, along with the few other more well known minority racers of the day. Other non-white riders in the national spotlight included Hawaiian John DeSoto, Asian-American Chuck Sun,

Mexican-American Marty Tripes, and Native-American Tommy Croft. Far from being a constant struggle, Thompson’s time in the sport was largely enjoyable and gratifying, he recalls, although not without occasional painful reminders that his black skin stood out against an otherwise white background. Still, he asserts his acceptance by the sport was widespread and his experience overwhelmingly positive. His successes and visibility paved the way for later young men and

379 women, who would follow him and his family in pursuing their own dreams, in motor-sports and elsewhere, in an evolving late 20th century United States.

Team Chocolate Lights the Fire

Brian Thompson became involved with motorcycles unexpectedly. His father, Carl

Thompson, regularly took him and his brother Brett to car drag-races in York, Pennsylvania.

Thompson became an inveterate car fan, and dreamed of the day he turned sixteen, when he was sure he would get his first car and begin his drag-racing career. While Thompson was still a young teenager, however, a group of cousins and friends brought a brand-new fad to his doorstep which altered his plans: a mini-bike. The mini-bike craze hit America during the late 1960s, accompanying the motorcycle boom. First on the scene were primitive machines, powered by lawnmower engines and built from plans or kits. These were followed by similar, but pre- manufactured variants. Finally, high-quality bikes by Honda, Benelli, and Yamaha arrived, which were eagerly consumed by buyers. The little motorcycles proved intoxicating to American boys and girls, accustomed to pedaling bicycles and amazed by a small two-wheeler that carried them under its own power. Brian Thompson was such a child; he was hooked.

Thompson worked out a plan to buy his own primitive mini-bike with money earned helping his father, who operated a trash and hauling business in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in his spare time. The boy had just such a modest machine still in mind when, on Christmas day, 1972, he came downstairs to discover the dream gift of many young American teens: a gleaming yellow and chrome Yamaha “Mini-Enduro.” Yamaha’s Mini-Enduro was more than just a two- wheeled, one-speed-and-an-engine mini-bike: it was a fully-functional (but down-sized) motorcycle, built to the highest quality standards. Besides a clutch-operated multi-speed transmission, the little motorcycle featured a strong 80cc engine and front and rear hydraulic

380 suspension. Getting his treasure out on the roads around the Thompsons’ suburban Edgemont,

Pennsylvania, home that Christmas morning, he taught himself to shift, turn, and use the clutch.

Things were going well with Thompson and his jealous neighborhood friends until terror struck.

A car with lights on top was approaching: “The cops!” The boys made a run for it, with

Thompson unfortunately spinning-out and falling on the rough gravel road. Moments later, the cause of the accident, a benign taxi-cab, drove past. His first Christmas and first day of dirt- biking thus ended not in the back of a police car, but at the hospital emergency room, where he received stitches.2 A few months later, in the summer of 1972, Thompson’s brother Brett’s introduction to dirt bikes would be even more dramatic, resulting in a broken leg on his first outing. Carl and Pat Thompson watched with some trepidation, as they tried to remain positive about their sons’ new passion.

Thompson experienced riding in a similar way as did many other young riders in the

United States in the early 1970s: meeting on the periphery of suburban neighborhoods, and riding the trails to small patches of undeveloped land. These overlooked, outlying bits of acreage became meeting places for young people on mini-bikes after school, on weekends, and during the summers. Thompson and his friends in Edgemont, like those in suburban and rural communities around the country, play-raced, “popped wheelies,” and experienced the thrill of jumping their machines off natural hills. He soon wanted to race for real, and entered the

Pennsylvania State Mini-bike Championship. The race was held at nearby Stamel’s Blue

Meadow Farm race-track in Linglestown (Figure 114). The event was perhaps an overly optimistic title, given the fifty (or fewer) young local boys who showed up to race that day. After this first competition, though, Thompson found himself even more enthused about motorcycling.

2 Mini-bikes and dirt bikes, usually un-licensed vehicles, are generally not allowed to be ridden on public roads. The yell of “Here come the cops!” was an unforgetable component of off-road motorcycling, for most young riders. 381

Although he was very clearly a minority at the amateur races, his color did not seem to matter to the other young boys, as far as he could ascertain. Riding, and riding only, was what mattered to them. This new world was a performance-obsessed subculture, and speed and riding ability—not skin color, wealth, or family ties—were its social determinants. For a young African American in

1972, the change was refreshing.

Figure 114. Brian Thompson aboard his Yamaha Mini-Enduro at his first race, Stambaugh’s farm,

Linglestown, Pennsylvania. August, 1972. Bell-bottoms, work boots, and a “Suzuki World Champion” shirt

completed the outfit. (Photo: Brian Thompson)

Thompson progressed through a variety of racing bikes: first, a 1972 Yamaha LT-3MX

100cc, and then a 1974 YZ125A; his first high-quality racing machine. 1974 brought with it the revolution in suspension engineering, and also followed the high watermark year for the

382 popularity of off-road riding in the United States.3 He raced his modified YZ125A, and as 1975 arrived, found himself on one of Yamaha’s first mono-shock machines, the YZ250; a big step up from a 125. Still not understanding how his family managed it, financially, Thompson obtained their help in also buying a new 1976 YZ125C, early in 1975. He raced both the 125 and 250 classes, often winning both. The young black man and his family were by now fixtures at

Pennsylvania motocross races.

Following graduation and then working full-time at a Yamaha shop, Thompson wanted to ride the best machine he could afford. Venturing to a boutique motorcycle shop near Lebanon,

Pennylvania, the “Bul-Pen,” he decided to purchase the machine he had read so much about in the magazines: a Maico. The Bul-Pen, operated by another racing family, the Sidles, sold

Bultaco, Penton, and Maico racing motorcycles. The Maico 250 Thompson bought at first “felt weird; the foot-pegs seemed very wide apart, and the bike just felt . . . foreign.” It was indeed very different from the Yamahas he had been riding, and he was eager to put it into action. “I just all but drooled on it; couldn’t wait to get that thing home! Mom and dad let me work on it in the kitchen that night, putting my numbers on it and going over it.” Thompson’s mother and father were clearly enduring the lifestyle accommodations made by other “motocross parents” in the

United States.

He raced the Maico the first weekend he had it, and began winning immediately. He was now in the expert class; this was an entirely new experience, and the class was filled with the best and often very aggressive riders. The Maico, however, proved its reputation. “I remember one race, in particular, up in “Moto-Meca,” in Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania . . . the expert class, a full gate; I had problems at the start and was dead-last off the line. But, by the end of the race, I

3 The year on record as having the most sales of motorcycles in the United States, ever, is 1973. Over 1.5 million units were sold that year, a number not reached since. Source: Motorcycle Industry Council, Media Relations letter dated February 13, 2009. 383 ran everyone down; everyone. It just seemed so easy with those bikes; something just clicked on a Maico . . . It seemed like the rougher the track, the better it handled. I’d read about that, and I know that I experienced it.” Thompson loved his Maico, but transmission problems, which persisted despite even a visit to the Maico East headquarters and having the engine personally rebuilt by Maico engineer Selvaraj Narayana, dampened his enthusiasm for the German motorcycle’s other impressive qualities. He would have purchased another Maico for the next season, but Yamaha’s introduction of its further refined and less expensive motorcycles brought him back to the Japanese fold. In subsequent years he also raced Kawasakis, since Kawasaki sponsored the young racer with free motorcycles and clothing. Thompson continued winning, and received his professional license in 1977. More motorcycles followed, along with more races and more wins. In the winters of 1977 and 1978, Thompson’s mother, Pat, accompanied her sons

Brian and Brett to Florida for a month both years, racing the Florida winter motocross series and seeing the south.

384

Figure 115. “Team Chocolate” and some of its neighborhood fans, 1975. The trophies have been just won by

Bret (rear, blue shirt) and Brian (right, green shirt) Thompson. (Photo: Brian Thompson)

The extended Thompson family and their neighbors became accustomed to the two brothers’ racing exploits. Returning home with their bikes on a trailer and the trophies they had won, the brothers were a unique symbol of success in a field not normally ventured into by

African Americans. Other neighborhood children in nearly all-black Edgemont began riding, in some cases as a direct result of the Thompsons’ participation, increasing the visibility of the sport. Likewise, black children from other areas, attending the races as observers, saw the family and emulated them, turning to riding and racing themselves. Sometimes, after races, the two brothers would “swing by our aunt’s bar, in Harrisburg . . . an open trailer, four bikes in there with trophies sitting on each one. We’re all dirty, and the other kids and cousins are climbing

385 around.” Thompson further recalls races at the local Marysville track, where, of thirty or so amateurs, five or six riders were African-American. “‘Team-Chocolate,’ we used to call ourselves. All from one spark being lit. Light another one!”

Throughout his racing career, Thompson naturally dealt with the obvious reality that he and his family were a racial minority in their off-road motorcycle world. In the beginning years, his mother and father accompanied the boys to most of the races. Carl Thompson helped drive, and worked on the bikes as he was able. Pat Thompson cooked, assisted with scoring, and helped out in any other area she could. Brian Thompson recalls the undoubtedly unusual sight of his mother in one other capacity: “You know, if I was racing two classes and they were back-to- back, she’d bring my bike down to the line. People’d see this [African-American] woman in shorts and sandals, riding this 400cc dirt bike! My dad has still never ridden one. We opened a lot of eyes, I think.”

386

Figure 116. Thompson’s brother Brett (left), sidelined with a broken chain, watches the racing with father

Carl (right) at an especially muddy motocross event, Bethel, Pennsylvania, 1975. Note “hand protectors,”

made from Clorox bottles, to keep mud from the rider’s hands and controls. (Photo: Brian Thompson)

Thompson was not unaware of racism, nor was it absent in the culture around him at the time. He recalls, however, that “friction,” as he refers to the mild racism they sometimes encountered, was usually mitigated by the brothers’ racing results. Once the locals saw that the brothers were not only “into bikes,” but were also very good riders, respect replaced observers’

“preconceived notions of what a black person was.” At least their presence challenged such preconceived notions. The Thompson brothers were “fast,” the motorcycle racing description for a winning competitor, and this quality assisted with their acceptance by any segment which might have initially seen the brothers’ presence as out-of-place or confrontational. Thus, as with pre-eminent black entertainers throughout American history, even considerable racial prejudice could be negated, overlooked, or overcome by obvious talent.

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Figure 117. Thompson with the broken wrist he would not have treated in “a hospital in the south,” 1979.

(Photo: Brian Thompson)

Preconceived notions were not always the sole preserve of the white majority, as we can observe in Thompson’s own attitudes. Racing in 1979 in the south, he made a mistake while riding, resulting in a crash and a badly broken wrist (Figure 117). Thompson’s latent, culturally- promulgated distrust of southern whites made him fearful of what might happen to a black man in a hospital in the southern United States. “. . . me, being an African American and having heard horror stories about the South . . . well, I did not want to go to a hospital in the South. I asked dad to take me home [to a hospital up north], and so for seven or eight hours driving home, I was in pure agony with that broken wrist.” Racial stereotyping worked both ways.

In analyzing the Thompsons’ experiences, and before arriving at larger conclusions for blacks or minorities as a whole in motorcycling, the Thompsons’ socioeconomic status and life

388 experiences bear clarification. Brian Thompson is quick to point out that his family was not

“well-off.” However, they would certainly be considered middle-class Americans by most any measure. The family owned multiple cars and a two-story home with (later) an in-ground pool, in their black community. Father Carl Thompson was an Army veteran who worked as a foreman in a warehouse, as well as owning a trash-and-hauling business. Mother Pat worked as a secretary, eventually heading the cultural events office at a local community college. The elder Thompsons grew up in rural western Pennsylvania, where Carl’s family originally lived on a farm. Carl

Thompson’s own parents were unable to purchase “store-bought toys” for the child, Brian recalls, and his father responded by creating his own replicas of the agricultural machinery around him, as playthings.4 Given the Thompson’s employment and home ownership status, we might then describe them as being no more or less affluent than most other middle-class

American families of the era. They might actually be considered somewhat more affluent, considering their status as a two-income household, and with the additional money provided by

Carl’s part-time hauling business.

Thus, economically, the Thompsons were similar to many other Harrisburg,

Pennsylvania-area families whose sons fell in love with off-road motorcycles in the 1970s. In my own white suburban neighborhood, seven miles removed from Edgemont, the sons of schoolteachers, electricians, and other tradesmen experienced a very similar standard of living.

Our own post-war suburban families differed in other ways, but economic status or standard of living were not one of them.5 This observation is not to discount larger prevailing economic differences between black and white populations at the time, but to note that the Thompsons,

4 Carl Thompson constructed models of farm equipment from found objects, specifically John Deere items, throughout his life. He is buried at Edgemont Cemetery, near his home, in a “John Deere green-” painted crypt. 5 The new suburban “classless” society, from Karal Ann Marling, As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 253-5. 389 specifically, were indeed firmly middle-class. The relative affluence of the family is evidenced by their ability to spend money on their son’s Mini-Enduro, whereas such a purchase would hardly be possible for a family suffering poverty or unemployment. The Thompsons were not marginalized economically. Understanding that the ability to purchase an expensive recreational object is a key requirement of entry into the sport motorcycle subculture, we see that class, more than race, appears to be the relevant factor determining association with the motorcycle culture at large, and with the sport subculture in particular. Supporting this theory is the fact that, once inside the culture, the Thompsons were certainly not faced with egregious prejudice. The key idea is that motorcycles require discretionary income to purchase and maintain. Thompson’s racial identity, therefore, turns out not to be so central to his experience within the culture.

Thompson explains the near non-existence of blacks in off-road motorcycling, in the

1970s, at least, as due to both a lack of exposure to the sport and to lessened economic resources.

He suggests that, “A large part of the [black] population lived in the city, and of course they weren’t exposed to an outdoor event like motocross. You were expected to do ‘ball sports:’ football, baseball, basketball. Which, incidentally, I tried, but they just didn’t click with me.

Another part of the African-American community is rural, but a lot of us didn’t have good job opportunities; certainly not enough to buy a motorcycle; let alone a sport motorcycle and go racing with it. So, I think those things were a big part of why we weren’t involved in the sport so much; probably a combination of both. The desire really wasn’t there.” Thus, he maintais, blacks did not tend to enter sport motorcycling due to both cost and cultural expectations.

Thompson’s explanations for the lack of black participation in off-road riding introduce the two principal theories currently used to explain differences in racial involvement in leisure pursuits in the United States. His description of economically-deprived, rural blacks not riding is

390 the essence of the “marginality hypothesis.” This hypothesis, also common in political theory, but in this case applied to leisure activities, affirms that the under-representation of minorities in certain leisure forms is a direct result of that group’s limited economic resources, which in turn derive from historical patterns of discrimination. 6 A restatement of this hypothesis by Myron

Floyd and his co-authors is that, “by occupying a subordinate class position, minorities have limited access to society’s institutions,” and thus do not enter these institutions. As Thompson emphasizes, individuals who were marginalized economically (poor) were in no position to purchase luxuries like expensive racing motorcycles, which could not be legally ridden on the street and were essentially useless as basic transportation. Simply put, the purchase makes no sense to (and may not even be possible for) a family or individual challenged by the expense of basic survival. An analogous scenario, elevated one notch on the economic scale, would be that of a middle-class family of any race, supported by two wage-earning elementary teachers, purchasing a Formula One car. Such a purchase would not allow for the car’s (limited) utility to be accessed, and the purchase price itself would dwarf the family’s income; it would be an irrational and self-defeating expenditure for them.

Thompson’s citing of “exposure,” with reference to urban blacks, correlates to the second explanation of minority non-involvement in leisure activity. The “ethnicity (or sub-cultural) hypothesis” suggests that minority under-representation “results from differences between racial or ethnic groups in values, systems, norms, or socialization patterns.” Floyd and his fellow researchers go on to say that regardless of socioeconomic standing, cultural processes are more important than financial resources in explaining variation between blacks and whites in leisure participation patterns. Thus, whether they had the money or not, blacks did not ride dirt bikes

6 Myron F. Floyd, Kimberly J. Shinew, Francis A. McQuire, and Francis P. Noe, “Race, Class, and Leisure Activity Preferences: Marginality and Ethnicity Revisited,” Journal of Leisure Research, Vol. 26, Issue #2 (2d quarter, 1994), 158. 391 because, in accordance with African-America cultural norms of the time, “blacks did not ride dirt bikes.”7

Other studies in the field of leisure/sports activities and the involvement of minorities suggest that overwhelming evidence to support one hypothesis over the other is lacking. There may be slightly more data supporting the sub-cultural hypothesis, but certainly both theories are readily applicable to the motorcycle racing scenario. Over all, we might say that past cultural norms are the primary drivers for what activities are passed on and considered appropriate for new ethnic and racial minority generations.

At the races, Thompson recalls that open racial hostility was rare. He believes that “The racers themselves, the majority, at least, couldn’t care less about anyone’s color.” This contention supports the overall belief that off-road riders were generally so passionate about their sport that other considerations were secondary. Furthermore, it substantiates an image of the dirt bike rider as being largely apolitical—and perhaps (in the case of race, at least) tending towards the progressive on social issues. In those few instances when the Thompsons’ did experience racial hostility, it seemed that the friction originated with those who accompanied the racers, and did not come from the racers themselves. There were, of course, also those competitors who were simply not friendly towards anyone. These people were just “kind of nasty on the track.”

He notes that these few competitors basically, “. . . didn’t like anybody. They didn’t like you just because you were out there, racing against them.” As the stories of Gig Hamilton and Dennie

Moore have previously corroborated, emotions and tempers often ran high at a racetrack, and civility was sometimes in short supply. For Thompson and his family (particularly his mother, he notes), the occasional racial friction they encountered served to make them that much more determined to persevere against it. That resistance which confronted the family only served to

7 Ibid. 392 strengthen their resolve. Brian remembers of Pat Thompson, “That kind of lit a fire in my mom, too; that, yeah, if my sons want to do this, then they’re gonna do it. They weren’t going to let someone say we couldn’t do this.” In this sense, parental awareness of embedded racism resulted in determination to vanquish it from the specific context. What might have become a split between child and parents—the actual worth of motorcycle racing to the family, in the face of racial oppression—turned into an occasion for raced-based family solidarity.

Thompson believes that he and his brother may not have been fully cognizant of the racial pressures of the period. He considers that, from the standpoint of the limited perception of a young person, many of the periodic slights and stresses that their parents received and endured may have not registered with him and his brother. The boys were, after all, young and focused on motorcycles. To a certain extent, their youth, inexperience, passion for motorcycles, and parents all helped shield them. “I look back, now, and think, well, when you’re a kid you don’t think about a lot of those things; racism and things like that. But, I think about my parents, and what it must have been like to let their sons do this sport that they knew nothing about, in an environment that could possibly be hostile towards us just because of the color of our skin . . . and they still allowed it. I think about my mom, in the winter of 1977, taking my brother and me to the South, to participate in this sport. That took guts, but she did it.” In this way Thompson acknowledges the burden borne by the previous generation, which absorbed so much in order to lighten the burden carried by their children. Again, he believes that a key factor in the family’s integration into the riding and racing community was their racing success. “Nothing succeeds like success,” goes the old adage; and, whether in baseball, football, or any other sport, inferring that the young African American who just beat you was somehow inferior, would have been a difficult premise to support in the context of a performance-based fraternity.

393

Brian Thompson was a pioneer in motocross. His and his family’s presence gave minorities, and specifically African Americans, an image of a success to emulate.8 Looking back, his personal achievements are considerable for his time. It was not for another two decades that a young African American ascended to prominence in the motorcycle racing world. James

“Bubba” Stewart, winner of multiple motocross championships in the early 2000s, became a popular culture icon for reasons of both his success and his different color. Stewart was named by Teen People as “one of twenty teens who will change the world,” and in Sports Illustrated in

2004 as one of the “101 most influential minorities in sports.”9 The significance of his arrival at the top levels of motor sports was likened to that of Tiger Woods’ achievements in golf. The young Stewart had his own television reality series for a time, “Bubba’s World,” and was likewise described as a “trail blazer” for minorities.10

BT, the 490, and the Big Year

In 1981, following injuries and a series of free but mediocre motorcycles from Kawasaki that failed to help his advancement, Thompson re-focused himself on racing. Pulling together his own money and leaving the Japanese semi-sponsorships behind, he purchased his own 1981

Maico 490. He had, of course, read in the press about the new machine’s excellence, and found the reports to be accurate. It was, he says, “Just right. Powerful, torque-y, controllable.” The engine characteristics were, by most everyone’s definition, perfect. Handling was likewise faultless. Thompson was now on the motorcycle that Selvaraj Narayana notes later as the machine whose basic geometry and frame angles would establish the precedent for all

8 Paul Willis, “The Pioneers,” RacerX Illustrated, Vol. 11, No. 4 (April, 2008), 220-230. 9 “Speed Racer; Meet the Tiger Woods of Motocross,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 2004. 10 “Pioneer Racer in area; Young James “Bubba” Stewart, 18, is a trail blazer in Motocross Sport,” The Sacramento Observer, May 13, 2004. 394 subsequent motocross motorcycle designs.11 Thompson’s motorcycle would no longer be his limiting factor.

Figure 118 (left) Thompson on the 490 Maico, 1981; and (Figure 119, right) with girlfriend Debbie

Richardson, recovering from the exertion of riding a forty-five-minute moto, 1982. (Photos: Brian Thompson)

He had to affect minimal refinement to the machine, he recalls, and could concentrate on riding. For one thing, in the open class, “the power race was over,” and fiddling with engines in the quest for great horsepower was now unnecessary. Among nearly all the manufacturers, power output from open-class motocross bikes was all the riders could use—if not more.12

Thompson’s machine’s power was especially right: “It was fine for the nationals I ran, and I can’t remember ever wanting for more power.” Suspension was now by far the area of greatest emphasis on off-road motorcycles of the early 1980s. Thompson’s 490 still used a twin-shock rear end, but the design worked well enough. On the front end, Maico’s ever-superior front forks maintained their excellence, which Thompson notes were different from other manufacturer’s

11Interview with Selvaraj Narayana by David Russell, June 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 12 “The power race was over.” From Interview with Craig Shambaugh by David Russell, September 11, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 395 forks of the period. These others, he felt, “. . . went up and down, but did nothing else. No quality to the damping.” Thompson now had a motorcycle that would not hold him back; everything else was up to him.

Equipped with a superior machine, he quit his job at the motorcycle shop in order to devote himself entirely to riding in the 1981 national United States motocross series. For once, he would just race. He had the motorcycle, he had the drive and the talent, and now he would give himself the time. Thompson’s parents once again granted their support, allowing him to live at home. Soon, his results did show significant improvement. He raced locally for practice, simultaneously venturing out into the national series races as a Pro class rider. Joining up with his old Bul-Pen acquaintances, Dick Sidle and son Rick, now running a large Honda dealership,

Thompson hit the road. He was finishing “decently . . . at least in the top-twenty,” at every national-level race around the country that he entered. At Binghamton, New York, Thompson finally placed in the top-ten, crossing the finish line behind top-ranked Marty Smith in ninth place. He was racing against the best riders and the best machines, and was holding his own.

After Binghamton, Thompson and the Sidles moved on to Washougal, Washington, for the 500

National race there, where he achieved a fourteenth place.

Figure 120. Unidentified fan watches Thompson work on the 490, Unadilla, New York, 1981.

396

(Photo: Brian Thompson)

Driving south along the west coast, the group settled in at the Indian Dunes, California racetrack. Here they stayed for a time with the husband and wife owner/operators of the venue, who lived at the track. Thompson and Rick Sidle spent several days practicing on two works 250

Maicos and on their own 490s at Indian Dunes, in preparation for the big Carlsbad National race the following weekend. As Saturday approached, the two decided they would race Indian Dunes that evening, a local, non-national-points race.

The two riders practiced the afternoon of the event, and then retired to the house. After resting, Thompson and Sidle returned that evening, back down the hill to the track. They were surprised to find that maintenance crews had just watered and graded the track, in preparation for the evening’s races. The alterations to the course were significant; more than the usual minor manicuring. The two discovered that the course they had practiced on that afternoon no longer existed; a very different physical track, albeit over the same route, was in its place. And, the sun had set and it was now night time. With the high-intensity lights turned on, the track was now a dazzling, high-contrast mix of brightly illuminated highpoints and nearly invisible dark, shadowed furrows. The Pennsylvania riders had never raced motocross at night; the practice race they had considered routine now promised to be a much more challenging event.

In the 500 Pro race, Sidle came out battling for first place with Californian “Flying Mike”

Brown. 13 Thompson trailed the two in third place. From behind, he could see Brown attempting to run his friend off the track; this was unsportsmanlike conduct from a professional like Brown, who certainly knew better. After several more pushes, Brown did indeed send Sidle flying off the

13 “Flying Mike” Brown was a former mini-bike champion, and the young racer who appeared in the circa 1973 Indian motorcycle ads. Brown continued racing professionally, until he suffered a horrendous crash and nearly died in 1999 while attempting to best a motorcycle jumping record. 397 course. Sidle crashed hard. Thompson, incensed at Brown’s behavior and his friend’s situation, began to challenge Brown for the lead: “I start hammering at him real hard, even with it being shadowy out there. Eventually, I go into a corner that’s shadowy, and . . . it’s deep sand. My front end knifes under, and my leg’s caught between the bike and my handlebar. I go one way and the bike goes another way. When I stop tumbling, I realized something was wrong with my leg. I had torn every ligament in my right leg, in my knee, except one. . . . Fortunately for me, it went numb right away. And sure enough, Rick had torn up his left knee; not quite as bad as mine, but torn up nonetheless.”

“I don’t remember when they operated . . . When we were back from the hospital, Rick and I were both sitting there, side-by-side with casts on; mine on the right, his on the left.” In a few days, Thompson flew back east to recuperate at home. He had much time to consider his situation. For the single-minded motocross racer, this was irrefutably the end of the season. And whether he realized it at the time, it was also the end of his career. While he raced for several more years, somewhat half-heartedly, he could see that his dream was passing him by. Younger, dedicated riders, like him a decade before, were winning, now. He was older, hurt, and too long without regular income. Returning to work in 1982, he stayed in the motorcycle field for three more years, while he continued to race but kept losing interest. After a short stint at a Honda shop, Thompson left the industry and began a career at IBM.

As is the case with many former motorcycle racers, Thompson’s time as a professional competitor delayed his entry into the business world, with accompanying career costs. While some motocross racers and aspirants moved into related businesses after their racing years, the majority re-entered the workplace in other professions. The time spent racing motorcycles, in these latter cases, generally carried with it the reality of lesser earnings, compared to workers of

398 the same age group who had started their careers earlier. While they would likely never sacrifice their racing experience or allow that it was time wasted; even so, there was catching-up to do.

Explaining the benefits of and lessons learned in a difficult sport is not easy for an ex-racer to do in a corporate context. That there is a cost to pursuing the dream of racing, both financial and physical, is indisputable. After working as a parts specialist for IBM in Pennsylvania and in

Florida, and again back in Pennsylvania, Thompson became a purchasing agent for the

Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board in 2007. He has collected old dirt bikes for the last twenty years, planning to restore them one day, when time and money permit. He has also done some vintage racing, and enjoys reminiscing with others, who recall their shared past: “Hey, BT; do you remember when . . .?”

When asked if he would do it over again, Thompson offers no hesitation. “Yeah. Oh, yeah. Definitely; no doubt. If there was a time machine, I’d do a few things differently, but that was good stuff, man. Good stuff.”

Motorcycle racing is by its nature a struggle. Brian Thompson at times found himself struggling against a racial stereotype, in addition to the physical contest of racing. Some years earlier, in the first few years of the 1970s, another struggle had taken place, but between nationalities. Off-road racers in the United States found themselves trying to adapt to the demands of the new sport, while racing against the seasoned, elite European professionals, from whose continent the sport had come. Some of these young Americans believed that the only way to really learn motocross was to travel to its birthplace, and compete head-to-head against those same European masters on their own soil. Next, the stories and struggles of some of these early trans-national racers will be examined.

399

Figure 121. (Source: Brian Thompson)

400

5.5 INNOCENTS ABROAD: AMERICANS IN EUROPE

“. . . the American character is in a large measure a group of responses to an unusually competitive situation.” 1

While the new off-road sport of motocross was gaining acceptance across the United

States, the presence and superiority of the elite European stars accompanying it was not lost on the best American riders. Even if the young Americans were among the best in their state or even their country, they could still expect to be regularly humiliated by the Europeans. In fact, in the years until around 1972, United States riders generally rode in a “support class” of 250cc riders, matched with mostly other American riders, while the Europeans competed—mostly against other Europeans—in the 500cc class. Some of the rising American competitors were of the mind that if they were ever going to beat the Europeans, they would have to go to Europe and learn first-hand. Then, after having experienced their tracks, training, and customs, the Americans would be far better prepared to excel in the new sport; the summer in Europe would be fun, as well. Three of these young United States riders; Bryan Kenney, Barry Higgins, and John

Barclay; did just that, and their story is presented here. A fourth “American,” newly-arrived

Swede Gunnar Lindstrom, was enlisted to guide them in their efforts.

America’s attraction to Europe, beyond motor racing, has always been strong, if not also occasionally conflicted. In the 1700s and 1800s, affluent Americans could not be considered cultured until they visited England and France, and preferably experienced an entire “Grand

Tour” of the European and Mediterranean countries. Modern Americans have imagined their ancestors and the countries their possibly desperate relatives abandoned, years ago, in pursuit of the better futures they hoped awaited them in the United States. Americans still desire to tour

1 David Potter, People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 60. 401

Europe, and do so regularly. Few of us do not have some European heritage in our family tree; we yearn to unearth these roots, and to discover our ancestral cultural context. We feel a desire to experience the “old country.”

And Europe still affects America, even as America overwhelmingly leaves her economic and political impact on Europe. Whatever superiority we grant our newer, fresher, less- encumbered, “democratic,” and supposedly non-derivative cultural inventions, Americans continue to look over their shoulders at the old world. Europe remains the answer key to persistent questions on style and the classical arts. French and Italian fashion developments seems to garner immediate respect in New York, and an accepted European novelist must be acknowledged in American literary circles. Certain countries have reputations for particular areas of excellence: Scandinavian minimalist furnishing design, English political thought, and German engineering, are examples. Europe, as the ancestral origin for many Americans and still a cultural beacon, holds an undeniable power over us.

Of course, the United States also places a premium on cultural independence from other countries. Americans do not like to think of themselves as imitators or inferiors; we have had time to develop our own culture, technology, and political system; quite superior, we may feel, to others. In the case of motorcycle technology, America had seventy good years to flourish of its own accord by 1970. The American motorcycle, adapted as it was to longer, rougher roads, independently evolved into a large, heavy, and powerful machine, different from those produced for European environments. Competition events came into existence in the United States as the natural format suiting these machines, and the oval horse-racing tracks already in place at fairgrounds around the country. Flat-track, hill-climbing, scrambles, and drag racing all catered to these large American motorcycles. When smaller European motorcycles began to appear in

402 the 1950s, riders and racers immediately took notice. These machines, mainly from England and

Germany, were lighter and had advanced two-stroke or overhead-valve four-stroke engines, which gave the interlopers better power-to-weight ratios than the generally larger American motorcycles. Placed side by side with the native Indians and Harleys, the European machines were decidedly superior off-road, and often far better in other forms of racing and riding. As the

1960s wore on and European-imported motocross absorbed much of the popularity of traditional

United States forms of competition, sport riders found themselves not only possessing the wrong skill sets, but riding the wrong machines.

In the United States and Canada, the nearest equivalents to motocross were scrambles or

“TT scrambles.” These were also closed-circuit, meandering courses, but over a shorter manicured surface, and with gentler jumps and only a few gradual turns. Most any motorcycle could compete in scrambles, and the status quo in United States sports riding continued until about 1966. The previous year, California businessman Edison Dye became the importer for

Swedish-made Husqvarna motorcycles, a company that built off-road/motocross bikes, but had previously (and curiously) resisted entry into the American market. Dye brought his first two machines into the United States early in 1966. By the fall, Dye had imported fifty units. Dye shrewdly decided to help create the market for his new motorcycle by aggressively introducing motocross to America, the type of racing the Husqvarna was built for. That same year, after paying Husqvarna factory racer Torsten Hallman to come to the United States, Dye sent his riders throughout the country, organizing races and showcasing the skills of Hallman and other

European riders.2 The Europeans, accustomed to the longer, harder motocross heat races and riding motorcycles made to cope with it, made even the fastest American riders appear pitiful.

Hallman and Californian Husqvarna-convert Malcolm Smith, on their thoroughbred machines,

2 Gunnar Lindstrom. Husqvarna Success (Stillwater, MN: Parker House, 2010), 58-63 403 dominated most every motocross or desert race in which they were entered. Seeing the immense commercial possibilities for both Husqvarna and motocross, Dye created the Inter-AM North

American motocross series in 1967. The United States had witnessed motocross and loved it; the

European import was finding life as a new American institution.

Among those afflicted with the motocross bug at the time were three young men from different parts of the United States. Bryan Kenney, from Cleveland, Ohio, was a junior at Emory

University in 1964, when he convinced his parents to grant him an early graduation gift: a summer abroad in Europe. Already a motorcycle enthusiast, he stopped by a few motocross events after his arrival in Europe which, he says, “totally knocked me off my feet.”3 For Kenney, the events were life-changing: he arranged to stay in France and entered the University of

Grenoble in the fall of 1964, in order to be able to race in Europe. For the next seven years, except for a return to Emory and later graduate work in California, Kenney lived much of each year in Europe, racing. His university might not have awarded a degree in motorcycling, but

Kenney effectively majored in that topic.

3 Interview with Bryan Kenney by David Russell, September 12, 2012, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 404

Figure 122. Mud-spattered Bryan Kenney at the 1972 West German Grand Prix, after scoring the first-ever

world motocross championship point by an American. Kenney is on his works Maico 400 radial. Even

unsponsored riders at the time commonly wore jerseys emblazoned with their motorcycle’s name, the

company being, in effect, their team. European racing opened a new possibility, however, with riders

displaying the flag of, and “riding for” the country in which they lived (see Figure 123).

(Photo: Bryan Kenney)

John Barclay, from southern California, first encountered motocross in the late 1960s.

This was after its promotion there by Dye and the members of the California Motocross Club, the CMC.4 Barkley rode in the desert and in local motocross events throughout his time at college. Upon graduation in 1971, he married his girlfriend, Peggy, and the two decided that they should take a vacation/honeymoon to Europe. Since Barclay was already an avid racer and was

4 The actual full name of the CMC, one of the most influential off-road motorcycle clubs in America, began as the California Motocross Club. Over the years it evolved into the present Continental Motorsports Club. 405 familiar with Dye’s remarkable Husqvarnas, he decided had would also purchase a new

Husqvarna at the factory in Sweden, and “pick up a few club races” as they traveled.5 Barclay happened to make the acquaintance of American racer Russ Darnell prior to departing for

Europe, who was not returning for the next season. Darnell agreed to sell Barclay his old car and trailer, along with extra motorcycle parts, and to educate Barclay on the business end of racing overseas. Barclay would return to Europe two more summers after his initial 1971 trip.

Figure 123. John Barclay wearing an American flag bib in competition, circa 1971. The bibs were provided by the event sponsors, and, identifying the riders by country, highlighted the international aspect of the races.

Riders from the United States were particularly fascinating to European fans. (Photo: John Barclay)

Barry Higgins grew up in Kinnelon, New Jersey. As a boy, he rode with his father, Harry, and was quickly recognized as a prodigy on a motorcycle. Sponsored as a racer during his high

5 Interview with John Barclay by David Russell, February 22, 2014, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 406 school years, Higgins worked at motorcycle shops and married immediately after graduation. His wife’s prejudice against racing was too much for Higgins, and the marriage ended in short order.

He, like the others, discovered motocross, and in four more years, in 1969, Higgins was considered the top American motocross rider. For the 1970 season, Higgins was awarded the first-ever full-time racing contract paid to an American rider. Paid $100 a week to race, drive to events, and maintain his own motorcycles by the American Ossa motorcycle importer, Higgins was the envy of many young American men. In early 1971 he happened across Bryan Kenney, who convinced Higgins that he had to go to Europe that summer and represent his country in the

Motocross des Nations, a team motocross event, as a member of the newly-formed American

Motocross Team.

Checking into a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, a month later for a local race, Higgins was handed his keys by front desk clerk Jeanne Lokey. Higgins, whose manager had announced him as “the world’s greatest motocross racer,” came back to the desk a while later. He asked Lokey if she might like to actually see a motocross race the next day. Lokey responded that she certainly could not accompany him, as the next day was Mother’s Day. “Well, just leave flowers on your mother’s porch, with a note saying that you’ve gone to the motocross race; she’ll understand,”

Higgins instructed her. Lokey did so, and experienced her first motocross.6 Her mother’s reaction remains unrecorded for posterity, but Lokey in any case loved what she saw at the track.

Meanwhile, Bryan Kenney was not finished with assembling his team. Having connections with American Husqvarna, Kenney contacted the company and their world-traveling engineer/racer/troubleshooter, Gunnar Lindstrom, and explained how Lindstrom’s abilities would round out the team. Lindstrom, who was not actually American, but possessed a green

6 Interview with Barry Higgins by David Russell, January 8, 2014, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 407 card (and was at least in America at the moment), was American-enough for Kenney; Lindstrom was recruited.

Meanwhile, Higgins and Lokey kept in touch. A few weeks later Higgins asked the twenty-seven-year-old Lokey if she might like to go to Europe for a few months. Lokey quit her hotel job and joined up with Higgins. She found herself landing in Luxemburg shortly thereafter in July, 1971. Meeting up with Bryan Kenney and his wife, Lori, in France, the four entered the

European motocross circuit.

Figure 124. The American Motocross Team (left to right): Gunnar Lindstrom, John Barclay, Barry Higgins,

Bryan Kenney; France, 1971. (Photo: Barry Higgins)

The European Motocross Circuit; an Explanation

Motocross races at this time were held throughout the European continent, from the

Scandinavian countries in the north to Italy in the south, organized by either local motorsports clubs or individual promoters. International motocross meetings were the most common,

408 attended by both professional and factory-sponsored riders, and also by non-sponsored individual riders, sometimes on their summer vacations. Grand Prix (GP) meetings, where riders competed to accumulate points towards the FIM World Championship, occurred once each season, with one event held in each country.7 Finally, National Championship meetings occurred weekly in the various countries, with participation limited to nationals of that country, who were accumulating points and vying for their national championship. Since non-citizens could not, by definition, participate in the European National races, and the GP races only occurred once in each country per season (and did not pay much, despite their prestige), International meetings were the favored event of the American racers.

Life on the international motocross circuit, limited to Europe and the USSR at the time, was a glorious summer adventure for everyone, including the Americans. It was a modern, democratized variation of the Grand Tour, taken in second-hand automobiles towing motorcycles, each weekend rejoining the same new and old friends. American racers had come to Europe in small numbers for years; Kenney was an early example, along with John DeSoto,

Mark Blackwell, Russ Darnell, Mike Runyon, Billy Clements, and Jim Pomeroy. Later, Brad

Lackey and many others would come to pursue the World Championship, as Lackey successfully did in 1982, or to participate in the Motocross des Nations. The Americans were, however, a minority. The racers from the various countries and those accompanying them migrated together across Europe, from race to race. Usually traveling throughout the early days of the week, they would plan to arrive by Thursday or Friday. Once at the site of the next race, the riders would set up camp and prepare the bikes and themselves for the race; only an affluent minority stayed in hotels while at a race. The travelling community enjoyed one another and the continual change

7 The Federation Internationale de Motocyclismo (Federation of International Motorcycling, or FIM) is the governing and sanctioning body for world motorcycle racing. 409 of venue. The motocross riders’ adventures were not unlike that of the surfers in the previous decade’s famous documentary, Bruce Brown’s Endless Summer. 8 The surfers in Endless

Summer, like the motocross racers who would be portrayed in Brown’s later movie, On Any

Sunday, traveled the world in search of the perfect wave; camping, discovering, and making a virtue of the shoestring-budget and impromptu nature of the entire affair.9 Motocross in Europe was no different, and the few Americans involved brought along their best pioneering instincts.

Practice was held on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Riders attended to details on their machines, while wives and girlfriends cooked or sat around the campsite. Soccer games, bicycle races, volleyball, and other activities punctuated the days. Language barriers often crumbled, depending upon the Europeans’ skill with English and the universal sign language of men speaking about machines. Accommodations were minimal, but this only added to the adventure.

Portable restrooms were rare, and even one such facility at a race, ridiculously inadequate in light of the possible 10,000 attendees for the Sunday race, was reason to be thankful. Jeanne

Lokey recalls many baths taken in streams during her motocross summer of 1971.

Lokey, Higgins, and Barclay remember the travel as pleasant, with good food in at least the northern European countries, and friendly welcomes by the local populations. Gasoline for the small cars was incredibly high-priced in the eyes of the Americans, but hotel rooms could be had for two dollars a night. The Kenneys and the Barclays both towed small trailers, called

“caravans” by the locals, while Higgins and Lokey made due in their small van.

Eventually joining up with Higgins, Barclay, and Kenney, as the forth member of the

American Motocross Team’s entry in the Motocross des Nations, was Gunnar Lindstrom.

Lindstrom was working for Husqvarna at the time, and the company allowed Lindstrom to help

8 Endless Summer, dir. by Bruce Brown (1966). 9 On Any Sunday, dir. by Bruce Brown (1971). 410 out the team while on the payroll. If Kenney was the officially appointed “captain” of the team,

Lindstrom was something of a team guide and mentor. Lokey remembers Lindstrom as the

“calming force” among the Americans. Lindstrom’s racing skills were augmented by his multi- lingual ability, his understanding of the European racing business, and (especially fortunate for the members of the team then riding the Swedish motorcycle) his direct line to the Husqvarna motorcycle factory. Lindstrom was only in Europe for the Motocross des Nations and one British

GP; other than this short period, the Americans traveled together and were on their own for the

1971 season. In 1972, Higgins and Lokey stayed home, and the remaining two couples continued together.

Beyond all the cultural and business differences to which the riders had to acclimate were the sheer physical demands of European motocross. Higgins, in particular, had been brought up on gentle, sweeping American scrambles tracks, where a normal heat race was five short laps.

Throughout 1971, he was still adjusting to the exhausting European motocross rules of two forty- five-minute motos, plus two laps. Barclay took time to build his strength, as well. Kenney and

Lindstrom, with the longest exposure to the European system, were aware of the endurance required and were by then physically up to the challenge.

John Barclay remembers the racing circuit as an international “community;” a vast cross- cultural youth movement with a shared interest in motorcycles. And, to this community, racers from the popular United States were both few and fascinating to everyone. Barclay recalls that it was the Americans’ situation as racers—a more popular identity than that of tourists—which opened doors and ensured friendly relations with local populations. They thus enjoyed being motocross insiders, while also being American in Europe. Likening their status to that of professional athletes (which they were, although with minimal pay), Barclay remembers fondly

411 that “everyone wanted to be their pal.” Along with the European participants, the Americans were toasted and entertained by local mayors, cafes, racing enthusiasts, and an energetic, ever present fan base throughout their travels. Barclay notes the Europeans’ heightened appreciation of motorsport was a more recognizable component of the popular culture than in the United

States. While Americans at the time also admired motor racing stars, their appreciation seemed limited to only a very few top figures.

Nationalism, whether loudly proclaimed or so diminished as to be invisible, is remembered in varying ways and degrees by the Americans. Nationalism could be infectious;

Lokey recalls that the first thing she and Higgins did upon being given the keys to their 1967

Volkswagen van was to “Americanize” it, painting a huge American flag on each side.10 She recalls a pervasive pro-American sentiment in Europe, and felt that “Americans were loved everywhere across Europe, with the possible exception of France.” She also remembers that every time the riders set up a new campsite/pit area, “the first thing [the riders] would do was put up a flag of their country.” At the Motocross des Nations and the GPs, the grand opening ceremony pageantry far exceeded most American sport programs, then or now. Pigeons were released, flags were flown, and the riders paraded and stood with their teammates in front of the cheering crowds. As local dignitaries welcomed the riders and children carried banners indicating the rider’s nationality, bands played the national anthem of that country. The festival atmosphere was less frenzied than that of the rock concerts which made headlines during the decade, but was no less popular. Wilhelm Maisch Jr. puts the average attendance of a

10 Interview with Jeanne Lokey by David Russell, January 12, 2014, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 412 championship motocross race at the time, in Germany, at a comparatively sparse 4,000 to 8,000 persons, with a maximum of 15,000. Events in the USSR could exceed 100,000.11

Gunnar Lindstrom affirms this image of strong nationalistic passions, but tempers the memory with his recollection that nationalism could also be minimal, depending on the country.

In his native Sweden, at least (prior to more recent times and the national debate on immigration and growing Swedish animosity towards multiculturalism), he recalled “not a single event where the [Swedish] national anthem was played. We didn’t need a binding agent to remind us we were

Swedes. Immigration caused things to change, with countries then trying to reinforce the idea that they were a collective.”12 The Motocross des Nations was, though, by its very nature, a celebration of nationalism, and national identity and pride-in-country were duly showcased.

Lindstrom notes that the most nationalistic fans were in Holland and Belgium; he never did encounter anything similar in the Scandinavian countries.

11 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded), 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 12 Interview with Gunnar Lindstrom by David Russell, January 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 413

Figure 125. Opening ceremony, Motocross des Nations, Vannes, France, 1971. Note the large size of the

American flag on the pole; the American team stands underneath. The appeal to nationalistic pride was a key component of this nation-versus-nation team event. The United States team finished next to last, ahead of the

Russian team, which failed to finish. (Photo: Barry Higgins)

While John Barclay did not directly experience any event that might be considered nationalistic, in a negative sense, he does recall “legends” of such behavior. Two incidents in

1971 that did become motocross legends both involved Maico riders. Related by Barry Higgins, the first involved perennial Maico factory rider and German national champion Adolf Weil. Weil was encountering mechanical problems while racing outside Germany. Temporarily withdrawing from the event, he left the track and rode back to his pits to fix the problem. After correcting the issue and attempting to re-mount his motorcycle and re-enter the race, Weil found himself physically held down by local fans, who wanted their own countrymen to beat the German.

The second and more famous incident involves Ake Jonsson. Racing for the world championship at the St. Anthonis, Holland, course on August 22, 1971 and leading the field,

Jonsson’s spark plug came loose and ejected from the cylinder head. Jonsson’s Maico coasted to a halt, as the other riders flew past. Seeing Jonsson’s stopped motorcycle, fellow Swede Bengt

Aberg stopped, determined the problem from Jonsson, and left the race course on his factory

Husqvarna. Aberg retrieved a spark plug and a plug wrench for Jonsson, allowing him to finish the race. Aberg, meanwhile, lost all chance for his own good standing in the event. What was

Aberg’s motivation? Going into the race, his countryman Jonsson held a one-point lead over eventual winner and world champion, Belgian Roger DeCoster (Figure 128).13

13 Aberg, being a contestant, was not barred from helping another contestant, according to FIM rules. Only “non- competitors” are barred from assisting. 414

The Americans most recently-arrived in Europe, Higgins and Lokey, still pined for home after the others had acculturated. Lokey recalls that after glimpsing a totally unexpected A&W

Root Beer stand in one European country, the pair made a frantic and immediate u-turn, in pursuit of a little taste of home. Fortunately for the homesick Americans, their occasional stays at

United States military bases in Germany provided the couple with hamburgers, Cokes, and home-style music.

The behavior of the Europeans, as interpreted by the Americans, did not differ much from the Americans’ expectations. Both the continental racers and the local populations were welcoming; they embraced the Americans and afforded them the high honors with which they held motorsports personalities in general. The popular Americans were frequently invited to local celebrations. While the motocross circuit was a “party” environment, Lokey stressed that

“Everybody was wonderful. You didn’t have any bad elements; there were no drugs, there was no alcoholism, no heavy drinking. Every motorcycle rider and racer I’ve ever met, from whatever country, has been a very respectful person. Very caring persons, no matter what country.” While instances of excessive drinking and alcoholism must certainly have occurred, there is no reason to dispute Lokey’s observation and characterization of an overall positive, friendly and healthy environment along the circuit, for both racers and fans. Unlike attendees at a rock concert, these people had work to do, motorcycles to fix, and races to contest.

Feminine perspective

Jeanne Lokey also provides a rare female perspective on gender relations, in the very male world of 1970s European motocross. She notes that women were rarely seen, “unless you were in the pits or something.” Period photographs, to include photojournalist Terry Pratt’s extensive coverage of the 1972 European season, suggest the contemporary role of women at the

415 races was mostly as fan.14 Women also appeared in the traditional “trophy girl” role, a prevalent example being the Champion Spark Plug girls. These models walked the premises in their matching monogrammed outfits and bags, dispensed smiles and give-a-ways, and appeared with winners on the podium. Some events, particularly the world championship and Motocross des

Nation events, which emphasized nationality, featured local girls in traditional costume.

Figure 126. Taking the [American] girl from the country, but not the country from the girl: Jeanne Lokey in

a caravan (trailer) with fresh-caught fish; Europe, 1971. (Photo: Barry Higgins)

Lokey’s stance on the differences between American and European male treatment of females is that, at least during the time she was in Europe, American men “seemed to have more respect for their spouses and girlfriends” than did the European men. Lokey is quick to elevate

British men above both Americans and Europeans, insisting that their reputation for being

14 Terry Pratt, Grand Prix Motocross: The 1972 World Championship Season (Costa Mesa, CA: Cycle News, 2007). 416 gentlemen was readily-apparent and truly earned. The shared language between the two English- speaking nationalities could account for this perception. In any case, the manners and warmth of the Europeans were not brought into question by any of the Americans interviewed, with the one exception of Lokey’s sense of French cold-shoulders.

Lokey also described European women at work, something the men rarely mentioned.

While visiting the CZ motorcycle factory in Czechoslovakia, she noted “large Polish women with babushkas,” assembling motorcycles.15 “Every one of them had a bottle of vodka.” Her interest was piqued as she watched the women alternate putting a heavy motor in a frame, with taking a sip from the ubiquitous vodka bottles. Her peek behind the Iron Curtain, made possible due to the niche of motorcycle racing, offered a highly unusual departure from Cold War norms, even as it confirmed certain stereotypes of that period. In another setting, Lokey also noted the presence of women in organizational roles at the motocross races. These women registered riders with much more courtesy and efficiency than she or Higgins had ever experienced at a United

States race meeting.

Jeanne Lokey was especially sensitive to the women she encountered in un-empowered settings. She described the women in Holland’s red-light district, and also the young “motocross groupies” who frequently filled a marginalized role during the “water fights,” which served as the ending ceremony for the many racer group dinners. The women would wind up soaking wet, revealing even more than their typically skimpy outfits normally did. Lokey’s observations were not particularly sympathetic, either, suggesting that these women bore much of the responsibility for the situations in which they found themselves. Her description of their circumstances does

15 CZ is the abbreviation for “Ceska Zbrojovka,” a major Czechoslovakian motorcycle producer at the time, and now predominantly a firearms manufacturer, only. 417 not suggest any pity for these women as “passive victims” of male patriarchy.16 They made their own choices and were living with them, from the viewpoint of this independent, post-Feminine

Mystique, 1970s American woman. In this respect, these foreign women appear in a similar context to the Baseball Annie or rock groupie made famous in sports and popular culture texts of that time, such as Jim Boulton’s Ball Four and Cameron Crowe’s descriptions of star-struck young women in Rolling Stone.17 Lokey’s background is that of a feminine Southern woman who was simultaneously a liberated and self-reliant 1970s individual; she tended to discount victimization as a justificastion for one’s circumstances.

The backgrounds of the four young men comprising the 1971 American Motocross Team invite analysis. Differing from the usual blue-collar characterization of off-road motorcyclists, to be discussed in a later chapter, three of the four young men had college educations. Kenney had also completed at least some graduate work. Lindstrom was a product of the Swedish educational system and was then in the process of moving to America. Both Lindstrom and Barclay had degrees in engineering, while Higgins was a high school graduate. They are, taken together, a well-educated group.

16 Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (W.W. Norton & Company, Ltd., 1997), xviii. 17 Jim Boulton, Ball Four (New York: Macmillan General Reference, 1990). 418

Figure 127. The team (sans Lindstrom): #3 Barclay, #2 Higgins, #1 Kenney, 1971. (Photo: Barry Higgins)

I posed the question as to whether their opportunity to race motorcycles in Europe was an extension of economic privilege. Barclay did not feel this was the case at all, and he, most among the others, stressed the necessity they encountered of treating their racing as a business. Kenney, who was in Europe the longest, likewise emphasized the importance of sponsorships and the general scarcity of money. Higgins notes that the team was partially funded by donations. The traveling Americans maintained a “kitty,” a joint fund to which they contributed their earnings and donations, and could draw from for necessities. They were, for the most part, self- supporting. The limited assistance they received under the banner of the American Motocross

Team came from the sale of a team calendar, and also the meager donations drawn from advertisements appealing to national pride, placed in United States motorcycle magazines.

Bathing outdoors and cooking over campfires, the Americans were certainly “not trust fund babies,” as Barclay emphasized. Their riding expertise and willingness to work hard and learn

419 the motocross system were the major qualifications they brought with them, and these enabled them to race and to maintain their bikes at subsistence levels. Fortunately, they were young enough to appreciate the thrown-together nature of the sport in its still-early, fun phase.

The business of motocross in Europe

The European international racing circuit was also, as John Barclay took special effort to note, a complex business enterprise. The promoters, whether they were private clubs or individuals, planned to generate a profit in exchange for holding the event. To entice fan attendance, they worked to ensure that famous and crowd-pleasing riders would be participating.

And, to this end, the promoters contracted with the riders for their appearance. Learning how to obtain contracts to ride the various events was critical to making money. Once a rider was contracted to appear, he was guaranteed a minimum payment to at least be present at the event; perhaps $200 for the then-novel and popular American riders. This was called “show money,” payable contingent upon the rider’s arrival with the intent to race. Events might have “start money,” payable to riders who at least began the race. Riders completing their events would also be paid “finish money,” which varied depending upon their standings. Finish money tended to be

“flatter” in Europe, according to Barclay; not going as high as in America, but paying deeper into the lower standings; perhaps $2000 to win and $200 for a finish, far down the pack at fifteenth or twentieth place. In this fashion, a good finish in the middle of the pack might bring the

Americans another several hundred more dollars. Added to this was “incentive money,” that fee paid by businesses, usually motorcycle manufacturers or accessories makers, like Champion spark plugs or Bel-Ray Oil, to riders in exchange for advertising their product.

The four riders noted that in America, race winnings were much more heavily weighted to reward mostly the top contestants, and there was less support money available to bottom-of-

420 the-pack finishers. $10,000 to win and $110 for a mid-pack finish is representative of the

American system. Higgins observed that, on the positive side in the United States, there were far more local races at the time than in Europe. Thus a winning rider could count on making $500-

600 in a weekend, almost every weekend; respectable part-time earnings in the early 1970s. On either continent, while riders could sleep cheaply in a tent and subsist on inexpensive food, there was one necessity, though, that generally could not be done cheaply: that of maintaining high- performance racing motorcycles in winning condition.

Examining the motorcycles the four men campaigned during 1971, we see that

Husqvarna was used by three of the four riders, at varying times (Higgins being the only rider who never did ride the “Huskies”). Husqvarna was recognized as a capable and reliable machine, and, like Maico and CZ, was a common top-level tool at the time. Barclay rode Husqvarna, as did Kenney, prior to 1971. Lindstrom, the Husqvarna engineer, was naturally on this brand.

Higgins began his months in Europe on a Czechoslovakian CZ, switching to a Maico near the end of his 1971 European season.

Maico ascended to pre-eminent status at the same time. This happened to such an extent that by 1973, Barkley remembered that the belief among racers, at least in Europe at that time, was that one “had to be on a Maico, to win.”18 The brand was considered essential equipment for riders who wanted to finish at the very top; at least, those privately-supported riders without generous corporate contracts from the Japanese.19 This is noteworthy, because, in Europe, there was obviously no particular “European” cachet to a Maico: it was a European machine among other European brands. Barclay switched to Maico for 1973. Kenney had previously ridden

18 The idea that one had to be on a Maico in the early 1970s, to not be at a disadvantage, is reflected by other period writers and observers, to include journalists Rick Sieman and Mark Firkin. 19 Suzuki, in particular, was very active in supporting international Grand Prix motocross during this period. Factory Suzuki riders Joel Robert and Roger DeCoster (Figure 128) were world champions for years on their expensive Suzuki works machines. Yamaha was also active in European motocross, to a slightly lesser extent. 421

Maico in 1971. Kenney and Higgins would eventually both start Maico dealerships in the southeastern United States, upon their return from Europe.

The Maicos raced by the Americans were superior motorcycles, but brought with them the usual Maico idiosyncrasies and headaches. Barclay had the worst such experience in 1973, enduring not only the [expected] constant primary drive chain replacements and kick-starter problems, but also the mysterious desintigrating front wheel problem which affected some 1973

Maicos. During one race, running down a straight at top speed on his 400 Maico at well in excess of sixty mph, Barclay’s front wheel began to come apart. Despite loosing over two-thirds of his spokes, he was able to safely slow the machine down without serious injury. Others were not so fortunate, as Dennie Moore described in the case of a paralyzed Pennsylvania rider who successfully sued Maico, when his wheel catastrophically came apart.20 On other occasions,

Barclay lost many thousands of dollars in prize money due to his Maico’s paper cylinder base gasket blowing out, decreasing his machine’s power output “from forty horsepower to about four,” at precisely the wrong times. While Barclay ultimately doubted the wisdom of his brief switch to the German brand for European racing, he still emphasizes the “super-competitive” quality the Maico immediately gave any rider. He also notes the extraordinary impact of Maico on motorcycle design before, during, and after this period. Kenney, recalling the easily-bendable

Italian steel rims fitted to Maicos (which, he says, no-one would consider using in actual racing) still concedes that his memorable first United States Grand Prix point was on a Maico.

Motivation and the competitive American

Finally, we must ask why these four men did what they did. Lindstrom’s reason, of course, was straightforward: he was “drafted” by Kenney and Husqvarna to some extent; and, it

20 Interviews with Dennie Moore by David Russell, March 27, 2007 through November 14, 2013, Lewistown, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 422 was another opportunity to see his family in Sweden and to travel and race a bit. Higgins only traveled the circuit one season, although he did return in subsequent years as part of the

American ISDT Team.21 Kenney and Barkley were those who went and kept coming back; who more fully melded into the culture and felt at home in Europe. Observer Jeanne Lokey characterized the young men’s motivation as being a desire to 1) do something they loved; and 2) pursue success in this activity at the same time. As David Potter described Americans of an earlier generation, the four were far more concerned with “competitive success,” at the time, than with “economic status.”22 More than that, Lokey believes, they also wanted to bring this new event called motocross, in all its full glamour, excitement, and complexity, back to the United

States. Then, too, was the obvious attraction of travel; to experience their own Grand Tour and see the famous lands of Europe.

These young men and women were also characteristically “American” in a way suggested by early American Studies theorists. Traveling throughout the European pastoral landscape, they pushed on to and confronted a weekly “wilderness,” needing to be subjugated by them and their machines. The different format and adversaries in the races constituted an ever- changing “frontier,” described by Frederick Jackson Turner as being elemental to the American experience.23 This frontier would slow them down as it exerted its friction upon them, but offered them simultaneously the opportunity to show their mettle; to strive and perhaps even define themselves, as Americans traditionally have.24 Barclay, Higgins, and Kenney sought recognition as Americans in an environment then dominated by Europeans. Like early pioneers

21 Sometimes called the Olympics of Motorcycling, the ISDT (International Six-Day Trials) originated about 1910, and is held in a different location throughout the world each year. Higgins rode Maicos in the several ISDTs in which he competed on the United States team. 22 Potter, People of Plenty, 48-9. 23 Frederick Jackson Turner, “Significance of the Frontier in American History” (Speech, American Historical Association, Chicago, IL, 1893). 24 Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 23-43. 423 crossing the broadening frontier of the United States, a spirit of discovery, adventure, fueled their racing. While the Europeans came to the United States and raced when paid to do so, Americans paid their own way in order to compete in Europe.25

David Frum writes that while historic forces beyond anyone’s control made the 1970s possible, “what made the 1970s happen was individual choice.” Never had the opportunity, perhaps even the obligation, to follow one’s heart been so overpowering.26 Barclay, Higgins, and

Kenney had a chance to take time from the societal expectations directed at their parents, in ways unheard of by previous generations. The idea of responsibility in America was replaced by a cultural mandate to follow one’s heart in the search for personal fulfillment. They would all work, eventually, but for the moment they were “free to try different things,” as racer Craig

Shambaugh remembers.27

And, what of the 1971 Motocross des Nations and the efforts of the American Motocross

Team? Youth and their can-do spirits did not equip them to eclipse their European rivals, as yet.

Each team member raced his best, but chance mechanical breakdowns on the parts of all riders but Lindstrom put their combined score at the bottom of the list. The team’s results that weekend were, in the words of Kenney and Higgins, a “disaster.” But, a relative disaster; the United States team did manage to finish ahead of the beleaguered Russian team, at least, who withdrew with mechanical problems. It was America’s first team entry into the Motocross des Nations, but their efforts garnered some of the experience and set the stage for later American successes.

25 I am aware of no Europeans who came to the United States during this time to race as an “adventure,” such as Barclay, Higgins, and Kenney did in Europe. Most came in the course of professionally sponsored racing. Some, such as Gunnar Lindstrom and Rolf Tibblin, raced here incidental to work responsibilities. 26 David Frum, How We Got Here (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 351. 27 Interview with Craig Shambaugh by David Russell, September 11, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 424

Figure 128. Barclay (left) and Higgins with Belgian multi-year World Champion Roger DeCoster, 1971.

Behind the men is the official American Motocross Team Volkswagen van. (Photo: Barry Higgins)

Their total European racing adventures lasted only a few years. Barclay, Higgins, Lokey,

Kenney, and Lindstrom all settled into professions in America by 1974. Barclay entered electrical engineering and eventually started his own company, while Higgins, Kenney, and

Lindstrom remained in motorcycle-related careers. Higgins and Kenney eventually moved from racing into owning their own motorcycle dealerships. Lindstrom parlayed his motorcycle, writing and engineering experiences initially into the editor’s post at Dirt Bike Magazine, and later into a career with American Honda’s automotive branch. Lokey channeled her newfound interest in motorcycle racing into a short career at Cycle News East, before returning to the hotel industry and serving as sales director for several major hotel chains. She married and lost contact with the others for nearly four decades, before meeting up again with Higgins in 2012.

425

Despite the “disastrous” results of the American Motocross Team in its first years in

Europe, their efforts were to be vindicated in the years to come. If Higgins, Kenney, and Barclay felt at times out-classed by the seasoned Europeans they competed against in 1971 and 1972, their pride would return as they witnessed American riders learning the new sport and continuing to cross the Atlantic Ocean and contest the European elite. By the end of the 1970s decade, the

Americans’ self-education process was complete. Beginning in 1981, the United States

Motocross des Nations team won, and continued to win, the title for thirteen years straight, through 1993. In the thirty-four races held between 1981 through 2014, the United States has dominated the des Nations, winning the championship for their country twenty times.

Having discussed off-road motorcycle sport in the United States from the perspectives of

Maico motorcycle importers, dealers, and riders, a final major component of the company’s business model remains to be examined. In the next three chapters I will analyze Maico from the perspective of two of its chief executives, and in the context of a letter written by the company’s president, following Maico’s 1983 bankruptcy. These chapters will reveal the nature of the company’s success and its approach to manufacturing a product for an international consumer base; its attitude toward its multinational partners, particularly those in the United States; and the causes and circumstances of its failure.

426

Chapter 6: A BIG BUSINESS

6.1 LIVING A DREAM: SELVARAJ NARAYANA

Thus far I have examined the three principal elements of the Maico business model in the

United States: the distributor, the dealer, and the rider. The fourth part of the Maico’s operation to be considered is the actual Maico Company in Germany. This will be done through the remembrances of two former worker/executives, Selvaraj Narayana and Wilhelm Maisch Jr.1

The next two subchapters will reveal the Maico’s management style, its general working environment, and some of the ways in which the German company coordinated and nurtured a transnational operation. Ultimately, the company failed at this last task, and the result was the dissolution of a seventy-year-old institution. The failure resulted in traumatic changes in the lives of not only hundreds of Maico workers, but also to thousands of small businesses around the world that had depended upon Maico for their retail product. Incredibly, this end came less than two years after the release of that superlative motorcycle, the 1981 Maico 490.

Selvaraj Narayana is an Indian expatriate engineer with a life-long passion for motorcycles. His career is a common thread in world-wide off-road motorcycling, connecting many brands and individuals. He has worked with motorcycles all his life, and as of this writing is a top executive at the global Austrian motorcycle manufacturer KTM. Owing to his deep involvement with Maico from 1970 through 1987, Narayana served as an underlying ligament, extending across nations and years, binding old Maico riders and events to each other and a common passion.2 Referred to usually as simply “Selvaraj” or “Sel,” by those who met him, he

1 Interview with Selvaraj Narayana by David Russell, June 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). Narayana began his career as a line worker, but later entered management, becoming eventually General Manager. 2 Nearly every rider interviewed for this work had had a personal relationship with Narayana in the course of his career. 427 was seemingly always in the picture; an indispensable, critical part of and visible face of the larger Maico organization, acting as the interface between the company and its buyers in the

United States. He is therefore one of the best representatives of Maico’s subculture, insofar as he was immersed in Maico affairs through the most dynamic years, both in Germany and around the world. His experience working at Maico and his position as the “last Maico employee,” after the company’s dissolution, afford him a unique insider’s perspective. This chapter examines his role in the Maico community and his recollections of Maico, informing us of how the company headquarters and manufacturing facility operated and about its values.

Figure 129. Adolf Weil, Selvaraj Narayana, Willi Bauer, and Reinhold Weiher; Europe, circa 1971.

Narayana in the photographs assumes the literal role he figuratively held at Maico: standing over the various

members (in this case riders Weil and Bauer, and lead engineer Weiher) and uniting their efforts. Note the

tent in the background, likely a sleeping or mechanical facility for the modestly-funded Maico team at this

racetrack. (Photo: Selvaraj Narayana)

After completed his engineering training in 1969 at a university in India, Narayana sought to travel overseas. He applied to all the major motorcycle firms then operating in

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Germany: BMW, Kreidler, Zundapp, Sachs, Hercules, and Maico. Accepted at the latter four companies, Narayana chose Maico because it was the smallest. He believed that he could have a major impact on a small corporation, and that both he and Maico could benefit from the association. Starting on the production line to learn the basics of the company’s product,

Narayana soon caught the attention of his managers for his output.3 Moreover, the quality of his work was always high. While his work habits brought notice and praise from his employer, he found himself held back by language: “It was strange for me at first, not knowing the [German] language; it was very difficult. Nobody spoke English in Germany back then, it was very hard.4

So, I went to night school to pick up the language. Working till 4:00 in the evening, then taking a train to school and back . . .” Though his schedule was exhausting, Narayana’s long hours and determined outlook fit in with the overall business and social environment in West Germany at the time. Although less than one generation removed from the war, the Federal Republic was then deep in the Wirtschaftswunder, or “economic miracle,” the radical and hugely successful economic reconstruction. Essentially, West Germany cleaned up the rubble of the war, turned away from a troubled past, and concentrated on building the leading economy in Europe.

Germany’s post-war economic dominance of Europe was one of the important macroeconomic developments of the twentieth century. Narayana thus found himself immersed in a distinctly

German and very different situation at Maico, than he had known in India.

A fortunate event helped his integration and language skills: a German worker on the assembly line invited the Indian to live with his family. This was a kind offer in a still-struggling, post-World War II country. There were no luxuries for Narayana and his new friends; they used

3 Narayana set a production record at Maico for assembling twenty-two motorcycle engines in one workday. This number was far more than anyone had assembled before. 4 Indian university students studied English, an international language of business. Narayana was surprised to find that his new company’s employees did not. 429 trains or busses, as few could yet afford a car. The environment suited the young immigrant, whose drive was not to make money or possess things. His desire, he remembers, was solely to learn technology, to absorb everything there was to know about motorcycles and engines. His single-mindedness perfectly matched the prevailing German obsession with building a new, democratic, prosperous nation.

Narayana’s ability on the production line was quickly apparent to Maico management.

He was an energetic learner who fit easily into the structured German system of loyalty, hard work, and respect for authority. Applying his engineering training and innate sense of logic to the overall assembly process, Narayana increased production by creating a time-line for individual assigned assembly actions, and by manipulating the process itself. His Indian engineering education provided him with insights not often present in his German working-class colleagues. He had, as he recalls, a natural ability to improve processes. The traditional stereotype of Germans is that Germans are very well-organized, but sometimes too respectful of established hierarchy; Narayana was not afraid of change and innovation. He examined nearly every situation with an eye towards making things better, if possible, and demonstrated no reverence for existing processes. Narayana was right: both he and Maico benefited from their association. Soon he experienced his first taste of another aspect of the business, motorcycle competition, when he was requested to assist with Maico’s road-racing efforts. “I was asked to go to France in 1970 and 1971 to help road-racer Borje Jansson. I helped him out with the engines, on weekends for two or three months. After the weekend races, I’d have to come right back to work [at the Maico factory] on Mondays.” The work was exhausting and there was no compensatory time off when he and his teammates returned to Maico on Monday mornings. Still, the experience was intoxicating for the young Indian; racing was where his real passion lay.

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Narayana’s mastery of nearly every facet of production brought him yet another additional job at the factory: post-production tester. “I eventually had the job of testing all the bikes off the production line; starting and riding them. I became able to start all the bikes with one kick . . . and remember that the 501 could be very difficult to start! At 150 pounds, I was able to start the bikes with only one kick. It was all technique. . . . They wouldn’t listen to me, and sometimes other testers would actually snap an ankle [trying to start the bikes their own way]. . . . I’d ride them around the factory at thirty to forty mph, without foot-pegs, to test them.

I crashed in 1970, on a 501 that Ake Jonsson was supposed to take back to the United States; the throttle stuck, and then . . . there I was in the hospital! Tore up my knees and legs. But, those were the fun days.”

Narayana continued to work on the production line, but his recent work with Maico’s racing effort eventually led to him being asked to help start the formal racing department at

Maico. Prior to this time, no actual racing department existed; racing assistance was purely informal, done when and where it could be performed, and if it could be fit into the budget. This haphazard arrangement was too fitful for a company that was pegging its identity to motorcycle racing success, and Narayana undoubtedly knew it. Maico’s reluctance to spend money on racing, despite being dependent upon a good reputation in this area, is difficult to understand, now. Yet Maico’s position on racing seems to be the same as other European manufacturers of the time. It was not until the Japanese entered international racing that companies like

Husqvarana, CZ, and Maico had to step up their own support of professional racing, in order to not be completely shut out by the well-funded, Japanese-sponsored teams. As Maico began to invest slightly more in their racing program, Narayana was teamed with the brilliant engineer

Reinhold Weiher. Weiher, noticing the young man’s interest, personally requested Narayana’s

431 help.5 Working now for factory motocross racers Adolf Weil, Hans Maisch (the son of Maico co- founder Wilhelm Maisch Sr.), Willi Bauer, and others, Narayana traveled the European circuit on weekends along with the other team members. His job was building and repairing the factory motocross racing machines, and transporting them around Europe. Although Maico’s factory racers were all production-based machines (meaning that they were essentially made from stock

Maico parts and materials), these machines were, as has been explained, also carefully hand- assembled. This additional care guaranteed the proper tolerances and quality, and at least optimized the basic design of the motorcycle. Maico’s (and the other European manufacturers’) practices were unlike that of the large Japanese factories, which built custom-designed and specially-equipped machines for international racing. These bikes were superficially reminiscent of, but very different from, the production motorcycles sold to private buyers. Maico’s factory racers were “stock” motorcycles of a sort, just very carefully prepared stock motorcycles. For

Narayana the work was both rewarding and exhausting. “My job was building the engines, the frames . . .everything. We’d travel each weekend, then come back to work on Monday and prepare to go back out the next weekend. We just wanted to go racing.6 All other things were secondary; we just wanted to race and work! All the time was spent thinking about [how we might improve] the motorcycles. The only time we relaxed, it seemed, was when we just couldn’t possibly do any more . . . and we’d just fall asleep.” Narayana had by now become central to several aspects of the Maico business operation; his decision to work at a smaller, more responsive firm was validated.

5 Reinhold Weiher was later killed, while racing motocross himself. He was deeply respected at Maico, and Wilhelm Maisch, Jr. thereafter approached Reinhhold’s brother, Frantz, another Maico employee, to take his deceased brother’s position. Frantz accepted the offer. Frantz would become the technical manager of the “new” Maico in 1984, and afterwards joined the German Magura motorcycle parts manufacturer. 6Narayana’s comment on the primacy and overwhelming attraction of competition, “We just wanted to go racing,” echoes Tim Hart’s similar memory: “We were just kids who wanted to go racing.” (chapter 5.2) 432

Early off-road motorcycle racing in both Europe and the United States differed greatly from the high-dollar event it would evolve into in the 1980s. Many sports have a similar developmental arc; an early phase characterized by an element of informality and a special, almost cult-like appeal to the in-group involved. Skiing presents an understandable comparison.

Early in the twentieth century, skiing was a niche pursuit followed by a narrow and devoted band of enthusiasts, who traded tips, technology, and secrets, even as they competed with one another.7 Eventually, skiing developed into the event that it is today, replete with television and press coverage, with lucrative corporate sponsorships and millions of international fans. Purists accepted the changes with ambivalence, pleased that their once-obscure pursuit was now mainstream, yet with some nostalgia for the days when skiers held the keys to a secret club.

Motocross racing followed the same course, and Narayana’s time with Maico came in the last years of the sport’s early, informal period. One significant difference between the pioneering stage in motocross and today was the age and technical/mechanical abilities of the participants.

Narayana observed that “The team, in those days; riders, mechanics, and technicians; were all engineers.”8 Worn or damaged parts were not simply replaced, but were repaired, if possible. If clutch plates became worn, for example, the plates were not replaced, but were individually ground and refaced by hand. The riders in particular, in those days, were very technologically competent, and fully understood the subtleties of their motorcycles and what made them work.

Adolf Weil was this sort of rider, as Narayana remembers: “You listened to the riders [like

Weil]. They understood engineering. (Now, the changes are all made by the engineers

7 Roland Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion: The Dramatic History of Skiing (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2009), 65-78. 8 By proclaiming that the riders were “all engineers,” Narayana is not saying that all these individuals had necessarily attained engineering degrees (Weil, for example, was trained as a flooring installer). Rather, he is relating that they were all exceptionally competent in not only their individual jobs, but also in their understanding of basic engineering principals and in their ability to intelligently communicate with one other to help solve problems. 433 themselves; the riders are just . . . riders. They aren’t capable of giving advice on gear ratios, materials, and so forth.) Adolf Weil, for example, insisted on thinner spokes, to be able to ‘feel’ the braking action better. Also, he removed the Teflon from inside his brake cables; Teflon swells when it becomes oil-soaked, and he didn’t like this resistance. He replaced the Teflon with graphite. And Adolf would take his clutch home at night, after I worked on it; he didn’t even want me to put it back! He would replace it to make sure it was exactly right. Only Adolf could touch his clutch, his cables, or his carburetor; these were very, very important to him.

Adolf would come back after practice and say, ‘I need to take 10mm off the pipe [to alter the engine characteristics].’ It was amazing.”9 Weil was also known for personally instructing mechanics and tuners in the United States on the subtleties of various Maico technical procedures; writer Rick Sieman recalls Weil revealing how to make the Maico 501 achieve its full potential—a motorcycle that Weil should not have been expected to know much about, at all.10 Such intimate interactions between any factory racing team of the era and (especially) its fans and amateur riders are not noted in any period writings that I am aware of.

This inate tinkerer/engineering ability on the part of the Maico racing team was much admired by the Maico enthusiasts in the United States with whom the team came in contact with.

American riders at the time were, for the most part, just like Weil and his fellows: home mechanics who generally did all their own maintenance. Another function of the Maico factory riders was to pass along the latest technical information to Maico dealers and riders in their travels, something which was much appreciated by competitors in the United States. Narayana further comments on the relative maturity and mechanical abilities of the (more mature) 1970s riders and the teenage professional riders of today, noting, “Again, I think the communication

9 Naryana’s story of Adolf Weil is taken from his biography, “The Perfectionist: Selvaraj Narayana,” Motocross Journal (August, 1995), 60-61. 10 Rick Sieman, “In Defense of the 501,” Old Bike Journal (February, 1997). 434 between the riders and engineers was key back then. The young [factory] riders of today are only fifteen or sixteen years old. In terms of engineering, what can they really know?” The old engineer clearly misses the early days of the sport, but holds no grudges against young participants, either. (One aspect of his duties at KTM was overseeing KTM’s youth programs for beginning riders.)

Narayana recalls a very different environment in that early, informal period of motocross, and with the Maico team. “It was a very unique situation [at Maico] in those days; I imagine it was the same with all the European teams. I’m pretty close with Roger [DeCoster], and I’d imagine [Suzuki] did things the same way. Joel Robert, Sylvain [Geboers] . . . those guys were pretty smart. And, you know, they shared the technology pretty much . . . not only a certain riding style, but a [style of communication] as well; the way they’d talk about engines and such.

The community of riders . . . would talk about the power-bands, the carburetion, the handling, the tires . . . they even exchanged parts from time to time. The competition came only from the riders’ abilities . . . the competition was only at the track. There was such cooperation then.

Maybe the whole process has been changed by technology; it seems, now, that the real competition is between engineers, and not riders.” This change described by Narayana, from the early period in the sport when winning was dependent upon skill and dedication, to the current time, where the machines are seemingly perfect and nearly identical, but ridden by gifted riders perhaps not old enough to vote or even drive, illustrates the tremendous change in professional motocross.

Problems were solved as they arose, without the aid of modern computer modeling, but rather by laborious “human calibration,” as Narayana calls it. The work—making the engines work at their optimum, figuring out suspensions, and revising frame geometry—was time

435 consuming and repetitious, and evidence of the devotion of the participants. It took genuine passion to be willing to do such work, and also real expertise, obtainable only by many, many hours of involvement with motorcycles at every level. This educational process was nowhere truer than in the race shop, where one learned the micro-details that allowed victory in elite competition. Narayana and the Maico team analyzed and corrected front fenders which vibrated at high speed, Koni shocks which overheated, and even figured out how to adjust the damping on

“non-adjustable” Koni shock bodies. This latter issue was a secret strangely not shared by the

Koni factory, until the Maico team discovered that the damping could in fact be changed by pushing in and rotating the shaft. The smallest movement forward required labor and time.

The accidental discovery which altered motorcycling: Maico’s long-travel suspension

In 1973 Narayana and his team confronted an annoying if minor problem, the solution to which would have historical ramifications for Maico and all motorcycling. The problem was this:

Maico rear wheels frequently jammed into the rear fenders/sub-frame area upon full- compression landings by the riders. Sitting around the campsite after the races one evening in early June of that year, at the Czech Grand Prix, the engineers collectively decided that additional clearance might be the answer, and that perhaps just increasing the distance between the rear wheel and the fender might solve the interference issue; moving the shocks forward would accomplish this.11 Narayana recalled, “I remember that moment. We just wanted to get some additional clearance; we never thought about the handling. I believe it was Adolf Weil’s motorcycle. So, we moved the shock mounts forward. [The motorcycle went out for a test ride, and] when the bike came back . . . the swing-arm was totally bent, because we had misjudged the strength and the leverage. So, then we strengthened the swing-arm, making it stronger and wider

11 The actual Czech Grand Prix race was on Sunday, June 3, 1973; thus this meeting would have been on that day, or more likely on the Friday or Saturday before. 436

. . .” The engineers reassembled the machine, and test rode it again. The quality of the motorcycle’s ride was entirely different: something incredible had happened to the rear-wheel suspension characteristics of the modified motorcycle.

The Maico engineers, as Narayana tells the story, while attempting to fix a minor annoyance, had unwittingly stumbled upon the vast advantages of long-travel suspension. Not initially comprehending the full extent of what they had done, they soon came to grasp the superiority of the longer travel. By increasing the rate and total distance of rear wheel travel, the rear wheel of the modified motorcycle remained in contact with the ground longer. This resulted in not just a smoother ride, but also in much-improved acceleration and braking. The Yamaha team had already been experimenting with their “Monoshock” long-travel design since very early 1972, and had covertly been testing the design since June of that year.12 Yamaha had purchased the rights to the design from Belgian inventor Lucien Tilkens, after Suzuki had turned down Tilkens’ original offer to them. Yamaha team rider Hakan Andersson’s factory monoshock

YZ250 was unveiled at the Wuustwezel, Belgium Grand Prix, on April 29, 1973. It won the 250 event, and had obviously attracted attention since. While Yamaha was certainly first on the scene with long-travel suspension, it is highly possible (and probable) that its full handling advantages remained unrealized to Maico and all the other engineers.13 These technical observers may well have viewed the Yamaha monoshock as merely a simplification of design, incorporating fewer parts, better rigidity, improved shock cooling, or some other ancillary benefit.14 Restating this

12 Terry Good, Legendary Motocross Bikes (Minneapolis: Motorbooks International, 2009), 46. 13Wilhelm Maisch Jr., for his part, remembers Maico LTR as more a reaction to Yamaha, than an independent discovery by Maico. Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded) 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 14 Ibid. The monoshock’s existence did not necessarily convert everyone who looked at it, or even rode it. Yamaha team star Hakan Andersson, returning after his first ride on the monoshock machine, was unimpressed. Torsten Hallman recalls Andersson’s first comments about the newly unveiled (but as yet, unforeseen) future of motorcycle design: Andersson “didn’t like it.” 437 idea, we could say that even though the Yamaha monoshock was indeed the future of motorcycle suspension, this eventuality was not obvious to everyone who witnessed its unveiling in 1972 or its racing debut in 1973. Coincidentally with whatever success Yamaha was having, Narayana and the Maico team soon experienced the superiority of long-travel themselves.

Figure 130. 1974 Maico advertisement (detail) Figure 131. 1972 AJS motorcycle

(Source: Popular Cycling) (Photo: the author)

Although Maico and Yamaha are usually noted as the originators of long-travel suspension, neither company was the first to incorporate either the single-shock rear suspension or to “forward-mount” rear shocks, as can

be seen above, when comparing the 1974 Maico rear end on the left (Figure 130), with that of the virtually

identical setup on the 1972 AJS “Stormer” motocross bike from England (Figure 131). The AJS, however, did not benefit from the configuration: the short-travel shocks only provided 3.5 inches of rear wheel travel, too little to take advantage of the design (normal rear wheel travel on a period motorcycle was four inches).15

Narayana recalls that while some minor changes were necessary to take advantage of the improved rear suspension, the benefits were immediate. “We had to make some changes to the forks to compensate, of course, but by the time of the later Grand Prix races, Willi Bauer was

15Modern Cycle, “AJS 410,” Modern Cycle (January, 1971). 438 just dominating the competition,” Narayana remembers. “The moved-up shocks . . . [were] like a cushion—a Cadillac—compared to the other bikes of the time. The change was just incredible.

Reinhold Weiher would have been the first one to actually have tried the long-travel-suspension bike. He’s the one who built it and he’d have been the first one to have ridden it.” From a cobbled-together motorcycle on a muddy Czech hillside, thus emerged a parallel concept of long-travel suspension (with reference to Yamaha’s monoshock), and it changed the industry dramatically.16 The discovery did not remain a secret; nor was it intended to be. Maico management’s idea had long been to make all Maicos better, as soon as possible. This theory not only permeated their manufacturing process, where improvements were injected whenever possible, and not held until the next model year, but was also borne out by Maico’s prompt dissemination of new information to their customers. Maico, unlike Yamaha, very quickly pushed their moved-up-shock long-travel concept down the distributor and dealer chain.

Traveling race-team members were encouraged to instruct local Maico dealers and riders on how to modify the older frame to long-travel specifications. Finally, in early 1974, Maico successfully introduced long-travel suspension on their production motorcycles, becoming the first factory to sell a modern, long-travel off-road motorcycle to the public. At this time, Maico was undisputedly the desired choice of high-performance off-road motorcyclists the world round.17

Narayana’s experience with the racing team in Europe served him well for his next assignment, as well: to the United States to assist Maico riders in the Trans-AMA series in 1972.

The Trans-AMA series was the outgrowth of California Husqvarna importer Edison Dye’s Inter-

16 This history of LTR suspension development is a complex subject. Given the existence of Hakan Andersson’s Yamaha mono-shock on the professional circuit prior to this time, Maico engineers were certainly aware of a “longer-travel” suspension system, whatever their design objective in the case of the “sticking tire.” Ake Jonsson sees the origin of LTR and Maico’s role in it somewhat differently (see chapter 5.1). 17 John Barclay took note of the common belief in European elite motocross competition, circa 1972, that one “had to be on a Maico to win. This belief peaked in 1973 and 1974 as Maico’s long-travel suspension appeared. Interview with John Barclay by David Russell, February 22, 2014, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 439

Am series, begun in 1967.18 Initially far outclassed by the Europeans, American riders had made great in-roads by 1972, and were regularly placing in the top standings. Success by native riders and the general excitement about the new sport quickly made motocross the dominant amateur motorcycle racing format in the United States (a position the sport still enjoys).

During 1972 Narayana was based at Dennie Moore’s distributorship in Reedsville,

Pennsylvania, assisting Moore and helping with the traveling team. The Maico factory racing team traveled on a shoe-string budget (relative to the better-funded Japanese teams) and was dependent upon the east and west coast distributors (as well as Maico dealers) for logistical help as it travelled the United States. This cobbled-together arrangement was nevertheless effective, enlisting the passionate support of hundreds of Maico dealers and racing enthusiasts around the country. Frank Cooper helped the team when they were in the west, while Dennie Moore’s operation served as the team’s home base during the time they campaigned in the east. Following

Narayana’s arrival and during the remainder of 1972, Maico team star Ake Jonsson won an incredible (and unprecedented) nine of eleven races in the series, making this year a high- watermark for Jonsson and an advertising bonanza for Maico.

The following year, in 1973, German Maico orchestrated its takeover of Moore’s distributorship. The new Otto Maisch-owned “Maico East” distributor opened up several miles down the old Pennsylvania Route 322 corridor from Moore’s old Reedsville operation, in

Lewistown, Pennsylvania. Narayana, though indebted to Moore, left with the other former

Eastern Maico employees and began working in the new Maico East location. He would stay with the eastern distributor for the next several years, through its eventual move to Virginia

18 The AMA-sanctioned Trans-AMA series derived from Dye’s original Inter-Am series. Dye served as the promoter of the new series for a short time. 440

Beach, Virginia. In Virginia Beach he functioned as all-around maintenance manager and wrote all the Maico technical bulletins, among other duties.

Observing Maico’s engineering progression and management operations first-hand,

Narayana is qualified to describe what made Maico a successful company, at its peak. Regarding the motorcycle, he states that “Frame technology and the front forks were what made Maico a superior motorcycle. The fork was a leading-axle design, which Maico developed. And, certain geometry and frame angles . . . bikes today are still based on that same configuration. As far as handling is concerned, Maico was still the leader in 1981. Even today, that steering head trail and other measurements [from the 1981 Maico design] are used. From seating position to the rear axle to the foot-peg position to the ground clearance, all the balancing aspects [for a modern off- road motorcycle] were figured out by Maico in 1981.” Narayana also noted Maico’s agility in quickly incorporating new technology into production, and of course the company’s willingness to share their discoveries with their dealers and end-users as fast as possible. Ake Jonsson likewise confirms Narayana’s contention that Maico maintained a surprisingly good and timely communication between research and development and other departments.19 These characteristics, taken together, elevated Maico above other companies, while in its prime in the

1970s.

19Interview with Ake Jonsson by David Russell, November 25, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 441

Figure 132. Narayana as the face of Maico in America. (left to right) Narayana; Mary Ann, Denny, and infant Jaimie Swartz; mechanic Jim Wilhelm; unidentified National race, circa 1978. Narayana followed the

Trans-AMA series, acting as Maico’s ever-present “go-to” person. (Photo: Denny Swartz)

Maico technological breakthroughs were common during Narayana’s time with the company. Besides its reputation for producing the best engines and front forks, and its early role in long-travel suspension, Maico is remembered by many former riders as the maker of the finest motocross bike ever made: the 1981 490cc.20 Ohio farm boy and Maico sponsored rider, Denny

Swartz (Figure 132), received the very first 490 in America, a prototype delivered in 1980.

Riding in a sea of mud at the 1980 Red Bud National in Buchanan, Michigan, Swartz powered his 490 to the front of the pack in both motos and became the last rider to win a National event aboard a Maico (Figure 112). Besides the now-perfected Maico frame and handling, Narayana

20 This assertion is concurred with by three former professional level racers interviewed in this dissertation: Craig Shambaugh, Brian Thompson, and Barry Higgins. This statement does not suggest that the 1981 Maicos are better than current motorcycles, but that the 1981 Maicos were the finest motocross motorcycles ever available as compared to other motorcycles of that year. 442 recalled the spectacular 490cc engine: “The really great thing about the 490 was in the engine; the very unique design of the transfer ports, making power gradually and beautifully. Remember that in those days we didn’t have reed valves, either; only direct carburetion. The way we designed those transfer ports was exceptional. Two of Maico’s engineers were very, very smart .

. . We didn’t have much test equipment back then; no flow benches or computer engineering.

There was a lot of experimentation, testing, and rethinking to achieve these innovations.”

Narayana maintains Maico employed some of the finest engineers in the motorcycle industry.

Even the amazing 1981 Maico 490 was not, as we now know, able to ensure the company’s good fortune for long. Maico management felt pressed to introduce a single-shock

(monoshock) motorcycle for 1982. Using an inadequately tested design and inferior materials,

Maico released a motorcycle that was as bad as the 1981 models were good. The poorly executed

1982 models brought with them lawsuits and large-scale demands for replacement parts, and hastened Maico’s bankruptcy in 1983. As the company endured dissolution, Narayana, by then the General Manager, was retained through the receivership by direction of the German governmental controllers. Between 1983 and 1989, he oversaw the sale of remaining parts to

Maico dealers throughout Europe. He remained behind, as the company that took him in and was

“wonderful to me when I was growing up . . . the perfect place to start . . .” was broken apart.

Narayana recalls that he was the final Maico employee: “I was actually the very last one to leave the company, when the keys were given to the lawyers in 1987.” With Maico’s doors finally shut, Naryana reconsidered Austrian motorcycle giant KTM’s standing hiring offer. He joined

KTM in April of 1987, and was placed in charge of their European office. His Maico experience nonetheless remained with Narayana: “[Maico] helped give me my principles and work ethic, and also my passion for racing and winning. All these things I learned at Maico. I tried to bring

443 these things to KTM. It’s amazing to have the friendships, still, from [the Maico] days; there’s nothing comparable to that. Maico was my foundation.”

Racing was Naryana’s passion. Despite the sportsmanship, socialization skills, and whatever other benefits sports competition can convey, competitors’ desire to win is always present. While Maico dominated racetracks on local and national levels around the world, the brand never achieved the supreme glory: a F.I.M. World Championship. When Narayana looks back on his career with Maico, this one aspect of Maico’s history discomforts him. Maico’s inability to ultimately triumph over its many competitors, carrying a rider to the F.I.M. World

Championship, remains an ongoing source of frustration for him. Recalling the most painful of these experiences, he cites Ake Jonsson’s 1971 failure: “Unfortunately, they [Maico] couldn’t compete against the others. Second, second, second . . . never a world championship. It would be so sad when we would almost win. The saddest time [was in 1971, at the final race of the 500cc world championship series in Holland, with Ake Jonsson one point ahead of Roger DeCoster and leading, near the finish line, in the hotly-contested series] . . . I was right there when Ake’s spark plug blew out; right there! There’s Ake, standing there . . . a smile on his face. I remember where the [spark-plug] washer was found. Looking back, not only the money, but all the work, the title, all this was sacrificed to discover a defective washer on a spark plug. A spark plug washer. But . . . that’s how we learn. Things like that happen.”21

Selvaraj Narayana still enjoys riding his modern street motorcycle, but he is not the casual rider whose mind wanders while riding. “When I ride . . . my whole attention is on the technology. How the clutch works, how the valves work . . . I enjoy, when I ride, to think about

21 Interview with Ake Jonsson by David Russell. The design of a lighter-weight cylinder head was the primary cause of this historic failure, occurring yards from a win for Jonsson and one of the most-bitter moments in international motorcycle racing. The amiable Jonsson, watching the 500cc World Championship for both himself and Maico evaporate, does not recall his expression at that moment as a smile. 444 the function of the motorcycle more than the road. Always, my mind is going through the frame and the engine . . . why it was built the way it was.”

Narayana’s remembrances show that Maico thrived on the development of new technology, and was capable of quickly passing these discoveries on to both their production systems and their customers. The company, during its best years, enjoyed a productive working relationship among its research and development, production department, and management.

Comparing Maico to Yamaha, in the context of long-travel suspension, Maico’s successful early release of long-travel motorcycles (1974 for Maico, versus 1975 for Yamaha) shows that the

German company was better able to translate technology into production, quickly. This flexible, quality-focused attitude would not last at Maico, however. Next, Technical Director Wilhelm

Maisch Jr. addresses both Maico’s successes and failures in its business practices.

445

6.2 MANAGEMENT

“My brothers and I had no intention at all of making Maico fail.”1

In the previous subchapter, Selvaraj Narayana described Maico’s operation from his early perspective as an assembly line worker and production engineer at Maico, and later from that as an executive. Narayana’s experience shows that the company was alert to new discoveries and enjoyed an excellent interdepartmental relationship between R&D, production, and management.

Maico was also very responsive to its customers, and relayed advances as quickly as possible, down the line to its users. And, Maico was a company which enjoyed the presence of inquisitive, motivated engineers, who were also (in many cases) motorcycle enthusiasts.

To learn more about Maico’s leadership culture and the involvement of the Maisch families, and the final years (as seen by management), I now turn to the story of Wilhelm Maisch

Jr., son of Maico cofounder Wilhelm Maisch Sr. Like Narayana, Wilhelm Maisch Jr. was trained as an engineer. His leadership was tested, and sometimes disregarded, throughout his tenure as

Technical Director at his family’s company. Eventually, his differences of opinion, along with those of his brothers Hans and Peter, resulted in the brothers being collectively fired by company president (and their uncle) Otto Maisch. Wilhelm Maisch’s story illuminates not only those qualities which helped Maico excel, but also the family dynamics and the actions that led to the company’s downfall in 1983.

German leadership

As described earlier, Maico, Ulrich Maisch and Company, evolved from Ulrich Maisch’s automotive service garage, begun in the 1920s. Besides responding to stranded motorists, Ulrich sold bicycle and motorcycle parts. When Ulrich’s sons Wilhelm and Otto joined their father’s

1 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded) 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg) 446 business, they began assembling their own complete bicycles. This new venture, now involved in light manufacturing, was formed in 1926 in Poltringen, near Stuttgart in southern Germany.2 The brothers soon began attaching engines made by others into their own frames, producing small motorized cycles. A few years later, Maico was producing its own small engines. Just prior to

World War II, the brothers proudly exhibited their own Maico-engined motorcycle at a 1939

Berlin trade show.

During the Second World War, Maico, like most German industrial concerns, was placed under government management. At first, in 1939, Maico assembled motorcycles for the German

Army using components from other manufacturers. In 1940 the firm transitioned into the manufacture of engine parts for the Luftwaffe. Once the war ended, Maico once again returned to the control of the Maisch family. At this juncture, however, a major management change took effect, which had far-reaching influences on the company. Wilhelm Maisch Sr. had been a member of the National Socialist German Worker’s (Nazi) Party during the war. Otto was not.

Their respective affiliations with the Nazi Party may or may not be evidence of the two brothers’ political inclinations. As mentioned earlier, the brothers may have been “hedging their bets” on the future of the Nazi party; straddling both sides of the political fence, ready to deal with either

Nazism’s success or its failure. Whatever their motivations, the end of the war was also the end of the Nazi party in Germany. Concerned that Nazism might once again rear its head if ex-Nazis were left in positions of power in post-war Germany, the Allies instituted a strict set of denazification acts. Among these were mandates to remove any German with a Nazi past from public office or other positions of responsibility in public enterprise.3 As a result of these measures, Wilhelm Sr. could no longer be half-owner of the post-war Maico. His share of the

2 Mick Walker, Classic German Racing Motorcycles (London: Osprey Publishing, 1991), 110. 3 Earl F. Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany 1944-1946 (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1975), 213. 447 privately-owned company was reduced to forty percent, and former equal partner Otto was granted sixty percent ownership. The transition appears to have been amiable, and the brothers and their families coexisted peacefully, continuing to run the company for the next decade. The next change to the company again affected Wilhelm Sr.: the elder Wilhelm was an enthusiastic racing fan, and while watching an off-road race in Germany in 1957, a motorcycle left the course and struck him. Paralyzed on the left side of his body, Wilhelm Sr. soon could no longer work, and afterwards the entirety of Maico’s day-to-day management was left to brother Otto.

Under Otto Maisch’s tenure as President of Maico, the next generation of Maisch children came to work at the family business. Listed here underneath their respective fathers, they and their jobs at the Maico factory were:

Wilhelm Maisch Sr. family: Otto Maisch family:

Wilhelm Maisch Jr. (Technical manager) Ingrid (Maisch) de Cenzo (Purchasing)

Hans Maisch (factory motocross racer) Gabriele (Maisch) Stickel (Book-keeping)

Peter Maisch (advertising, various)

Other key members of the Maico staff in the formative years of the late 1950s through the

1970s deserve mention. Maico’s engineering staff included brilliant men who would later go on to fill key positions at other German and Austrian companies. Gunter Schier joined Maico

448

Figure 133. Great times ahead: at the International Bicycle and Motorbike Exhibition, Frankfurt, 1953. Otto

(left) and Wilhelm Maisch, Sr. (right) escort German Minister of Transportation Dr. Hans-Cristoph Seebolm

(2d from left) and Minister of Economics Dr. Ludwig Erhard (3rd from left) through the Maico exhibit. Dr.

Erhard, a key participant in German post-World War II industrial recovery, later served as Chancellor from

1963-1966. (Photo: Nicole Maisch)

in the summer of 1966. His immediate focus was on the company’s road-racing efforts. Schier also worked in the engine department and later contributed to the Maico monoshock rear suspension. Ladislav Gorgos, an engineer from Czechoslovakia, appeared one day at the front door of the Maico factory, asking for work. The next day, as Wilhelm Maisch Jr. remembers,

Gorgos was settled into the Research and Development (R&D) department. Gorgos’s innovations included the five-speed gearbox and the evolution of Maico’s superior front suspension. Beyond engineering, Gorgos was a multi-year Gelandesport (enduro) champion of

Germany. This trend of “workers who raced” was a common situation at Maico, and paralleled the distribution system in the United States, also run by men who competed. The company’s

449 products were made better by employees who were enthusiasts themselves, who regularly used the things they made or sold in competition and provided regular feedback to a company willing to listen. This pattern illustrates Maico’s unique relationship to competition and to its buyer/users. Maico buyers could count on a racing motorcycle built and sold by people who understood racing first-hand.

Figure 134. The Maico factory at Pfaffingen, circa 1980. The house-like structure to the left contained

President Otto Maisch’s office, and the sales, purchasing, and book-keeping departments. (Photo: Peter Vagt)

Engineer Reinhold Weiher started Maico’s racing department. Weiher was an energetic supporter of the factory’s motocross team, and often accompanied them to races. Always at the center of the team’s efforts, Weiher was also the originator of Maico’s first long-travel suspension experiment in 1973, and the one reputed to have first ridden this transformative motorcycle.4 Weiher, like so many other employees, was also a dedicated racer, and died in a crash while racing motocross soon after his long-travel triumph. Wieher’s death was emotionally crippling for Maico management, and two weeks after the incident, Wilhelm Maisch Jr. telephoned Reinhold’s brother Frantz, also an engineer, and invited him to take his brother’s place at Maico. Frantz accepted the offer and became as well-loved at Maico as his late sibling.

4Interview with Selvaraj Narayana by David Russell, June 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 450

(Later, when the “new” Maico, led by Wilhelm Maisch Jr. and his brothers, emerged from the bankruptcy of 1984, Frantz joined that organization as technical manager.)

Figure 135. Wilhelm Maisch, Sr. Figure 136. Otto Maisch

(Photos: Peter Vagt)

Several years earlier, Reinhold Weiher had requested the help of a young Indian employee who was then working on the assembly line, while completing his engineering training. Selvaraj Narayana accepted Wieher’s offer to work extra hours with the race team.

Later, Narayana put his experience to work at Eastern Maico in the United States, becoming the technical director of American Maico operations, and still later was appointed general manager of German Maico. It was Narayana who would “turn the lights off’ as the last employee of the

“old” Maico, when the original company shut down.

The professional racers sponsored by the factory, while not managers or executives, were still instrumental in guiding the company’s course. Beyond their contributions both on the race track and with the engineering development, these men were fundamentally the public face of

451 the company. Their public statements, interviews, interface with the fans and the media, and presence in advertising were every bit as consequential to Maico’s well-being as their racing results. The four men most representative of Maico were “Iron Man” Adolf Weil (Figure 137, a

Paul Newman doppelganger whose good looks did no harm to the company’s image); fellow

German Willi Bauer; Maisch family scion Hans; and the Swedish motocross superstar Ake

Jonsson.5 Weil, to quote Wilhelm Maisch, Jr., was “a real Maico man,” who never raced any other make. Weil’s early development of motocross-specific physical conditioning was important for the later Maico riders, as well. Bauer, younger than Weil, would likely have also been a Maico rider for life, if not for the company’s failure in 1983. Years later, testing a prototype Sachs-Hercules racer in Scotland, Bauer crashed and was left paralyzed.

Figure 137. Adolf Weil (left) with Otto Maisch, circa 1975.

(Photo: David Malthais/The Dick Miller collection)

5 Adolf Weil, who was 34 in 1972 and raced for many years after (very uncommon in motocross), was known as the “Iron Man” (due to his age) in the 1970s. The 1977 “Adolf Weil Replica” line of Maicos was a tribute to Weil’s accomplishments. After retirement, Weil operated a motorcycle dealership in Germany with his two sons and enjoyed a quiet life of sailing. 452

Hans Maisch, younger brother of Wilhelm Jr., showed an early propensity for motocross and spent his career at Maico racing and testing factory motorcycles. Maisch, like Weil, stopped racing when Maico closed. The great Ake Jonsson, who came incredibly close to winning world championships on two separate occasions while riding for Maico, left Maico to work for Yamaha in 1973. Jonsson’s fluid riding style and success while on Maico made him synonymous with the image of Maico as the favored underdog, proletarian brand with fans in the United States.

Americans relished the sight of Jonsson, on his rough-looking and well-worn Maico, pulling ahead of world champions like Roger DeCoster, on the pristine, (reputed) $30,000 works Suzuki model. Jonsson was often interviewed in the American motorcycle press, and his riding genius, combined with his low-key manners and professionalism, made him the face of the Maico brand for many years beyond his relatively brief, four-year stay with Maico.

Other riders on Maico included Germans Herbert Schmitz, Werner Schutz, Otto Walz, and Christopher Specht; Dutch dentist Gerritt Wolsink; and Englishman Graham Noyce.

Although Maico partially-sponsored American riders in the United States, no fully-sponsored

American ever emerged as a member of the Maico international racing team. Had Maico thought to obtain the services of a then top-tier American, such as Brad Lackey, the company’s image in the United States might have been more associated with the new and the progressive, rather than with Old World traditionalism. To a large extent, the company benefited from this long-standing reputation for quality and European-craftsman tradition, but a visible connection to what looked more like the future might have left the company better-positioned for what came next.

The United States Connection

In the United States, Maico imports and marketing were initially handled by canny

Americans who knew and loved the motorcycle business. As motorcycle sales accelerated in the

453 late 1960s, a team of enthusiastic American rider/businessmen was in place, to Maico’s good fortune. In the west, Frank Cooper (Figure 138) acted as overall importer to the United States from 1966-1976. Cooper knew his market and provided timely feedback to German Maico about the modifications that Americans desired. In the Midwest, the Gray brothers (1958-1970) and the

Debenham brothers (1970 to about 1980) distributed Maicos on a smaller scale to the central states. On the east coast, Dennie Moore (1969-1972) controlled most of the United States east of the Mississippi River. All these men shared a love of motorcycles and a deep knowledge of their product. Moreover, they were Americans who knew how to relate to their customers and were unlikely to either misinterpret their market or take it for granted. They were excited about Maico and off-road riding, and were Maico’s biggest promoters in the United States.

This mutually-beneficial situation began to change in 1972. Beginning with Moore in the

East and then Cooper in the West, German Maico (and more specifically, Otto Maisch) replaced these men and took over distribution in the United States. Otto had observed the sizable profits being gleaned by the American distributors when sales exploded in the early 1970s. He, perhaps not unreasonably, believed this income might be Maico’s for the taking.6 Of course, Maico was then enjoying good revenue streams from across the Atlantic, but Otto believed even more income could be garnered by bringing the distributorships under central control and eliminating the American middlemen. In retrospect, this decision is surprising, coming as it did from a

German industrialist mentality with a custom of “middle-men.” Germany’s business heritage demonstrates great respect for the mittelstand, an important middle layer in the German economy made up of modestly sized, highly focused businesses that are frequently export oriented. The

United States distribution system would certainly qualify as a counterpart to the mittelstand.

6 Gunnar Lindstrom notes in Husqvarna Success (Stillwater, MN: Parker House, 2010; 106-7) that Husqvarna likewise took control of United States distribution in 1972, buying-out their own talented American distributors (Edison Dye and John Penton). This was a very similar action to that Maico which would take in 1973. 454

Perhaps Otto did not envision the United States distributors in this way, or simply felt that

German company-paid replacements could fill this roll more efficiently and cheaply. In any case,

Otto pressed ahead and established this new American distribution sytem, Maico USA. Of important note is that Maico USA was owned entirely by Otto Maisch, and was not a subsidiary of the German Maico Company. Early on, Otto offered the Wilhelm Maisch side of the family the opportunity to buy into the new company. When the Wilhelm Maisch side declined, Otto

Maisch proceeded to establish Maico USA as his own private enterprise. After taking over

Moore’s Eastern Maico Distributors in Reedsville, Pennsylvania in 1972, Otto initially created

Maico East in nearby Lewistown to assume east coast distribution. Frank Cooper, previously handling west coast operations in Burbank, California, sold out to Otto in 1976. At that juncture

Otto controlled all American distribution. In 1978, Maico USA was consolidated and headquartered in Suffolk, Virginia, later moving to nearby Virginia Beach, Virginia. German executives, hired in part from the automobile industry, were assigned to the United States to manage the operation.

The change in the ownership and management of the American distribution network initially appeared successful, though unit sales on the east coast, at least, struggled after Moore’s ouster.7 Wilhelm Maisch Jr. contends that the income generated through sales from German

Maico to the American distributor (in effect, through Otto Maisch) was not always forthcoming to the home office. In fact, some of it appeared to be staying in Otto Maisch’s hands. Otto,

Wilhelm alleges, was also actually lowering the unit price point from what the factory needed from the distributor, and then inflating the price point from distributor (Otto) to the retailer— arbitrarily reducing the payment calculated by German Maico to remain profitable, and then

7 Interviews with Denny Moore by David Russell, March 27, 2007 through November 14, 2013, Lewistown, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 455 increasing the price obtained from American retailers (thus increasing Maico USA’s profits, minimizing German Maico’s profits, and likely increasing the retail cost of each motorcycle).8

As Wilhelm Maisch Jr. explains: “This is how the “money-skimming” worked in those years: around Europe, and in every country but the States, Maico got the maximum price from its distributors. So, we received the most profit from every motorcycle we shipped. In the US, where Otto Maisch had 100 percent ownership of the distribution, he first sold the bikes to

Maico USA (Maico East and Maico West) for much cheaper prices.9 Then, when the distributors sold the bikes to the dealers, they sold at much higher prices and made very high profits . . . which went into Otto’s pockets and didn’t reach German Maico. In the period close to the bankruptcy, Otto Maisch reduced prices to the US distributors even more. And, in addition to that, US Maico didn’t pay invoices due to German Maico because of what Otto referred to as

‘quality problems.’10 The profits were not making it back to the parent company, but stayed in the States with Otto’s companies. Both the German newspapers and the bankruptcy administrator claimed that the money was later transferred to Switzerland, Guatemala, and Panama. The administrator contacted me to see if I had any idea what happened to it.” Whatever financial advantage might have been realized in taking over the American distribution system, the benefits were not reaching German Maico.

Another negative consequence of the change in management was the loss of the knowledgeable American enthusiasts. As Wilhelm Maisch Jr. again sugggests: “One additional problem could have been that the people in charge in the States were . . . not Americans, and not

8 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell. 9 Sometime following the move to Suffolk, Virginia, Maico East (business name: Maico Motorcycles, Inc.) became Otto Maisch’s American headquarters, and by 1978 was renamed Maico USA. “US Maico” is informally used by Wilhelm Maisch and others to differentiate Otto Maisch’s American Maico distribution network from the parent German Maico manufacturing and distribution conglomerate. 10 “Haftbelehle gegen Maico-Geschaftsfuhrung (Warrant for Maico Management),” Schwabiches Tagblatt, March 15, 1984. 456 motorcycle men. I think they should have been at least one or the other, either an American or a motorcycle man, and it would have been even better if that person had been both. [Laughs] The representatives of Maico in the United States from the mid-1970s, on, were Germans, only

Germans. Maico East, Maico West: they were all Germans. And they weren’t motorcycle men.

The most important thing is to be a good manager, but one should also have a feeling for the product. They were nice guys . . . nice people . . . but Germans had a problem being accepted in the United States. And, especially when they weren’t motorcycle men.” “The Maico representatives in the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s were Theo

Holznienkemper, Eckhardt Schorn, and a Mr. Schuenemann. I think the German Maico representatives in the States just weren’t capable of translating the needs of the American market back to the company in Europe, so that we could understand them and implement changes quickly.”

457

Figure 138. An American “motorcycle man:” Western distributor Frank Cooper (left) with Wilhelm Maisch

Jr., Lake Elsinore, California, 1973. Cooper, along with Dennie Moore, was pushed out to make room for

Otto Maisch’s privately-owned distributorships. (Photo: Wilhelm Maisch Jr.)

While the Germans might have been considered nice enough by their United States contacts, the cultural differences with the Americans and their personal lack of motorcycling experience did not, as Wilhem pointed out, help Maico. The Germans’ detachment eroded the brand’s association with a major part of its cachet: the enthusiast who enjoyed knowing that he was dealing with an enthusiast’s company. Maico, without the old figureheads Cooper and

Moore, was in the eyes of United States racers becoming much less a company run by kindred souls. While this was a loss, it should have been survivable; Maico retained its American mid- level management personnel in the States, and enthusiastic dealers were still in place all around the country. Also, the indefatigable Selvaraj Narayana was now acting as service manager for

American Maico, flying around the country and keeping things in order. Still armed with an excellent product, there remained great hope for Maico, both in the United States and back in

Germany.

Business as Usual: Focusing on Quality and Innovation

As the mid-1970s arrived, Maico remained comfortably at the pinnacle of the dirt bike world—though certainly more wary. Japanese motorcycles had made tremendous advances in quality and enjoyed lower price-points, but the Europeans still held a reputation for excellence and a “pedigree” for having built competition motorcycles for decades. Just as the most serious

1970s American recreational camper bought (or wished to buy) an Airstream trailer; or the motorcyclist, planning a trip around the world wanted a BMW; Maico remained the preferred

458 motorcycle for the private expert or professional motocross racer. The words Maico and quality were still synonymous. During its best years, Maico produced around 6,000 motorcycles a year.

Of these, roughly half were earmarked for the United States.11 Motocross bikes were by now the company’s principal product, though Maico also produced several other items. Among these secondary commodities were enduro motorcycles (essentially, motocross bikes with lights), some street motorcycles, and also some go-karts and go-kart engines for European consumption

(the go-kart items being of minor consequence).

Expanding into larger street motorcycles were “one of the biggest mistakes Maico ever made,” according to Wilhelm Maisch Jr. This adventure diverted important R&D resources away from Maico’s critical dirt bike business—the one important marketplace where Maico still led the Japanese. Maisch notes that, “in our entire seventy years, we had only experimented with a small line of street motorcycles. Then the Otto Maisch side decided that we should develop a

250cc street motorcycle. At that time I was totally against it, because by then the Japanese dominated everything in the street motorcycle business; also for reasons of currency.12 And, they had such a technical lead on our company . . . they had multi-cylinder motorcycles, and Maico didn’t have that. On the other hand, at the beginning of the 1970s, we had a very big lead on the

Japanese with our off-road motorcycles, because Maico had such a huge experience in the development of off-road motorcycles. But, step-by-step, they reduced even that difference. My personal opinion for years was that we should have tried to maintain this advantage in the off- road market for as long as we could. By focusing our R&D efforts also on street motorcycles, the company automatically reduced the R&D efforts on the off-road motorcycles. This, from my

11 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell. 12 Maisch is referring to fluctuations in relative value of the German mark versus that of other importing or exporting countries, such as the United States and Japan. The “strong” or “weak” dollar/mark/yen (or whatever monetary unit) has a tremendous affect on the actual cost of all aspects of the manufacturing/marketing process, from the value demanded for raw materials to that required for a profitable sale. 459 perspective, was a critically wrong decision at Maico. And we never had success with this 250cc street motorcycle, either; it sold in very poor quantities. About 300 units a year . . . that’s nothing. The company lost a lot of money.” Maico had long-made street motorcycles in 50cc and

125cc (Figure 139), which sold primarily in the home market. The company’s diversion into a larger street bike, the 250cc, removed valuable R&D hours, tooling, and other assets from the dirt bike arena, where Maico had proved it could make money. In challenging the Japanese in a market where the Japanese were the undisputed kings (small street motorcycles) Maico unnecessarily harmed itself for years.

Figure 139. A losing battle and wasted resources: Maico challenging the Japanese in the small street-bike market, 1966. In the same year, a consumer in the United States could have purchased a more refined, better detailed motorcycle from any of the four Japanese companies for less than $300. This advertisement by Gray

International (active 1958-1970) was probably targeted more at sports riders, who may have been interested

460

in a small street bike version of the Maico they raced (or would like to race), or would purchase the “13 hp

Scrambler” version of the motorcycle, and use it for competition. (Source: American Motorcyclist)

Maico tried as best it could to keep what lead it had on the Japanese competition. Of all the proven handling, suspension, and engine designs that the company had pioneered, long travel suspension was the most important. This innovation alone allowed Maico to keep an edge on other manufacturers for several years, as other companies produced imitative but inferior copies.

Maico’s other technological innovations (silver-plated bearings, bigger engines with usable power, and sintered clutch plates, to name a few) also helped to keep the company in front. 13

Despite the higher price tags on its products, Maico’s reputation for quality remained its edge.

For the 1978 model year, Maico engineers created an entirely new engine, which helped solve the problem of chain derailment in long-travel suspensions. For years, enthusiasts had realized that the greater the distance between the swing-arm pivot and the front chain

(countershaft) sprocket, the worse the problem was. Maico management set engineers Ladislav

Gorgos and Gunter Schier to find a solution. The pair developed an engine with a novel third transmission shaft, which allowed the output countershaft to be placed extremely close to the swing-arm pivot. This innovation once again put Maico in the forefront of off-road motorcycle design. During these years, Maicos characteristically accounted for the majority of open-class

(500cc) entries at most any expert or professional motocross line-up in America.14 While the company had forfeited the 125cc class and was not in much better shape with the 250s, it still

“owned” the open class.

13 Sintering refers to a process of adhering a powdered material to an object. In this case, high-friction metal was sintered to the clutch plates. This technique was invented by the German Kramer company, which also produced Maico-engined racing motorcycles under their own name. 14 Interview with Craig Shambaugh by David Russell, September 11, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 461

Looking back, Technical Manager Wilhelm Maisch Jr. and racer Ake Jonsson agreed that a key to Maico’s success in business and in competition was that the company functioned as a team. Maisch insists that an integral aspect of the Maico management style was to allow each member of the team to use his own creativity and enthusiasm to the utmost. Management tried not to force the varied members of the multinational Maico engineering and racing groups into any rigidly structured route to an end state. Furthermore, there existed excellent communication between the various departments. This occurred particularly between the racing department, which was tied closely with R&D; and engineering, which had the job of incorporating effective ideas into the production. Maico’s ability to put these advances into production quickly was a foundation of its effectiveness as a company. The great example of this trait, as has been discussed, was their quick incorporation of long-travel suspension into mass-production.

“Discovered” in early 1973, Maico was delivering new Maico motorcycles in long-travel configuration within eleven months of the race team’s first experimentation with it (at the 1973

Czech Grand Prix). To further place Maico’s quick incorporation of the new technology into perspective, the vast Yamaha motorcycle division provides a counterpoint. Yamaha, whose monoshock long-travel suspension pre-dated Maico’s long-travel introduction by about six months, did not introduce a production monoshock motorcycle until nearly a year later than

Maico, for their 1975 model year.

As the pace of new advances accelerated, Maico worked to stay ahead of its competition in dirt bike technology. This was a formidable task for the small company, now that the Big Four

Japanese companies were fully mobilized into off-road motorcycle production. Maico’s final milestone, the impressive 1981 490, amazed riders and influenced motorcycle design from that time forward. Yet one great bike and one good year were not sufficient to save the company

462 from forthcoming bad management decisions. Even as the 1981 models accumulated accolades on United States racetracks, Maico head management felt an overwhelming requirement to release a more advanced frame design, a monoshock (Figure 140). As manufacturers one after another adopted the monoshock suspension, Maico believe it too needed to unveil a monoshock quickly, or risk being considered behind the times. Whatever the costs, some at the company believed, a Maico monoshock had to be introduced in 1982. The costs, unfortunately, would prove to be indeed too much.

Family Problems and Business Blunders

Greg Smith, the founder of Wheelsmith Engineering, recalls a story that circulated in the mid-1970s: “Otto owned the motorcycle factory in town, and his brother Wilhelm owned the lumber mill. Reportedly, they were feuding. That led to a situation where Otto imported the lumber for the motorcycle shipping crates from some distance, instead of going right next door to his brother’s. Although it was kind of comical at the time, stories like that probably foretold the trouble that would occur, later on. . . . In the late 1970s, the Maico corporation exhibited all the characteristics of a sinking ship.”15 Whether the events in this story are true or not, the fact that such a story was readily accepted amongst United States Maico dealers suggests that there was some actual fire at the source of the smoke. The story also foreshadows the effects that Maico’s home problems would have in America, where, in several years, long-time dealers (at least those who had another brand to sell) would advise their customers to be wary of buying a new Maico.

The Folklore of the Maico Conspiracy

Rick “Super Hunky” Sieman, the founder of Dirt Bike Magazine and long-time Maico proponent and industry observer, wrote an essay entitled “What Killed Maico?” while a staff

15 Interview with Greg Smith by David Russell, February 9, 2009, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 463 writer for Old Bike Journal. The essay was first published about 1992, and in it Sieman described an alleged multi-year conspiracy by the Wilhelm side of the Maisch family to take over Maico, by first destroying it.16 Sieman, from his vantage point, laid the blame squarely at the feet of Wilhelm Maisch Jr., and to a lesser extent his brothers Peter and Hans (“deliberate sabotage,” Sieman wrote). Sieman’s case is convincing; the author refers to Maico company internal memos and cites sales figures and German bank records. The act which most seems to implicate Wilhelm and his brothers, and prove Seiman’s theorey, is quite factual: the Maisch brothers’ purchase of Maico’s remnants during the bankruptcy sale. While perfectly legal, the purchase appears to substantiate the conspiracy narrative, that the brothers intentionally ruined

Maico, planning to then obtain it themselves for pennies on the dollar. Once removed from the context of Sieman’s assertions, however, the bankruptcy purchase appears less conspiratorial.

Many of the article’s key assertions cannot be easily substantiated (at least as concerns the focus and course of this dissertation), and, most importantly, they do not generally agree with the period reports of German court and bankruptcy proceedings by the German media. While both Sieman and Otto Maisch’s daughters (in the daughters’ statements to the German courts) claimed a conspiracy on the part of the Wilhelm Maisch side, the courts did not find evidence that either side desired that Maico fail.17 The “What Killed Maico?” essay portrays the Otto

Maisch family as the victims in the story, trying their best to keep the company afloat despite external problems and the counterproductive actions of Wilhelm and his brothers. Again, this view is contradicted by the accusations and findings of the German courts, who sought to punish only Otto Maisch and his daughters for a list of illegal and unethical actions (Wilhelm Jr. and his

16 Rick Sieman, “What Killed Maico?” Reprinted as “Maico Stories” at VMX Unlimited, www.vmxunlimited.com/pages/Maico-Stories.html, Accessed March 8, 2014. 17 “Ein Opfer vaterlicher Illusion (A Victim of Paternal Illusion),” Tubinger Chronik, December, 1991. 464 brothers are only mentioned once or twice in the nine German newspaper articles I obtained).18

In the absence of any other theory which could explain Maico’s downfall, Sieman’s Wilhelm-

Maisch-family-conspiracy explanation gained traction and was accepted by interested parties. In a way, the mystique of Maico—an eccentric motorcycle from a land that Americans equated with world wars, dark forests, and cuckoo clocks—may have demanded an equally dark and complex explanation for it to be believable in the United States. This tale is still steadfastly considered to be the truth about Maico within United States motorcycle culture. My research indicates that if there was a conspiracy, it was that initiated by the Otto Maisch family to divert funds, once Maico’s end was deemed inevitable.

How were Otto Maisch and his daughters able to manipulate the flow of company funds?

Maico was a privately-owned company. Otto Maisch was president and therefore technically responsible to no-one. He had no shareholders or partners to satisfy. Both Maisch families, particularly the Otto side, had other financial holdings. In retrospect, it is apparent that both sides of the family hoped that Maico would thrive and continue. Their inter-family squabbles, unfortunately, prevented this desire from being realized. In the end, one company insider believes the families had the ability to save Maico (at least for the time being) by investing their personal fortunes in the distressed company. Neither family elected to do this.19

Maico was known for the highest quality materials and components. This, and the exemplary manner in which these quality parts came together to make a superb handling and powerful motorcycle, was what the company’s reputation was built upon. Critical fissures in this reputation occurred in the early 1980s, as a result of ill-conceived attempts to reduce production costs. One such incident involved the company’s gear hardening process. Maico’s gears and their

18 “200 Mahbescheide (200 Default Summons),” Der Spiegel, April 23, 1984. 19Interview with Selvaraj Narayana by David Russell. Narayana stated, “One thing I can say, is that if both sides of the family would have put more money into the business, it would still be a leading motorcycle company, today.” 465 expensive and elaborate finishing process had been a bragging point for German engineering excellence for years. Even Porsche, no stranger to top quality, was impressed to find that

Maico’s chrome-alloy gear material and out-sourced double-hardening process was superior to that being used by Porsche and Mercedes.20 In a short-sighed effort to save money, purchasing manager Ingrid di Censo insisted that Maico use a cheaper process that she had learned of, in place of the expensive standard process. Wilhelm Maisch Jr., states that he disagreed with the idea, but Ingrid’s case for cost reduction won out. Within months, Maico gearboxes were coming apart, and replacement bills and injury lawsuits were arriving at Maico offices.21

A second instance of the overzealous pursuit of cost savings causing problems was the case of the inadequate shocks on the 1982 Maico models. Again, Ingrid di Censo championed a cheaper alternative to that requested by the engineers, and again, Otto Maisch decided in favor of saving money despite the engineers’ fervid protests. Italian Corte-Cosso units were purchased

(supposedly sixty percent cheaper than other units) in the face of engineering calculations that showed that these shocks were clearly inadequate for the job. Not surprisingly, the shocks immediately proved incapable. Maico quickly instituted a program of replacing the Corte-Cosso shocks with higher quality units, but at great expense. The result was further financial loss and reputation damage for Maico. Wilhelm Maisch Jr. maintains that rumors of Ingrid’s Italian husband and the Italian government arranging a payoff to the Otto Maisch family, for their sourcing the ineffectual Italian components, circulated around Maico.

20 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell. 21 “Der ehemalige Chef-Konstrukteur als Zeuge (Former head design engineer as Witness),” Schwabisches Tagblatt, July12, 1991.The shop previously doing the two-stage hardening of Maico gears was operated by a Mr. Heinz Handle, in the town of Hirschauer. Mr. Handle acknowledged to the German press in 1991 that he enjoyed working with Maico, because Maico always “insisted on the best and most expensive materials.” After Maico management elected to use the cheaper single-treatment process, vice the two-stage process used by Mr. Handle, Handle still did occasional “emergency” work for Maico. His business was perhaps fortunate in that it elected to no longer work with Maico (due to non-payment) earlier than other Maico sub-contractors, who continued to do work and ultimately were harmed to a far greater extent. 466

Figure 140. Maico assembly line at Pfeffingen, circa 1982. The motorcycle is a 1982 single-shock (monoshock) model, the machine rushed into production and most responsible for Maico’s failure. The man working in the foreground is Egbert Haas, who devised the 760cc Maico and won several German championships riding that

unique machine. (Photo: Peter Vagt)

Looking ahead, German Maico continued its damage control on the flawed 1982 models as it persisted in the never-ending struggle for product improvement and market share for the next year. Now, besides the Japanese competition, the Maico Company found itself sometimes at odds with an unexpected entity: Maico USA. German Maico was being billed for large sums of money by the American distributor. Whenever problems occurred—breaking gearboxes, bad shocks, or failing hubs—Maico USA passed the bill on to the parent company.22 Furthermore, as noted, payment for motorcycles shipped to America did not always seem to reach Germany, according to Wilhelm Maisch Jr. There was, of course, nothing that he as Technical Manager

22 “Haftbelehle gegen Maico-Geschaftsfuhrung (Warrant for Maico Management),” Schwabiches Tagblatt, March 15, 1984. 467 could do about it. President Otto Maisch controlled German Maico, as well as owning Maico

USA, and could withhold financial information from anyone.

After the failure of the 1982 models, the improved 1983 models received a tepid response from buyers.23 Due to the lack of sales and other factors yet to be discussed, Maico was by then in extreme financial trouble. German banks would no longer loan money to Maico, due to the debt that was accruing (mostly from the bills for failed components, arriving daily from Maico

USA) and because neither Maisch family would agree to guarantee payback of the loans with their personal fortunes as collateral. In the United States, the distressed dealer network unraveled. Long-time Maico dealers Barry and Patty Higgins traveled to Suffolk in early 1983 to meet with Maico leadership, to discuss the possibility of assuming some of the United States distribution. There, meeting with Ingrid di Cenzo, they were told, flatly, “This business will fail.”24 Back in Germany (and just before submitting the application for bankruptcy protection),

Gabrielle Maisch helped with a hurried shipment of 885 motorcycles to Maico USA, aware that the motorcycles represented DM 3M in assets which would not be available to the company (to pay creditors), once the bankruptcy proceedings began. Within a week, Otto Maisch contacted the German authorities and Maico formally entered bankruptcy.25

Examining Ingrid di Cenzo’s actions as Purchasing Manager at Maico, we cannot know all the factors surrounding her choices. It is difficult to unilaterally judge her, especially in hindsight, for her use of inferior materials and processes in order to save costs. Certainly the maker of any product cannot rigidly hold to a policy of “only the best,” all the time and

23 Interview with Barry Higgins by David Russell, January 8, 2014, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 24 Ibid. The Higgins dealership was then the largest volume Maico dealership in the United States. Barry Higgins also noted that, with reference to the inter-family squabbles and Wilhelm Jr.’s general blame for Maico’s failure, “Wilhelm was set up.” 25 This late shipment of 885 motorcycles to America and the transfer of the payment to Otto Maisch-owned companies in Panama and Switzerland are reported in Schwabisches Tagblatt, March 15 and 30 editions, 1984. 468 regardless of expense, in absolutely every case. Even NASA, Ferrari, Apple Computers and other quality-driven organizations have to deal with the realities of cost versus benefit. Maico and other European motorcycle manufacturers in the 1970s were already trying to remain competitive against the Japanese, who were in turn selling a better and better product and often for hundreds of dollars less. In Maico’s case, however, the choice to pursue cheaper solutions, especially in the face of the engineers’ warnings, appears suicidal. Rather than hold to its hard- earned reputation for using only the best components and materials, Maico seems to have chosen to again compete with Japanese on their own terms: in this case, price. The result was diminished world-wide respect for what had been the company’s signature attribute, quality.

Otto Maisch’s decision to replace Maico’s United States distributors is easy to criticize, but it may have seemed reasonable at the time; as noted earlier, Swedish Husqvarna had done exactly the same thing, a year earlier, with no apparent negative aftereffects. Furthermore, while

Germans may have held the top two positions in the United States at Maico West and Maico

East, and later at Maico USA, we know that Americans still filled all the many other positions.

Furthermore, Selvaraj Narayana was in America, doing his best to be all things to all people.

With the vast majority of Maico jobs in America filled by American enthusiasts, the basic system should—and did, for a time—continue to work.

Regarding Maico’s responsiveness to buyers, Wilhelm Maisch Jr. notes that German

Maico could at times be slow in implementing suggestions from its biggest customer, the United

States. Any corporate customer response and product improvement system can of course be improved. In Maico’s defense, the company’s swift integration of long-travel suspension into production suggests that at times, at least, the company absolutely did “get it right.” The adoption of the five-speed gearbox for 1975 is another example. At other times (such as in the

469 cases of Maico’s long-maligned slippery footpegs and easily-broken fiberglass, and 1972/73’s leaking fuel tanks) they did not do as well. Across Europe, in Sweden, Gunnar Lindstrom recalls that rival Husqvarna was probably much worse than Maico in this regard, and perpetuated a corporate policy of inbred, self-absorbed, and inflexible product development. At Husqvarna, he painfully remembers, corporate management’s idea was “always right.”26 At Maico, in its final years as a company very dependent upon the United States, Maico leadership may not have had an adequate understanding of the needs of the United States market, and lost some of the respect it had earned. This weakness appears to be minimal, however, and not a major factor in the company’s failure. Among management’s various mistakes, the company’s self-imposed rush to field a monoshock motorcycle in 1982 (and accepting faulty materials and inadequate testing for the bike along the way) was the one error that singularly brought about Maico’s end. (Husqvarna and KTM, apparently not feeling the same pressure, both continued to market dual-shock motorcycles for several more years, and yet survived.)27

Maico’s rise to pre-eminence in the 1960s and 1970s was due to an excellent product, an involved and creative labor force, effective interdepartmental communication, and responsive management. It also benefited from the presence of energetic, enthusiast distributors and dealers in the United States (and perhaps in other countries as well). In addition to external economic and political forces (to be discussed in the next chapter), Maico failed because of defective products, mandated by an increasingly dysfunctional and self-serving German family management making critically poor decisions. To a lesser degree, the replacement of its effective

26Interview with Gunnar Lindstrom by David Russell, November 4, 2013, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). Lindstrom notes that the overconfident Husqvarna management repeatedly would not allow him and other engineers to purchase competitor’s bikes to analyze. Ultimately, Lindstrom left Husqvarna for this reason. 27 Husqvarna did not survive intact, however, and was purchased in 1987 by Italian company Cagiva. It was then sold to BMW in 2007, and finally ended up the property of Pierer Industrie, AG (parent company of KTM) in 2013. 470

United States distributors with marginal foreign managers hurt as well. When the company’s management culture deteriorated, the end came quickly.

In the German bankruptcy administrator’s assessment of Maico in 1983, he described management in the final years as inflexible and top-heavy, and using outdated manufacturing methods.28 In addition, sales were falling and warranty payments were going up. With banks unwilling to lend money, Maico had had trouble paying bills and meeting payroll, beginning in the fall of 1982. The three Wilhelm Maisch family brothers were dismissed in late 1982, and

Otto Masich thereafter was feebly attempting to run the company, assisted by his daughters.29

The final and post-bankruptcy days of Maico will be examined in greater detail in the following chapter.

Figure 141. When Maico was on top of the world: export manager Hans Kresin (left) with Wilhelm Maisch

Jr., at a Trans-AMA event in the United States, 1973. (Photo: Wilhelm Maisch Jr.)

28 “Das unaufhaltsame Maico-Ende(The Unstoppable End of Maico),” Schwabisches Tagblatt, October 25, 1991. 29 “Fur Maico ist das Rennen gefaufen (For Maico, the Race is Over),” Schwabisches Tagblatt, May 31, 1983. 471

6.3 “WE TRUST GOD WILL HELP MAICO”

Maico declared bankruptcy on May 10, 1983. In the year that followed, the court- appointed bankruptcy administrator, Dr. Volker Grub, explored Maico’s business records and inventoried the company’s assets. The search results were convincing enough for the German government to indict Otto, along with his daughters Ingrid di Censo and Gabrielle Stickel, for various illegal activities while running Maico. Ingrid left Germany sometime in 1984 to avoid prosecution (most likely escaping to Italy and her Italian husband).

Figure 142. The envelope of the form letter to Calhoun Maico, transcribed here.

At about the same time as an unusual letter (Figure 142) was postmarked in May, 1984, former Maico employees Wilhelm Jr., Peter, and Hans Maisch were assembling their “new”

Maico company, in part from the ashes of the old Maico with equipment they had purchased at the bankruptcy sale.1 The brothers faced formidable challenges with their start-up endeavor, but

1 The brothers were fired by Otto at a meeting in December, 1982. This meeting, held at Ingrid Maisch di Censo’s house with importers from Great Britain, Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands present, was meant to obtain cash investments from these companies to help Maico’s survival. When the three brothers (Wilhelm Jr., Peter, and Hans) 472 were none the less about to release their first motorcycles. They brought American businessman

Ted Lapadakis on board as an investor and as the United States importer, and planned to have two models of the new line (called M-Star in North America and still Maico in Europe) at dealers, soon.

Any observer in the spring of 1984, with knowledge of the bankruptcy and the ongoing trial, would have thought there to be no chance for the “old” Maico Company to return to business. Too much had changed since the company’s failure a year earlier. Maico’s assets—its tooling, buildings, and even intellectual property—were sold or in the possession of the banks, the employees were long gone, and three of its managers were facing criminal prosecution. A whirlwind of change had deconstructed the old Maico, and reassembling the pieces, with any resemblance to the old company, was not possible. Yet a 1984 document suggests that at least one former Maico manager felt that hope was not lost. The following letter ostensibly conveys the thoughts of former President Otto Maisch, who, if the words are his and he was conveying his real intent, believed Maico could and would rise again. In this chapter I will examine this letter and propose an explanation of its origin and meaning.

The writer of the form letter is indicated to be Otto Maisch, and it was sent to at least some former United States Maico dealers.2 This particular copy was postmarked at Malpensa

Airport, Milan, Italy on May 21, 1984 and air mailed to Calhoun Maico, in Oxford, Alabama

(Figure 142). My transcription was taken from a digital image of the original letter, posted on the

Maico Registry website.3

brazenly warned these companies that, in their opinion, such investment would only prolong Maico’s imminent downfall, the companies declined to help. Otto immediately fired all three of Wilhelm Maisch Sr.’s sons. 2 Actual distribution is unknown. Gig Hamilton and Barry Higgins, Maico dealers at the time, do not recall receiving this letter. 3 Maico Off-Road Motorcycles and Registry, https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MAICOMOTORCYCLES/info, accessed March 14, 2010. I thank Travis Agle for obtaining it and preserving it. 473

The letter is one of the few statements Otto Maisch (or his immediate family) made about the situation at Maico which is available for study. Addressed from the former President of the organization, it purports to afford us a glimpse into Otto Maisch’s thoughts as the company he helped to start and ran for years, dissolved. It may contain the thoughts of the most elite member of the Maico organization. In reading it, we should remember that Otto’s vantage point, though high up, did not guarantee visibility or understanding of all that existed below him. Historian R.

Gordon Kelly posited that elite sources (and in particular, great literature) do not necessarily provide broadly reliable or relevant cultural evidence.4 In my study of the events of Maico’s failure, I encountered adequate elite “top-down” primary source material, but no (at least that I have found) “bottom-up” working-class primary source material. The ideas of Maico workers might have provided a very different narrative than that which is here presented as the thoughts of Otto Maisch. The several pages below, attributed to the President of the company, detail his allegations of who and what destroyed Maico, and convey his hoped-for rising of Maico from the ashes of bankruptcy.

The letter’s transcription is faithful to the English language original document, retaining the spelling and spacing of the original text. Several minor punctuation errors are left in. In the letter, the writer begins by telling the company history from beginning to end, and then relates a personal version of that end. The letter is interesting for its very different view on who was to blame for Maico’s failure, and for its reconstruction of history and memory. The letter conveys alternate allegations and explanations, differing from both the media reports and the statements of other interviewees in this work that I have obtained. My commentary follows the letter’s transcription.

______

4 R. Gordon Kelly, “Literature and the Historian,” American Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 2 (May, 1974). 474

21st may 1984

Otto Maisch AM Riedberg 11 7403 Ammerbuch 2 Pfaeffingen West Germany

Dear Maico-Dealer!

We believe the time has come to tell you our view of developments at Maico.

As you probably all know, Maico was founded in the early 1930s by the brothers Otto and Wilhelm Maisch. Until the end of World War II they each owned 50% of the company.

After the war a new company had to be established in the American Occupation Zone. The original site was in French-occupied territory where it proved impossible to procure materials.

Wilhelm Maisch played an important role in the National-Socialist Party. Otto Maisch and his family were never members of the Party and suffered numerous reprisals during its reign. In accordance with the regulations of the American Occupation Authorities, Wilhelm Maisch was allowed only a minority share in the new company. Thus the family of Otto Maisch owned 60%, with the remaining 40% belonging to Wilhelm Maisch and family. We believe this to have been equitable since Otto Maisch has had to run the company alone for over 25 years due to the fact that his brother Wilhelm was paralyzed for these many years and unable to conduct business. In spite of his incapacity Wilhelm Maisch was financially remunerated just as if he had been an active partner so that his family suffered no disadvantage.

After Wilhelm Maisch’s sons finished their training they were signed on in the Maico company. Hans became a Moto-cross rider; Peter was placed in administration; and Wilhelm Maisch Jr. became Head of Technical Development and Production in 1975.

About 10 years ago it became necessary to establish a marketing company in the U.S. in order to guarantee sales in this country. First, Maico Motorcycles Inc., was founded on the East Coast. A few years later the importer on the West Coast, Mr. Cooper, stopped selling Maico products and Maico had to take over marketing there with a company of their own. When these American Subsidiaries were founded Otto Maisch invited the family of Wilhelm Maisch to buy an interest in them. At that time the dollar was rather weak against the German Mark so that the U.S. companies were not expected to yield large profits. Wilhelm Maisch, therefore, declined to invest private capital.

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With the aid of the American dealers and top performance by management personnel, such as Sel and Gary at Maico USA Inc., and Uli and Tim at Maico West, it became possible during the next few years to sell 30% to 50% of the total Maico production in the U.S. Their efforts established the Maico an image in the U.S. that has often been compared to that of Mercedes Benz, Porsche and BMW. We take this opportunity to express our thanks to all who shared in this accomplishment.

From the beginning of 1980 Maico Management came to realize more and more that the company could continue to flourish only if their motorcycles remained competitive in quality. Repeated requests were made to Welhelm Maisch Jr. as Head of Design and Production to hire abler engineers as quickly as possible. Wilhelm Maisch Jr. always denied, however, that design and production were lagging behind standards of the competition. He promised Management, indeed guaranteed, that he as Head of Technical Design and Production was able to keep abreast with the competition. Apparently, he was unable to keep his promises. Each year the company lost valuable sales time of at a minimum two months because new models were either not ready for delivery at the beginning of a new season or else had flaws which had not been recognized in time and necessitated alterations, again causing delays.

Drawings for the motors which were delivered for 1983 models had been ready as early as the end of 1980/beginning of 1981. The motors were tested in 1982. In April 1983 the engineer Gorgos, newly recruited, found that the motor for the Moto Cross was partially unsuitable and that major parts had to be substantially redesigned. Even though Gorgos immediately went to work on the most important changes, they could not be completed by the beginning of the season. This again caused considerable delays in delivery and added expense for alterations. In view of these experiences, we believe I erred gravely when, out of family obligation I retained Wilhelm Maisch, Jr. in one of the crucial positions in the company for such an extended time period. A change in technical leadership might well have averted bankruptcy.

In 1982 Otto Maisch realized that because of the high cost of construction (tools etc.) for the new models, Maico needed additional capital. A loan application was submitted to the Credit Bank of the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg. Since the application had the support of prominent people in politics and business the company could safely assume that the loan would be approved.

However, the Bank required that both families guarantee the loan. While Otto Maisch was willing to do so, the family of Wilhelm Maisch refused again to risk private capital. Now negotiations with European importers were begun to secure financial support, which the majority was willing to give.

These negotiations were conducted in the presence of the sons Wilhelm Jr., Hans and Peter Maisch, who did everything within their power to prevent the importers from supporting the Maico Company. They declared that Maico did not stand a chance against the Japanese competition and that financial support for the company was therefore futile. Their opposition insured that Maico was unable to either secure the loan from Credit Bank, or obtain support from the importers. Otto Maisch now tried to save the company by injecting larger amounts of money in private capital.

476

Unfortunately, these funds proved insufficient and you know the result: Maico had to file a petition in bankruptcy in May 1983.

Maico means a lot to the family of Otto Maisch.

After the bankruptcy petition had been filed efforts were initiated to find investors willing to continue production. In the U.S. a trade bureau as well as the lawyers for Maico’s U.S. branches tried to locate potential investors for Maico. Advertisements in the Wall Street Journal produced several interested U.S. companies. Personal negotiations were started with the company that showed the greatest interest and seemed financially strongest and therefore in a position to compete with the Japanese and accomplish a first-class comeback for Maico. This company declared its interest in taking over Maico repeatedly and publicly. The owners also clearly recognized the need to include 125 cm motorcycles and three-wheelers in their production. Our U.S. branch promised technical support with well-known engineering firms specializing in Motocross and Enduro so that we would soon catch up with the technological standards of the competition.

Unfortunately this prospective buyer in the U.S. was found too late as the Receiver had meanwhile sold inventory and equipment to the sons of Wilhelm Maisch. The receiver had opposed continued production from the beginning and been unwilling to look for prospective buyers himself. Our arguments that there were potential buyers in the U.S. had been ignored, possibly due to linguistic problems. The “Maico” trade name could not be sold by the Receiver since it is internationally registered for the Otto and Wilhelm Maisch KG (Limited Partnership). Neither do the sons of Wilhelm Maisch have the right to use the name Maico. A lawsuit is pending against illegal use of the name.

Although it is obvious today that the company’s bankruptcy was brought about by insufficient sales during 1982 and 1983, and these, in turn, were caused by the incompetence of Technical Management, the company’s failure is being blamed today on Otto Maisch and his daughters. The fact that German social legislation makes it very difficult to dismiss workers also contributed to the company’s problems as it make it impossible to compensate for the decreased sales volume by reducing the work force.

Finally, an incredible newspaper campaign was launched (directed by the Union) against the Otto Maisch family. The campaign aims at totally destroying the family’s credibility and deterring any potential German buyers interested in Maico.

The principal charge against the Otto Maisch family is that they pocketed profits from the U.S. branches. When the bankruptcy petition was filed there was a considerable number of motorcycles in stock in the U.S. for which Maico Pfaeffingen had not yet been paid. For various reasons and in consultation with the Receiver these motorcycles were drastically reduced. Some of them could be purchased for as little as 50% to 60% below the usual dealer price. Due to these large discounts Maico Pfaeffingen could not be paid their bills.

477

Since the U.S. branches, in our and the US lawyers opinion, are not responsible for the discounts or the payments of warranty claims, these costs, as is customary, were charged to Maico Pfaeffingen. German authorities claim that these discounts were faked. They have come up with the absurd theory that these discounts were fictitious and that the price difference was paid into separate bank accounts of the Otto Maisch family. You, the U.S. dealer, know best that this charge is impracticable nonsense. In the meantime, three U.S. lawyers, who with the Receiver’s consent were charged with supervising the liquidation of the U.S. companies, have written to the German authorities that they are willing at any time to swear an affidavit before a German court that the family of Otto Maisch has never drawn funds from the U.S. branches. Similar confirmations have gone out from the tax consultants in the U.S.

Since you as dealers are best able to judge the merit of these absurd accusations we would appreciate if you would give us your opinion as soon as possible. We ask you respectfully to write your thoughts to the following address.

Because of the deliberate smear campaign against the Otto Maisch family the sons of Wilhelm refuse to deliver motorcycles and spare parts to the U.S. company, even though all deliveries have always been paid for in advance and at excessive prices.

We are saddened by this situation where others will profit from our hard work for we believe that Maico became a “name” in the U.S. through our combined efforts and commitment.

We still have hope that, one way or another, everything will turn out alright for Maico, as the U.S. firm continues to show an interest in taking over Maico.

We trust God will help Maico.

Otto Maisch Otto Maisch AM Riedberg 11 7403 Ammerbuch 2 Pfaeffingen West Germany ______

Commentary

Whatever the intricacies of German Maico’s business situation and the letter’s accusations and insinuations, several points are clearly expressed by the writer. The first two allegations are factual and incontrovertible:

478

* Maico experienced design and manufacturing deficiencies. (The writer’s placement of the blame entirely on Wilhelm Maisch Jr., however, is incorrect and misleading.)5

* The Wilhelm Maisch Sr. and Otto Maisch families were undergoing considerable friction between themselves, and this situation was not helping business matters.

Elsewhere, the writer expresses three other opinions about Maico’s recent crisis:

*He accuses the workers’ union, the German government, and his own nephews of unfairly maligning, harming, or mismanaging Maico. (This allegation was not be substantiated by my research.)

*He wanted it known that Maico was important to the Otto Maisch family, and that he believed the company could be revived.

*He states that the performance of American distributors (note that the American distribution network was owned by Otto) and dealers was never in doubt, and was fundamental to Maico’s success.

The letter raises several questions and problems. Many of the writer’s claims differ from those put forward by other sources. The most significant discrepancies arising from the Otto

Maisch letter are addressed below, along with a comparison to information and opinions from these other sources.

Considering that the letter was addressed to United States dealers, what exactly did the writer expect the dealers to do? By 1984, most of German Maico had been liquidated by the bankruptcy administrator, in the usual attempt to recompense creditors who were owed money by the failed company. In an odd turn of events that fueled Rick Sieman’s conspiracy theory,

5 The selection of the insufficient and untested Corte-Cosso shock in 1982 by Otto’s daughter Ingrid, then director of purchasing at Maico, for reason of it being sixty percent cheaper than units desired by the engineering department (and despite the protests of engineers and Wilhelm Maisch Jr.) is one example of Otto’s unwarranted placement of blame on Wilhelm Jr. 479 much of Maico’s production machinery was sold (at the bankruptcy auction) to the new “Maisch

Brothers, Limited” company (Wilhelm Jr., Peter, and Hans Maisch). This organization was the

“new Maico,” financially backed by the brothers’ personal capital and American Ted Lapadakis.

According to Wilhelm Maisch Jr., Maisch brothers had also legally purchased the rights to the

Maico name, at least in Europe.6 This being said, any realistic chance of the old Maico company’s revival, at this point in time, was nil. A year earlier in May, 1983 (before the divestment, and with the old company still intact), Dr. Volker Grub, the assigned bankruptcy manager, had proclaimed as much.7 By the date of this letter, Maico had irrevocably been carved up and the pieces sold. Thus, with the primary theme and hope of the letter—Maico’s rise from the ashes—for all practical purposes being impossible, we must wonder why the letter was written in the first place. Was it Otto’s and his family’s way of apologizing for Maico’s failure?

Was it a rationalization of his and his family’s errors? Or, was it something else? The writer could have realistically foreseen no other change in outcome, other than through divine intervention (hence the supplication, “We trust God will help Maico”), with which he ends his letter.

Another point made by the writer that differs from fact is the claim that German Maico had to establish German-owned distributorships in the United States to guarantee sales, when in fact the American distributors (Cooper and Moore) appeared to be very successful at this task for years. He also suggests that this takeover of the American distributorships was friendly and consensual, an assertion disputed by other sources.8 Otto owned one hundred percent of the

6 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded) 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 7 “Fur Maico is das Rennen gelaufen (For Maico, the Race is Over),” Schwabisches Tagblatt, May 31, 1983. 8 Greg Smith, through his involvement with Frank Cooper as a franchised dealer, felt that Cooper was being gently but firmly pushed out of business by German Maico. Moore leaves no doubt in his narrative that he was being forcibly ejected, and asserts the same for Cooper. 480 reorganized, German-run American distributors, referred to variously as US Maico or Maico

USA. This network was comprised, at the time of this letter, of Maico West in California, and the headquarters, Maico USA (still informally known as Maico East) in Suffolk, Virginia.

The writer mentions and dismisses accusations against his family of “pocketing profits” from US Maico, but fails to make a convincing rebuttal. On the other hand, period German newspaper reporting on the legal proceedings make a very convincing case for the validity of identical allegations of wrongdoing—but on the part of Otto’s family. Specifically, the German government in early 1984 issued arrest warrants for Otto, Gabriele, and Ingrid.9 Otto was excused after producing medial certificates stating that his health was not up to the strain of a trial. Ingrid fled the country to avoid prosecution, and was probably in Italy when this letter was written; this left Gabriele as the only Maisch to initially face charges, initially. Ultimately, the

German legal system implicated or convicted Otto and his daughters of exactly the crimes that the letter writer denies.

The writer insinuates that the German authorities and the bankruptcy receiver were unsupportive of his stated efforts to recover.10 It is a fact that the German government did not

“bail out” Maico, in the same way it assisted other German businesses at the time. Maico, along with most other German and European industries, was at that time dealing with the difficult economic conditions in Europe in the early 1980s, which included currency issues (particularly

9 “200 Mahnbescheide (200 Default Summons),” Der Spiegel, April 23, 1984. 10 Wilhelm Maisch Jr., contends that during a difficult time for business in Europe, the early 1980s, the German government was willing to assist certain industries (those “too big to fail”, using current phraseology) such as the automobile manufacturers, but not other industries such as motorcycle and photographic companies. These smaller firms in turn suffered greatly. Otto was accused of a list of illegal activities in conjunction with Maico’s failure. Whether all these charges were substantiated or not, their existence would certainly not have helped the German government’s attitude toward the company. One thing all parties agree on is that a lack of sales was the direct cause of the end of both the original Maico and “new” circa-1984 Maico company. 481 involving the devalued Japanese Yen) and trade barriers.11 Although the German auto industry was considered too important for its failure to be allowed, smaller German companies were not as fortunate, receiving inadequate government assistance to permit their survival. The letter writer does not mention these problems. Proposing that the lack of cooperation from banks and the alleged incompetency of Wilhelm Jr. were the principal factors to blame for Maico’s failure, the writer simultaneously ignores the critical damage (caused by the decisions of Otto and

Ingrid) of using inadequate materials and components, and also the disastrous abbreviated gear heat-treating process.

Otto’s accusation that the Wilhelm Maisch family was not willing to deliver parts to US

Maico is confusing. By this time in 1984, that part of the family were operating their own company and producing their own motorcycles (although little more than 1983 Maicos). At what remained of the old Maico company, Selvaraj Narayana, one of the last employees, was in charge as General Manager. Narayana was overseeing, under the supervision of the bankruptcy authority, the sale of parts to European distributors. Mr. Narayana states that “Maico-USA couldn’t buy anything [from German Maico],” apparently due to a legal stipulation caused by the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.12

The address listed on the letter as its origin (and the one to which United States dealers were to “write their thoughts”) is in Germany, but the envelope is postmarked from Italy. Why was this letter mailed from Italy, and not West Germany? The answer surely has to do with the fact that Otto’s daughter and former Maico purchasing manager Ingrid (di Censo) had a home in

Italy, and had fled Germany following her indictment there. Since the letter is not personally

11 Stephen Gross, “History’s Lessons for the European Debt Crisis,” The Berkeley Blog, July 26, 2011, blogs.berkeley.edu/2011/07/26/history-lessons-for-the-european-debt-crisis/. 12 Interview with Selvaraj Narayana by David Russell, June 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 482 signed, it cannot be determined whether Otto actually sent the letter, or even if he was the one who drafted it. The Schwabisches Tagblatt reported in 1991 that Otto was “indecisive” during his final time at the company, and that Ingrid was “the one who called the shots.”13 We also know that his health was not good. Taken together, the use of “We,” the lack of a signature, the letter’s Italian origin, and Otto’s condition at the time all suggest that Ingrid de Censo was the letter’s originator. Given her indictment for criminal activity (she was hiding at about this time in

Italy to evade prosecution), the letter’s contents could have been a device created by Ingrid to help in her defense. She eventually would return to Germany and face charges, and perhaps this letter was meant to be used as evidence in her favor.

The sentence, “Maico means a lot to the family of Otto Maisch,” suggests that the writer wishes to state for the record that he/she did care (and quite honestly), and did not just callously watch Maico fail. History proved, however, that the best intent of both families was not enough to ensure Maico’s success. Effective senior leadership, integrity, effective and timely reactions to crises, and a willingness to risk personal wealth for the sake of the company were all lacking when the critical moments arrived. The absence of these qualities compounded bad decisions made earlier, and caused Maico’s demise.

Although we may conjecture whether the Otto Maisch letter was meant to shift blame, ease a conscience, create hope for a new venture, or perhaps serve as a legal prop, the real reason behind the letter’s creation remains speculative. I believe the letter’s origin and overall theme

(expressing concern for a lost company, professing innocence on the part of Otto, and focusing blame on the Wilhelm Maisch brothers) supports the idea that the letter was written by Ingrid di

Censo as a legal hedge. In the following chapter I will examine the events surrounding Maico’s

13 “Das schone Modell-Design trog (The Beautiful Model Deceived),” Schwabisches Tagblatt, December 27, 1991. 483 bankruptcy, the trials of Ingrid and Gabriele, and the coverage by the German print media.

484

Chapter 7: FINAL HISTORY, CONCLUSIONS, EPILOGUE

7.1 MAICO’S END

From the time of Maico’s demise in 1983, motorcyclists have postulated answers to the question, “What Happened to Maico?” The motorcycle’s disappearance in the mid-1980s was a mystery to many riders. How could the manufacturer of the finest racing motorcycles for two decades, the originator of long-travel suspension, and the maker of the superlative 1981 490 machine, fail, in a matter of just months? When posed the same question in 1984, even Otto

Maisch could not voice a reasonable explanation. Here is how automotive writer Frank O.

Hrachowy portrayed Maisch’s response, as translated from his 2005 German text: “Otto Maisch acted as if he had utterly no defense. When questioned by journalists, who wanted to know how it was possible that an apparently healthy firm could receive such a ‘direct hit’ from just one bad fiscal year, Otto Maisch had no answer.”1

Maico’s end in Folklore: the first explanation

Of the United States motorcyclists harboring an opinion on the subject of Maico’s end, most agree with a version that became canonical in motorcycling folklore. This is the tale of family division, greed, and German industrial conspiracy, passed along since the 1990s, extracted from motorcycling writer Rick Sieman’s essay, “What Killed Maico?” As related previously, Sieman’s narrative states that the sons of Wilhelm Maisch Sr. plotted to drive Maico into bankruptcy, so as to enable their own take-over and control of the company—only to fail themselves soon afterward.2 Sieman’s essay emerged at the time in United States when enthusiasm for vintage motorcycling was growing, and Maico, a prominent part of the American

1 Frank O. Hrachowy, Maico Motorrader: Geschichte, Typen, Technik (Lemgo: J. Kleine Vennekate, 2005), 108. 2 Rick Sieman, “What Killed Maico?” Reprinted as “Maico Stories” at VMX Unlimited, www.vmxunlimited.com/pages/Maico-Stories.html, Accessed March 8, 2014.. 485 off-road riding story, was of particular interest. This version of events—in fairness, the only explanation of Maico’s story at the time—quickly became the definitive narrative of Maico’s end. Sieman aired many valid points about Maico and introduced interesting ideas about the company’s fate. He is, indisputably, an expert on both motorcycling sport in the United States and Maico motorcycles. In my opinion, however, the evidence available (to me) does not support key parts of this explanation. Statements from individuals interviewed for this dissertation and from period German news reports suggest a different, complex, and plausible alternative explanation. While my theory of Maico’s end remains centered (like Sieman’s) on the failure of the 1982 product line, I believe that the actual source of any conspiracy is lies with different members of the Maisch family. Furthermore, other events occurred to collectively bring about the final failure.

Another theory

Maico’s failure to remain in business was nothing so simple as family infighting, one or two bad production runs, faulty decisions, poor sales years, or internal conspiracy, alone. It was, rather, the result of a complex mixture of factors, over time. The primary reasons for the failure include: key errors made by Maico management during this critical time; the ever-increasing competitiveness and market share of the giant Japanese motorcycle companies; and world economic conditions and their effects on Germany in the early 1980s.3

Reinhard Engelking, the German business consultant hired by Maico in 1983 in a by then too-late and frenzied attempt to save the organization from bankruptcy, described Maico’s failures less globally. Engelking’s findings omitted Japanese and internal German economic

3 Several of the key errors by management included the procurement of low-grade components (such as the Corte- Cosso shocks); the gear heat-treating debacle of 1982; rushing the unfinished first mono-shock design of the same year into production; and other procurement, development, and marketing errors. The Corte-Cosso and heat-treating issues likely went beyond simple mistakes, into the realm of unethical business practices. 486 pressures, focusing exclusively on company management. He particularly cited outdated manufacturing techniques, an expensive and top-heavy organizational model, and an inflexible decision-making process.4 There is no reason to dispute this micro-view, but the global business environment Maico operated in was also an important factor. The high production costs for

German goods (particularly in the heavily-industrialized southwest of Germany, due to peak labor costs) were exacerbated at the time by the low value of the Japanese yen versus that of the

German mark and other currencies. This situation made the retail price of Japanese goods vastly more attractive in Europe, where Maico sold the other fifty percent of its production. Other

Germans industries were similarly affected, but the German government targeted its assistance at the time only to several major industries, such as auto manufacturing. There was apparently not enough money or concern available to similarly help the motorcycle industry and other smaller manufacturing sectors out of the crisis. Had Maico’s plight been dealt with differently by the

West German government (as was the case in Austria, whose government chose to come to the aid of native motorcycle maker KTM), the outcome for Maico might have been different.

Other causes for the failure were: management infighting (which equated to family quarreling, in Maico’s family-run situation); the much-improved and competitive product quality from the Japanese manufacturers (whose motorcycles were no longer just less expensive, but were now of good quality, as well); the failure of Maico to secure bank loans during its challenging last years (resulting in part from the two families’ unwillingness to back the company with their personal fortunes, when Maico needed it most); and the unethical and illegal activity undertaken by Otto Maisch and his daughters. Finally, less significant reasons included

Germany’s socialized worker protection policies (making the release of unnecessary workers in less profitable times difficult); and a possible small amount of worker dissatisfaction.

4 “Der unaufhaltsame Maico-Ende (The Unstoppable End of Maico),” Schwabisches Tagblatt, October 25, 1991. 487

These complex and interlocking factors are not mentioned in the folkloric version, which emphasizes only villainous behavior. In that older, simpler version of the story, Maico motorcycles and those who loved them were the pawns and victims, respectively, of an evil plot.

The story is, at its core, a morality tale of evil destroying good, and that evil in turn being rightfully destroyed. This desire to see Maico’s end in straightforward and traditional good- versus-evil terms alone may be a natural response to the enthusiasts’ despair at the loss of such an iconic symbol.

The blame directed at the factory workers was never substantiated, and does not appear in the German media’s coverage of the Maico trials (other than several personal allegations of worker disruption by Otto and Ingrid, described in the following pages). While there may have been isolated instances of intentional harm to the company by disgruntled workers, no collective destructive actions were ever described. Technical Manager Wilhelm Maisch Jr. rejected any significant worker dissatisfaction or problems in his interview.5 Conversely, Otto Maisch and

Ingrid di Cenzo, in their statements, did accuse the workers and the Metalworkers Union of trying to hurt Maico, but these problems were in Maico’s final months (when the company was unable to pay wages), and worker frustration at that time was foreseeable.6 Eastern United States

Maico distributor Dennie Moore alleged intentional sabotage as well, though in isolated cases and minimal scope.7 Overall, considering the major concessions and sacrifices the approximately

230 workers at the factory agreed to, in the last year of Maico’s operation, it is hard to make a

5 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded) 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 6 “200 Mahnbescheide (200 Default Summons),” Der Spiegel, April 23, 1984. Maico workers were members of the West German Metalworkers Union. Der Spiegel reported that Otto Maisch purchased a device in 1983 with which he clandestinely recorded and later listened to conversations between workers and the union, evidence of a palpable level of distrust between the company and the employees at that time. 7 Regarding worker dissatisfaction, Moore reported finding metal shavings in fork tubes about 1972; whether this damage was directed at him, personally; the act of an isolated, dissatisfied worker; or some unusual production mistake is not known. 488 case that the workforce was not willing to share almost any degree of sacrifice in order to return the company to profitability.

Two other chronic factors have previously been mentioned. The first was Maico’s occasional reluctance to quickly accept and incorporate input from their North American distributors and dealers (although in other cases, such as with the case of long-travel suspension, the factory incorporated change rapidly). The second was Maico’s replacement in the boom years of the mid-1970s of their American distributors with Germans. As I noted, had German

Maico left North American distribution and sales to those who were in fact doing these tasks very well at the time, the chances of continued success in the increasingly competitive and critical American marketplace would have been more favorable. However, I believe neither issue was cause enough to significantly help bring about Maico’s end.

Considering all these various factors, I can state the following about Maico’s failure:

Primarily and most critically, Maico did not sell enough product (motorcycles and parts). This lack of sales was due to a series of managerial errors (such as releasing the 1982 monoshock before it was ready) and to several misdirected cost-saving measures, in which inferior materials or components were used. (In particular, the low-quality gear heat-treating process and the use of the inferior Corte-Cosso shocks had devastating effects on sales in 1982 and 1983.)

Secondly, President Otto Maisch failed to deal with Maico’s business downturn effectively and honestly. Is this assessment too hard on Otto Maisch? Having been through the company’s first bankruptcy in 1958, Otto should have known what generally needed to happen, and when actions had to be implemented (at least as far as weathering a successful bankruptcy).

The lessons of the earlier experience should have been indelibly imprinted on Otto; he learned the hard way after being sentenced by a Tubingen judge to twenty months in jail. The judge at

489 the time concluded that Otto conducted the 1958 proceedings in an unethical manner; specifically, that he engaged in “breach of trust, credit fraud, and deceitful manipulation.” Otto even lowered himself to hiding some of the unsuccessful “Maico 500” cars (the lack of sales of which had largely caused the bankruptcy) from creditors, in privately-owned barns near the factory.8 Yet Otto did not seem to have chosen to apply these lessons, a quarter century later.

Bankruptcy

In 1981, Maico realized a DM 1.6M net loss, having possibly been unprofitable as early as 1979 (according to bank statements reviewed at the 1991 trial of Ingrid Maisch). When Maico found itself unable to pay its debts in the fall of 1982, Otto remained publicly optimistic, reassuring workers (and gullible suppliers) that all would be well.9 This was the time, bankruptcy administrator Dr. Volker Grub later stated, when Otto should have filed for bankruptcy and ceased accumulating additional debt. However (and just as he did in 1958), Otto instead hid

Maico’s problems and began committing illegal actions. Undoubtedly aware that Maico’s remaining assets would be sold in order to pay off Maico’s creditors in the (by then) inevitable bankruptcy, the company president redistributed Maico’s assets by increasing exports (to the

United States, in particular, though his two personally-owned companies) and probably hiding liquid cash assets. An omen of the real severity of the company’s condition came in winter of

1982 through 1983, when Otto withheld workers’ traditional Christmas bonuses, as well as not being able to pay their salaries. During this period, Otto continued to aggressively funnel motorcycles to United States and Italian distributorships, against the advice of hired consultant

Engelking. An especially large shipment was rushed out to the United States just one week prior to the May 10, 1983 petition of insolvency. And, only two days prior to the bankruptcy

8 “200 Mahnbescheide (200 Default Summons),” Der Spiegel, April 23, 1984. The new corporation “Maico- Fahrzeugfabrik” was the second-generation Maico company, emerging from the first bankruptcy in 1958. 9 “Der unaufhaltsame Maico-Ende (The Unstoppable End of Maico),” Schwabisches Tagblatt, October 25, 1991 490 announcement, on May 8, a shipment of partially-finished motorcycles was hustled out the door to the United States and Italy. Otto appeared to have faithfully repeated exactly those types of actions which brought him trouble in 1958. He did change his behavior in one way; preceding the 1983 bankruptcy, he no longer hid company assets in local barns, as he did the Maico 500 cars, years before, prior to the 1958 failure; this time, the press alleged, Otto exported products and capital overseas, where it would be far more difficult for the authorities to find.

Figure 143. Cartoon appearing in Schwagbisches Tagblatt, May 31, 1983. The caption read “Von der

Konkurrenz uberrollt und vom eigenen Chef zur Strecke gebracht.” (Translation: “Maico made to crash by

its President and run over by the competition.”) The German popular press, especially the Swabian

Schwagbisches Tagblatt, followed Maico’s bankruptcy carefully. The theme that Maico was a good business,

ruined by Maisch family graft, permeated the media’s coverage. (Source: Schwagbisches Tagblatt)

Later, during the trial proceedings, Otto was formally accused by the German authorities of bleeding off corporate assets and transferring them out of the country. Virtually none of this money was located and these charges, to my knowledge, were never proven. Considering all these established and alleged actions together, it is apparent that Otto Maisch and his daughters

491 allowed the company to founder (though not wanting the business to fail) while they ensured that their own financial futures were provided for. Instead of seeking a successful bankruptcy protection and working to ensure the company’s survival when it may have still been possible, the family focused on preparing for their own futures after Maico’s assumed failure. The bankruptcy manager assigned by the government, Dr. Grub, remarked that there was no hope immediately after his initial inspections of the company, noting that the bankruptcy should have been declared a year earlier, in 1982, if the company leadership had truly wished for Maico to survive.10 The actions taken by Otto Maisch and his daughters at the time (to redistribute Maico assets and capital) are damning. Particularly telling is a line from the May 31, 1983 issue of

Schwabische Tagblatt entitled “Maico Owes Maico.” The reference was to nearly DM 5.8M owed German Maico by Maico president Otto Maisch’s American distributors, Maico West and

Maico USA. This amount was the value of the 885 motorcycles rushed out the doors of the

Maico plant just before bankruptcy was declared. As the Otto Maisch family surely knew, these funds would have gone a long way in paying creditors. The payment for the shipment, along with other receipts, was never found.

With Maico’s finances in confusion during the last months, payments for products and services became erratic. Of the many vendors used by German Maico during the last tense years of 1981 through 1983, many were paid late or with promises. One corporate entity, however, was always paid on time. This fortunate business was the little real estate company that owned the land in Pfeffingen on which Maico Fahrzeugfabrik GmbH was situated. Der Spiegel noted that the owners of this real estate holding company were the members of the Otto Maisch family.11

Legal proceedings begin

10 “Fur Maico ist das Rennen gefaufen (For Maico, the Race is Run),” Schwabisches Tagblatt, May 31, 1983 11 “200 Mahnbescheide (200 Default Summons),” Der Spiegel, April 23, 1984. 492

Following a year of irregular findings by the bankruptcy administrator, in early 1984 the

German government issued arrest warrants for the Maico board of directors. The board consisted of Otto Maisch and daughters Ingrid di Censo and Gabriele Stickel. The seventy-nine-year-old

Otto was not well enough in the eyes of the court to endure arrest and trial, and was granted medical immunity from prosecution. Gabriele was arrested and was interned for a week in the

Leonberg Women’s Prison, until her bail of DM 50,000 was posted. This period was, Der

Spiegel mischievously suggested, “about the amount of time it would take for this amount of money to arrive from [Maico USA’s offices in] Suffolk, Virginia.”12 The paper’s theory, like that of those of most other individuals who investigated the case, was that German Maico’s liquid assets were now comfortably squirreled away with Otto’s overseas American holdings. These assets were never located.

Ingrid fled Germany after the bankruptcy, sometime in 1984, likely hiding in Italy with her husband. Since Germany and Italy had no established extradition treaty, there was little hope of Ingrid being involuntarily brought back to account for the allegations against her. Prosecutor

Reiner Christ warned, however, that if she were to “show up north of the Alps,” the arrest warrant would again take effect, and “the proceedings would begin immediately.”13

In early 1985, the case against German Maico came to a temporary halt. At the time, the court in Stuttgart found itself with daughter Gabriele Stickel as the sole prosecutable defendant, with the now eighty-year-old Otto protected from prosecution and Ingrid in hiding. The assembled charges against Gabriele were: late filing of the bankruptcy; breach of trust; conspiring with Otto Maisch in transferring the 885 motorcycles to the American subsidiaries and Italy at the last moment in May 1983 (knowing German Maico would never be paid); and

12Ibid. 13 “Untreue und Glaubigerbetrug (Embezzlement and Credit Fraud),” Schwabisches Tagblatt, March 30, 1985. 493 selling personal property (a DM 1.6M real estate property to her sister Ingrid’s husband) in order to protect personal assets from later liquidation for the benefit of Maico’s creditors.14 Other than her brief, two-week stay in Leonberg Women’s Prison and being dragged through the German courts and media, Gabriele apparently faced no other penalties.

Otto’s wife was implicated in the case, as well. Else Maisch was accused, like the others, of generally aiding and abetting the evisceration of a potentially successful foreclosure and bankruptcy proceeding. Finally, the Maisch family’s lawyers, who had advised the family on how they could protect their own estates (from the impending personal responsibility, having to do with their continued business dealings with vendors while knowing that the company would collapse and these vendors would not be paid), were prosecuted.

The extended trial experience was not pleasant for any of the Otto Maisch family. Otto’s defrauding of his suppliers and workers made him a pariah in Germany during his last years.

Starting in the summer of 1984, his creditors declared “war on all fronts” on the Otto Maisch family, according to the Schwabisches Tagblatt, August 3, 1984. Grub, the bankruptcy trustee, worked to have the father and daughters arrested to avoid any further bleeding away of personal assets. These personal assets, now fair game in the bankruptcy process, could have been used to pay Maico’s creditors. The lawyer for the Metalworkers Union (the union of most rank and file

Maico workers), Jorg Stein, celebrated these actions at the time. Precious little, however, would be left of Maico or Maisch fortunes, either from the bankruptcy sale or from personal assets which could be recovered from the Maisches, to make much of a difference to anyone. As with most bankruptcies, the company’s supplier/creditors and former employees bore the burden of

Maico’s downfall. Several German engineering firms, and possibly other companies worldwide,

14 Dr. Grub later determined that the proceeds from the sale of these motorcycles were diverted into two “finance companies” (owned by Otto Maisch) in Panama and Switzerland. (Schwabisches Tagblatt, March 15, 1984) 494 nearly went bankrupt themselves due to unpaid Maico bills.15 In the United States and abroad, many motorcycle dealers were affected, particularly if they had remained with Maico during the last painful years without diversifying into other brands. Fortunately for most Maico dealers, the writing was on the wall several years in advance of the failure, and time allowed them to prepare.16 Most American motorcycle dealers who handled Maico, except the smallest ones, were diversified and sold other brands simultaneously with the “boutique” Maico brand, thus cushioning the blow. In Germany, Maico’s employees were let go. Selvaraj Narayana, the last

Maico employee, soldiered on for the next few years at the old Maico factory, under the control of Grub. For several of those years, he was unexpectedly joined by some old friends in the

Maisch family, who had set up their new business on the same property.

A “New Maico” attempts to rise

As the bankruptcy proceedings unfolded, the previously dismissed Wilhelm Maisch brothers decided to re-enter the motorcycle business in 1984. The brothers bought the old equipment and rights to the Maico name at the bankruptcy sale, and even rented some of the old factory buildings (which were being held by German banks as security against the old Maico

Company’s debt). Moving the machinery back into the Pfeffingen site, the brothers went into business. This “new” Maico (Maisch Brothers) had several immense hurdles to breach if it was to survive. First, as the new company felt it necessary to release a 1984 model year Maico, they would need to create their 1984 motorcycle line mostly from already-dated 1983 motorcycle parts, using the tooling and spare parts they had purchased in the bankruptcy sale. The production 1984 M-Star machines were upgraded 1983 Maicos with the name “MAICO” ground

15 “Das schone Modell-Design trog (The Beautiful Model Deceived),” Schwabisches Tagblatt, December 27, 1991. 16 Interview with Dick Sidle by David Russell, November 12, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). Dick Sidle recalled advising his customers to avoid buying a Maico after 1981, although he was still a dealer for the brand. 495 off the engine, and sporting different decals and a few upgraded features (like water cooling, on the 250cc model). Second, they were not able to benefit from the use of the Maico name outside

Europe—assuming this even would still have been a benefit, given Maico’s recent reputation.

Making everything even more challenging was the fact that the previous United States Maico distribution system and dealer network (which they hoped to tie in to) was by then in ruins.

American Ted Lapadakis entered the picture as the American importer for the new

Maico. Lapadakis, at least a true “American motorcycle man” having been the United States importer for DKW and Zundapp motorcycles, and bringing a long history of involvement with racing and the industry. The new company was named Maisch Brothers Limited in Europe and

Lapadakis in the United States. The rights to the Maico name outside Europe at the time were in doubt, and Lapadakis was afraid to use it; thus, another name was needed for the motorcycle instead of Maico. Lapadakis’ idea for a name was “M-Star,” an awkward label that perhaps was meant to allude to Maico, but in practice sounded more like a laundry detergent than a great racing motorcycle. The odd name did nothing to promote sales in the United States.17 In Europe, the brothers marketed their motorcycles again as Maicos, having purchased the rights to the

Maico name. The brothers’ warmed-over 1983 Maicos sold poorly, both in Europe and in the

States, in 1984. 1985 models were little advanced from the 1984s, and likewise did not sell well.

Lapadakis’ prediction for American sales, the critical piece of the new company’s sales plan, did not materialize. As the new company struggled from week to week, falling more deeply into debt, salvation seemed to appear in the guise of a young American financier and company shareholder named Paul Gaston. The potential “white knight” Gaston, at the time the owner of the Boston Celtics basketball team, believed that within two years he could have M-Star selling

17 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell. 496

5,000 units annually again in the United States.18 He appreciated Maico’s history, saw great potential for the company in America, and was eager to try his hand in the motorcycle business.

Gaston of course needed Lapadakis’ agreement to sell him the company. Whatever the purchase offer was, Lapadakis refused to accept it. Wilhelm Maisch Jr. recalls Gaston being very disappointed with the refusal, and attempting resolution, but Lapadakis could not be moved.

With this opportunity denied them, sales insufficient, and cash reserves non-existent, the new company was doomed. Maisch Brothers entered bankruptcy in late 1987. Now, the entire Maisch family was out of the Maico business.

The legal proceedings end

The case continued, though sporadically. The very long and “most elaborate” court proceedings finally ended in late 1991. German legal authorities documented and proved extensive misbehavior on the parts of Otto and his daughters.19 Gabriele had previously been the focus of the court’s interest, when Ingrid and Otto were unavailable. Unlike Ingrid, Gabriele had not fled the country and had been thoroughly questioned by the court about her role in Maico.

Having already spent a short time in jail (prior to posting bail) in 1985, she apparently received no further penalty. With Otto now deceased and Gabriele having received her punishment, Ingrid bore the brunt of the court’s scrutiny in the trial’s final years. Ingrid stood accused of liquidating

Maico assets and depositing them into accounts she maintained in Panama and Switzerland, but this charge could not be proved. Otto, now deceased, was likewise accused of moving money and assets to his two American distributorships; as was the case with Ingrid, this was never proved (perhaps due in part to the difficulties and expense of the German investigators traveling to the United States. Grub flew to the United States in August, 1983, but after several weeks was

18 Paul Gaston is an American businessman and the former owner of the Boston Celtics from 1992-2002, which he sold for $360M in 2002. 19 “Ein Opfer vaterlicher Illusion (A Victim of Paternal Illusion),” Tubinger Chronik, December, 1991. 497 unable to locate the missing money, and returned to Germany.) Finally, the court noted Otto’s export of motorcycles to his two American distributors and Italy the week before Maico’s collapse, and the fact that the expected DM 5.8M for these deliveries never made it to German

Maico. Conspicuously, Otto’s two distributorships actually billed the parent company at the same time for DM 6M (nearly the same amount owed Maico for the bikes) for “deficient deliveries” and liability claims against any future accounts-receivable at the parent company.20

The two Otto-owned distributorships’ United States employees were absolved of any wrongdoing by both American and German investigators.

On the last exhausting day of the trial in December, 1991, now a nearly eight-year ordeal having involved many witnesses from Germany and the United States, Ingrid di Censo took the stand. Seized after returning to Germany years earlier, she had been placed back on trial. Ingrid rejected all allegations that she was responsible for any unscrupulous actions at Maico, and insisted that she had only diligently run the purchasing department and done nothing wrong. She vehemently accused her cousins (Wilhelm Jr., Peter, and Hans Maisch; and particularly

Wilhelm) of “sabotaging” the company in order to acquire it for pennies on the dollar in the aftermath of the failure.21 Aggressively defensive, Ingrid defended her father, sister, and herself to the end. (Ingrid’s earlier characterizations of the whole affair as nothing more than a “callous smear campaign” against her family; and resembling a “negro revolt” were similarly devoid of any personal acceptance of responsibility.22) Despite the court’s excusal of the now-deceased

Otto from prosecution, Ingrid insisted that the judge had essentially “murdered her father” years

20 These claims were likely legitimate, resulting from the many defective motorcycles sold in 1982 and 1983. The two American distributors do not appear to be accused of any wrongdoing by the German courts or bankruptcy administrators. 21 The court of lay assessors, however, ultimately found no evidence to point to any member of either family as having deliberately sabotaged the company. 22“Untreue und Glaubigerbetrug (Embezzlement and Credit Fraud),” Schwabisches Tagblatt, March 30, 1985. 498 earlier, as a result of the judge’s harsh accusations. Ingrid continued to claim that she and her family were victims of a great conspiracy on the part of her cousins. Circuit Judge Burghardt

Stein sentenced Ingrid to a (seemingly mild) two-year suspended sentence for her convictions for breach of trust and fraud.23

Back in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, former Eastern Maico distributor Dennie Moore learned that he had been awarded several hundred thousand dollars in a separate lawsuit for damages relating to his treatment by Maico, while contracted as a distributor. This was a hollow victory for Moore, at least financially, since there was then nothing left of the Maico Company from which he might collect. One small token granted Moore in his court victory was that he was permitted to use the Maico emblem in future business. He has never done so.

Elsewhere around the United States, those who believed in Maico also moved on. The presence of the famous machines in American riding and racing circles and around the world quickly declined; highly-tuned, maintenance-intensive competition motorcycles are soon rendered obsolete, and have a high mortality rate. Fated to obscurity by the next generation of riders in the United States, once highly-valued Maicos were left to molder in sheds and barns, or to rust away in landfills and salvage yards. Beyond Maico’s disappearance, other changes were occurring in sport motorcycling.

The post-“boom” sport motorcycling years

Interest in off-road motorcycling in the United States, as indicated by the sales of new motorcycles, slackened in the late 1970s from its 1973 high.24 Along with the decrease in

23 “Ein Opfer vaterlicher Illusion (A Victim of Paternal Illusion),” Tubinger Chronik, December, 1991. 24 Motorcycle Industry Council, “New Motorcycle Sales Top One Million for Record Sixth Consecutive Year,” Motorcycle Industry Council letter, February 13, 2009, http://www.mic.org/news021309.cfm, accessed May 8, 2014. 499 motorcycle sales, tolerance of off-road recreational riding in the United States eroded.25 Access to riding areas diminished, accompanying the moderate decline in interest and sales. Previously benign landowners, who had in earlier years not minded a few noisy youngsters on dirt bikes crossing over or riding on their property, now experienced a collective catharsis. They seemed to agree that the noise, vegetation damage, and concern about lawsuits now necessitated “No

Trespassing” signs.26 Permission to benignly ride a mini-bike in a vacant field on the edge of an

American town in 1970 was mostly taken for granted. By 1980, this act transgressed into the category of trespassing and vandalism—much like skateboarding’s trajectory. On February 2,

1972, President Nixon issued Executive Order 11644, which mandated regulation of the use of off-road vehicles on public lands. As Ed Youngblood writes, the order signaled for off-road sport motorcyclists, “the official declaration of a war for public lands that continues to the present day.”27 As the 1990s arrived, other types of resistance to off-road riding intensified. Besides its own restriction of vast tracts of public land from off-road riding, California tightened its exhaust emissions requirements in 1980, so much so that street-going two stroke motorcycles were effectively banned. 28 Off-road sport motorcycle manufacturers, whose bikes were overwhelmingly powered by two-stroke engines, knew their machines would be targeted next.

On the national stage, the National Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) progressively tightened its air quality requirements, as well.29 In response, manufacturers voluntarily moved

25 The withdrawal of state and national lands from the list of legal off-road motorcycle riding areas has progressed, in particular, due to ecological concerns and particularly allegations that motorcycles, and in some cases any human contact, harms animal and plant life. The United States Bureau of Land Management has especially been a bane to off-road riders in the West. 26 Personal observations by the author and other riders interviewed. 27 Ed Youngblood, “The Birth of the Dirt Bike,” International Journal of Motorcycle Studies, July, 2007, http://ijms.nova.edu/July2007/IJMS_Artcl.Youngblood.html. 28 “Motorcycle Noise and Emissions,” www.riderzlaw.com/Motorcycle-Info/Motorcycle-Laws/Noise-and- Emissions.aspx., accessed December 18, 2014. 29 “Frequently Asked Questions; Clean Air Act of 2002,” www.epa.gov/otaq/regs/roadbike/420f03045.pdf, accessed December 18, 2014. 500 towards less polluting (and more expensive) four-stroke sport motorcycles. Restricted by noise regulations, land access, and cost, off-road sport motorcycle rider numbers fell to their lowest by the early 1990s (although motorcycle sales began to climb again in 1992).30

The 1980s were particularly harsh times for the older European companies in the sport motorcycle industry. The failure of Maico, a typical small manufacturer competing against the huge Japanese companies, was not an exception in this group. The European companies had to face not only the excellent quality of the Japanese products, but also the disadvantage of competing for sales when the Japanese Yen was greatly devalued, compared to European currencies. During the 1970s and through the 1980s, many of the other small iconic European manufacturers would disappear: Ossa, Bultaco, Monark, Puch, CZ, DKW, and Zundapp.31 In

England, the great British BSA, Norton, AJS, Royal Enfield and Matchless brands likewise had turned off their lights by the end of the 1970s, with Triumph barely holding on. The vacuum left by these failures was immediately filled by the Japanese “Big Four,” and these companies solidified their market shares by building exceptional and often lower-priced motorcycles.

Unlike the varied and unique sport machines they replaced, however, the Japanese bikes were mostly identical: mechanical look-alikes, differing only in the color of the plastic. Honda acquired Spanish hold-out Montesa as a hedge to European import restrictions in the early 1980s, at least propagating the Montesa name, if not the design. Husqvarna continued in Sweden for a while, but was eventually purchased by Italian Cagiva and removed from the country (the

Husqvarna name would, after two more purchases by BMW and then KTM, rise again).

Austria’s KTM weathered the global economic problems and the oriental onslaught, with help

30 “U.S. Motorcycle Sales by Year 1992-2013,” WebBikeWorld, www.webbikeworld.com/.../motorcycle-sales- statistics.htm. 31 Puch continued as a Moped manufacturer for several years after ceasing motorcycle production; CZ stopped making motorcycles, but continued as a weapons manufacturer. 501 from the Austrian government, and now stands as the “other” popular dirt bike one can buy, as an alternative to the Japanese products.

Off-road riding and competition continued to thrive in the face of challenges, even if in fewer numbers than in the 1970s growth years. Motorcycles became more expensive as the technology progressed, even as most of the big engineering questions had seemingly all been answered. By the late 1980s, water-cooled engines, long-travel monoshock rear suspensions, and disc brakes were standard on dirt bikes. Engine performance had reached its zenith, and two- stroke 500cc machines faded out of production (having become, essentially, too powerful), replaced by easier-to-ride, smaller-capacity two-strokes and the ever-expanding four-stroke market segment. In a few more years, air quality concerns with two-stroke exhaust emissions, as expected, brought about the two-stroke’s virtual replacement by four-stroke machines.

Engineering progress was now measured in the tiniest of degrees with each passing year, unlike the major advancements in the sport’s new, exciting years of the 1960s and 1970s.

While much cleaner-running, one major disadvantage of the new, low-emissions sport motorcycles is the high purchase and maintenance costs of these machines. With new machines commanding an average $10,000 purchase price in 2014, and necessitating $3,000 engine rebuilds annually (if used in competition), the costs have reduced accessibility to young riders from middle-class families. (As a comparison, a union pipefitter in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, earning $18,000 annually in 1970, could purchase a 400 Maico for about $1,100, or 06% of his annual income. The same pipefitter, in 2014, earning $60,000 annually will have to spend 16% of his annual income for a new 450 Honda; nearly a three-fold increase in relative cost.32 If racing the motorcycle, he will also be faced with the much more relatively expensive engine

32 Email exchange between the author and Terry Peck, former Plumbers and Pipefitters Local Union 520 business manager, December 17, 2014. 502 rebuilds, as noted above.) By comparison, the elite and expensive Maico motorcycles of the past were far cheaper to operate, in relative terms, than contemporary high-performance motorcycles are, today.

The 1981 Maico 490 is still remembered as the benchmark from which the modern dirt bike evolved. Its frame dimensions and measurements constitute the beginning of the “modern” dirt bike. 33 Every so often, a magazine or internet blogger brings out a 1981 Maico 490 and compares it against the current offerings. Perhaps this is to determine if the old motorcycle really was as good as he remembers it, or as the motor historians write that it was. Or, maybe it is a desire on the enthusiast’s part to show how far, given the hyper-engineered sport motorcycles of the present day, real performance has (or has not) actually progressed.34

Whatever the circumstances of Maico’s corporate collapse, the factory at Pfeffingen still must be credited with producing some of the best sport motorcycles in the world, from the 1950s through its end in 1983. While other manufacturers produced machines during these decades that were indeed exceptional, riders rarely felt out-classed astride a late-model Maico. The Maico was a superior-quality, innovative competition motorcycle with strong ties to the United States riding culture. It was a creation of which everyone involved could be proud: the Maisch family and the German workers; and also all the American distributors, dealers and riders who accounted for Maico’s rise to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Maico was, during its best years, “just a little bit better” than every other motorcycle available.35 That a small, family-owned European manufacturer defied the advancing Japanese motorcycle

33 Interview with Selvaraj Narayana by David Russell, June 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 34 To view these discussions and tests, type “Maico 490 vs.” into a search engine. Two examples are:https://transmoto.com.au/time-machines-1981-maico-490gs-v-yamaha-wr450f/ (1981 Maico GS490 versus a 2010 Yamaha WR450F); www.endurobiketalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=6003.0 (1981 Maico GS490 versus a 2003 KTM 525SX). Both accessed December 17, 2014. 35 Interview with Eric Bley by David Russell, March 21, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 503 behemoth for as long as it did; not only avoiding the monster but besting it in racing wins, sales, and innovation for many of those years; is a triumph of audacity and excellence in business.36

36 Rick Sieman, “What Killed Maico?” Reprinted as “Maico Stories” at VMX Unlimited, www.vmxunlimited.com/pages/Maico-Stories.html, Accessed March 8, 2014. Sieman notes not only Maico’s superiority as a racing bike, but also its overwhelming sales success in the open-class Maicos category. 504

7.2 CONCLUSIONS

In this chapter I will readdress the questions posed in chapter 1.1, as well as return to my basic arguments. Several of these arguments, such as those dealing with Maico’s technical advances, marketing successes, and 1983 failure, have been explained in other chapters. After a brief discussion of the motorcycle as material culture, I will revisit the Maico and sport motorcycle rider subculture, providing some final comments about the owners, riders, and observers who made up this group.

First, I will return to the distinctive aesthetics of the Maico motorcycle, and why it looks the way it does. The severe, angular lines and forms making up the Maico are not entirely different from other motorcycles of the time. The Czechoslovakian CZ and Austrian Puch designs shared several similarities with Maico. Even the colors used by CZ and Puch were not dissimilar to Maico: Yellow, white, red, and blue for the CZs; and red, yellow, and blue for the

Puchs. The differences in external appearance between the Maico and the CZs, Puchs, and other dirt bikes of the time reduce to two primary areas: the unfinished, unpolished metal surfaces on the Maico; and the unique shape of the Maico fiberglass tanks. Both these factors convey something of an unfinished, crude quality to the onlooker, belying the exacting tolerances and quality material inside. The reasons for Maico’s decision not to polish engine cases and hard- chrome fork legs likely lay in fundamental business economics: it was cheaper to do so, and not spending resources on external polishing and other superficial touches did not affect performance. Maico’s indifferent attitude towards paint work and decal application was similarly motivated (yet undoubtedly hurt the company, eventually, when compared to the fine finish of the Japanese competition). While all other manufacturers at the time, even overly-rugged, farm- implement-like producer CZ, elected to polish their outer engine cases, in the accepted style of

505 the time, Maico broke with this practice. I noted no period writer or tester complaining that

Maico did not polish their engine cases; the dull, sand-cast surfaces instead transmitted a message of serious, no-nonsense machinery. There was a minimalist, functional appeal to the

Maico’s non-decorative look, and this look was accepted by buyers, at least in the early days. As the “Japanese invasion” progressed, however, Maico’s lack of concern for details did the company harm.

Maico’s use of the angular fiberglass fuel tanks is another incidence of the company breaking with traditional aesthetics and practice. While local competitors CZ and Puch likewise produced angular, faceted tanks, Maico’s tanks went further. Most likely designed by Kottlep

Hafs (or conceivably another engineer, prior to 1968; records are non-existent) the Maico fuel tanks are highly individualistic in their outward appearance.1 Created in molds from fiberglass and resin, the design cannot attribute its look to manufacturing simplicity; a rounded tank would have been easier to make. Nor can we say that the design is ergonomically superior; its angular backside was, if anything, potentially dangerous to riders in a crash. Whether or not it was a conscious design statement on the behalf of its creators, the distinctive Maico tank became the distinctive symbol of this performance motorcycle: a brightly-colored Maico gas tank with a

“flying M” decal signified a thoroughbred racing machine and an in-the-know owner/rider.

Buyers in the United States, accounting for half of all Maico sales world-wide, approved of the

Maico’s “serious” look and enjoyed the pride that accompanied owning a Maico.2

Besides pride of ownership, what did the Maico motorcycle mean to American riders and

American culture? As I have noted, the Maico’s appearance was unlikely to be ignored. Had the

1 Interview with Selvaraj Naraya by David Russell, June 27, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 2 Interview with Craig Shambaugh by David Russell, September 11, 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 506 machine not been a good one, these looks might have become the target of derision and laughter.

MZ, a contemporary East German motorcycle with a similar rough outward appearance but lacking Maico’s performance, never attracted many buyers in the United States and was something of a joke among sports riders. In Maico’s case, bolstered by impressive performance, these distinctive looks became a selling point. When a product itself is of good quality, even outrageous appearance can work to advantage. Elton John’s elaborate 1970s stage outfits and the cultivated weirdness of Andy Warhol are period examples of how unusual appearance can enhance a product’s acceptance. Looking different and being good often assist in the creation of a winning combination in the late twentieth century American popular culture.

The Maico’s known quality, exclusivity, and price all contributed to making the machine the motorcycle equivalent of the finest sports cars for American motorcyclists. The writer of the

1984 Otto Maisch letter to Maico dealers, of course, made this exact analogy, when they wrote that Maico was “an image in the U.S. that has often been compared to that of Mercedes Benz,

Porsche and BMW.”3 The Maico’s rugged, unconventional appearance amplified this aura of quality and potential speed in the same way as a bright red sports car with cast magnesium wheels and wide tires would do. Its looks were emblematic of serious intent on the part of its owner/rider. Even the sans-serif MAICO letters and the wings-and-shield logo conveyed a no- nonsense, warlike sensibility. For an American boy in the 1970s who was interested in dirt bikes and had at least been exposed to the brand, there was probably no cooler, no more darkly- mysterious and slightly threatening motorcycle than a Maico. Husqvarnas, CZs, Bultacos, and

3 Otto Maisch, form letter to American Maico dealers, May 21, 1984 (transcribed from Maico Off-road Motorcycles and Registry, https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MAICOMOTORCYCLES/info). 507

Yamahas could all be good bikes and all had their devoted adherents; Maico, though, was in another class entirely.4

Maico built upon this reputation for power with its creation of the iconic 501cc engine, which was created at the suggestion of Americans, primarily for Americans. This large capacity engine, its displacement making it at the time the largest single-cylinder two-stroke motorcycle engine made, became a legend in United States motorcycling and contributed to the Maico myth

(of supreme handling and power). Its fame for both size and extreme power output fit nicely into the already-common “no substitute for cubic inches” American philosophy of engine size and power. It is pertinent to note that the 501 did not engage European buyers: it vibrated too much.5

Yet the 501 was, by virtue of its size, a motorcycle that even the non-riding American motor enthusiast at least respected. It was loud, over-powered and over-the-top; a mechanical allegory to the United States. The 450 Maico, and later the 490, both served to propagate the correlation of Maico with extreme power.

Enthusiasts in the United States no doubt admired Maico motorcycles; a great many to the point of buying a Maico. Dr. Seth Wolpert (one of my dissertation committee members) drew upon this fact in February of 2015, when he asked an insightful question: “If Americans loved the Maico so much, why didn’t they rally to its rescue in the 1980s, as American Harley enthusiasts did for Harley-Davidson when that institution neared failure?” The answer is that buyers in the United States did not “love” the Maico motorcycle (or its manufacturer) in the same way that Americans love Harley-Davidson. Maico riders respected the Maico. Unlike

Harley-Davidson, Maico was not intertwined with the country’s historical memory. The Maico

4 Authorities interviewed for this dissertation and quoted elsewhere, to include Rick Sieman, John Barclay, Mark Firkin, Barry Higgins, and Greg Smith, all attested to Maico’s superiority in the years since 1970. 5 Interview with Wilhelm Maisch Jr. by David Russell, (date not recorded) 2008, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Russell Motorcycle Sport Collection, Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, Penn State Harrisburg). 508 was a fine product, and riders were proud to wear its name emblazoned on their jerseys; this had meaning for them. However, when the Maico company failed to uphold its end of the bargain— to make their expensive motorcycle superior to others, and give the buyer an advantage—

American riders abandoned Maico. Furthermore, a definite cultural divide existed between some of the Germans and some of the Americans conducting Maico business at the time. Whether the

Germans were “still fighting World War II (as Dennie Moore describes them),” or simply had inherent cultural differences with the Americans (as Wilhelm Maisch Jr. remembers the relationship), Maico’s place in the United States market was that of a highly respected institution and product—but one held at arm’s length.

One last point to be revisited, relating to the motorcycle itself, is that of the effect of

Maico’s long-travel rear suspension (LTR) on motorcycle design. The implications of LTR suspension, first attached to a Maico in 1973 and placed into production in 1974, influenced motorcycle design ever since. The origin of LTR has long been debated, insofar as whether it was Maico or Yamaha which originated the concept. To briefly re-visit the points made in previous chapters, it is clear that Maico knew something of Yamaha’s experimentation with the monoshock LTR concept in 1973, prior to their creation of their own twin-shock LTR motocrosser.6 However, to infer that Maico field engineers immediately realized and understood the handling and response rate advantages of Yamaha’s innovation is unrealistic; seventy years of prior motorcycle design convention had informed their belief that several inches of suspension travel (six inches front and four inches rear) was perfectly adequate. And, as noted previously,

Yamaha was not the first motorcycle factory to incorporate either the monoshock or forward- mounted shocks. Vincent, AJS, and Husqvarna, to name a few, had already done this—though admittedly not achieving “long-travel” as we understand it today.

6 Ibid. 509

We can confidently state that Maico at least shares credit with Yamaha for the long-travel revolution, and clearly must be noted for being the first to actually sell production LTR motorcycles to the public. Maico also held an early lead in making long-travel really work, and maintained this lead across the industry for years. In the end, Yamaha’s monoshock was indeed the “wave of the future.” Yet Maico, transitioning slowly and progressively from the standard twin-shock rear suspensions of the 1970s, was the entity which primarily bestowed on both the industry and the riders an understanding of the benefits long-travel. Maico maintained an edge in suspension and handling through the 1981 motorcycles (only to bring about their own destruction with the release of the poorly-designed 1982 monoshock models). Another Maico contribution to motorcycle design came in 1981. The 1981 models were so good, even while retaining twin-shock rear suspensions, that they established the standard basic frame geometry and dimensions for all later dirt bikes.7 Besides their long-travel rear ends, Maico’s rigid, leading-axle, “front-steering” front geometry foreshadowed standard modern front end design.

As I have noted, Maico was the only manufacturer through the late-1970s to use this design.

Ultimately, every other modern manufacturer copied Maico’s practice, a prescient design the company had instituted in the mid-1960s.

Let us now turn away from the motorcycle, and toward the riders and observers who associated with it. Among my principal arguments is that motorcycle sports riders (of which

Maico riders were a part) differ significantly from biker, transportation, and other motorcycle subcultures; and also that Maico owners exemplified this group (the Maico being among the most competitive, expensive, and maintenance-intensive of all the sporting motorcycles available in the 1960s through the 1980s). What then can we say about these men?

7 Interview with Selvaraj Naryana by David Russell. 510

The Americans who bought Maicos were mostly serious competitors, and a subset within the greater universe of off-road sport riders. These were usually young men who sought the most capable racing motorcycle they could obtain, and were willing to pay the high price and devote the extra hours needed to maintain such a thoroughbred machine.8 Those few owners who came by a Maico without a full commitment—the young boys described by Jim McCabe, for example, whose fathers bought them a 125, along with their purchase of a larger bike for themselves— generally had bad luck with the machine. “Maico break-o” was the synopsis of such an unprepared ownership experience, while knowledgeable Maico owners knew what was expected of them and considered the machines at least as reliable as the next make. For the unprepared buyer, the (soon-to-be) non-running Maico was eventually pushed into a shed or sold, and a more reliable and less expensive Japanese motorcycle likely took its place. To buy a Maico for simply “play-riding” on the trails was possible, but was akin to using a Ferrari to deliver the mail, and impractical. The Maico was too expensive and too maintenance-intensive to be nonchalantly trail-ridden, used around the farm, or ridden occasionally and ignored till the next outing. Only the most dedicated enthusiast purchased his second Maico.

Looking further, what might we say about these mens’ social tendencies, economic and educational backgrounds, upbringings, and practices? Some of their traits, such as the willingness to take risk, are universal among motorcyclists. Other facets, such as religious practice and political outlook, or race and class, are more nuanced.

American motorcycle competitors and dedicated off-road riders share a value system based upon and reflecting the desires to perform at their best, meet a challenge, and enjoy the riding experience. “Social deviance” (a term Steven E. Alford and Suzanne Ferriss use to refer to the varying mix of sexism, racism, alienation, and fascination with violence that marks more

8 The men interviewed in my research were all in their early twenties at the height of their riding/competition years. 511 extreme biker culture) is not part of this value system.9 It is in this critical way that these men, and their familial support network of wives and children, differ from the (largely mythic) set of behaviors which is identified as biker culture. To take the comparison further, the two groups are in opposition to one another. Looking back on two sequential and seminal events in biker mythology, the “Hollister riot” of 1947 and the film interpretation, The Wild One, we should remember that a key component of the clash of cultures at Hollister, California, was not between hoodlums and townspeople, but between the hoodlums and the racers.10 Hollister, for motorcyclists, is the collision between traditional competition-oriented motorcycle sport riders

(belonging to the American Motorcyclist Association, or AMA) and early non-AMA socially deviant biker culture. The AMA, in response to Hollister, sought to distance itself from the bad apples that captured the public’s imagination. It emphasized that the organization represented the law-abiding “ninety-nine percent” of American motorcyclists, as opposed to the law-breakers who constituted that regrettable “one percent” poisoning the motorcycling’s image.11 The gangs in turn mockingly adopted the “One Percenter” scolding, proclaiming the label as a source of pride to this day.12 Meanwhile, the other “ninety-nine percent” (or at least many of them), have endured the outlaw characterization ever since. Sport riders may be “tough” in a relative way, to more genteel Americans, but this is part of being a physical risk-taker. Further separating them from the bikers is an individualist mindset (as opposed to the bikers’ general search for group

9 Steven E. Alford and Suzanne Ferriss, Motorcycle (London: Reaktion Books, Ltd., 2007), 114-16. 10 Tom Reynolds, Wild Ride: How Outlaw Myth Conquered America (New York: TV Books, 2000), 45-58. The “Hollister Riot” is based upon the July 4, 1947 weekend when gang leader William Forkner’s aptly-named “Boozefighters,” forerunners of the Hell’s Angels, descended upon sleepy Hollister, California. The Boozefighters generally disrupted the scheduled AMA racing agenda, winding up drunk and in jail. The media’s exaggerated, salacious reporting of the incident built up the gang’s antics into a virtual cataclysm of good versus evil; of America under siege by pagan monsters. The general Hollister myth was made into a movie in 1952, The Wild One, which established both American public consensus about bikers, and road-rider clothing fashion from that point, forward. 11 Barbara Joans, Bike Lust: Harleys, Women, & American Society (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001), 16, 68. 12 “99 percent” and “1 percent” were terms believed to have been first voiced nationally by an unnamed spokesman for the AMA, in response to growing American resentment with—and condemnation of— “outlaw biker” incidents. 512 identity and belonging).13 They are not conformists who desire “to be a part of the larger community so much that they would adjust their morality and ethics to those of the community,” as David Halberstam writes; a description that could be easily tied to biker culture.14 These men are, to a great degree, the real-life examples of the individualistic, risk-taking competitors glorified by generations of American authors such as Herman Melville, James Fenimore Cooper,

Jack London, and Ernest Hemingway.

Motorcycle competitors tend to forgo convention and lock-step comportment so much so that negative outcomes may result; particularly as their riding activities affect their working lives. Acting in the face of what more conservative Americans might consider simple practicality and prudent planning for the future, avid motorcycle racers and riders in the cases I studied sometimes sacrificed later, middle age comfort for the desires of youthful competition in the here-and-now. Perhaps only the person who has led a pack of screaming motorcycles through the last lap and toward the finish line, when the engine begins to fail, recognizes this thought process: that if they can only win, now, the expensive engine—and, in the larger picture, much else—will be gladly sacrificed.

Indeed, one way in which sport riders in the United States did relate to their countrymen was the way in which they pursued competitive success as opposed to (and often at the expense of) economic status. The struggle was something of an end in itself. Craig Shultz (the motorcycle racing son of cartoonist Charles M. Shultz and the inspiration for Shultz’s “Joe Motocross”

Peanuts character in the 1970s) stated: “You will definitely lose many more times than you’ll ever win. In motocross, we all learn that losing comes with the sport. We learn to put up with failure week in and week out, and we are better people for it. We learn to cope with that failure

13 Joans, Bike Lust: Harleys, Women, & American Society, 16-18. 14 David Halberstam, The 1950s (New York: Villard Books, 1993), 533. 513 and realize how fleeting success can be. We cherish the feeling of victory with the knowledge that it won’t last but a few short days at best. We love this sport because, for the few precious seconds that we are airborne or blasting a berm, there is no better feeling in the world. If we could hold onto it forever, we would.”15 David Potter wrote of the way in which American life was “geared to success rather than status.” Potter noted that “the American measures his own worth by the distance which he has progressed from his point of departure rather than by the position he occupies. . .” 16 Potter had no doubt of the existence of an American “national character” identified by an innate drive to compete, and the willingness of the off-road racers to accept risk for success—to win in competition—fit precisely into his idea of what comprised an

American. Although Potter’s concept of a national character has been contested in recent years,

American motorcyclists seem to have not gotten the word.

Just as these men did not assimilate into the new conformist middle-class of the 1950s, neither did they join with the radicalism of the 1960s. Their excitement was gained from the inherent risk and thrill of high-performing motorcycles, not from revolt against the status quo.

Racers and off-road riders, being generally working men who necessarily valued self-reliance, hard work, and responsibility, were not easy converts to the counterculture. They represented, in fundamental ways, the value system of Nixon’s silent majority. They harbored no “chic hatred of

America,” and would snigger at the idea of “liberated zones” during the counterculture’s heyday.17 Older riders in the 1970s were commonly ex-military, and in the many hundreds of pieces of period motorcycle literature I have read, I have not encountered one statement that

15 Craig Shultz, “Meet Joe Motocross,” RacerX Illustrated, October 2008, 180. 16 Potter, People of Plenty, 48. 17 Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the 60s (New York: Free Press Paperbacks, 1996), 290. I leave actuarial surveys of political stances of motorcyclists to others. However, I can state that of the hundreds of sports motorcyclists I have met in my life, though they represent many political and social outlooks, I can think of none that would characterize themselves as “liberal” in the general sense of the word. 514 could be considered “anti-military” or “radical” in any way. Dirt Bike Magazine founder Rick

Sieman, speaking for the 1970s and 1980s sport motorcycle rider as much or more than anyone, made frequent note of his service in the U.S. Navy, and typified the general rugged, pro-

American, muscular tone of all United States motorcycle culture. As their distantly-related, reactionary Hell’s Angels cousins often did, motorcycle racers would be among the first to take a fist to the radical protestors, if the anti-America chants became too loud.

Motorcycling, in all its forms, undoubtedly embraces an idea of freedom, but not anarchy. It is a structured and naturally hierarchical system (in sport riding), based upon rules, physics, and a rider’s skill. These racers were mostly not hippies, leftists, or new bohemians, although there were some superficial exceptions. Nearly all 1970s riders had long hair, but this was, as Tim Hart noted, simply the style of the times. When early 1970s California “hippie” motocross star Brad Lacky noticeably mounted a “peace dove” on his handlebars, Dirt Bike

Magazine noted that Lackey at the same time curiously portrayed the “all-seeing eye,” taken from a United States one-dollar bill, on either side of his gas tank. The Dirt Bike writer insinuated that perhaps the left-leaning dove was being counterbalanced by the capitalist symbol.

Instead of being “radicals,” the off-road sport riders and competitors of the 1970s were, more often than not, the predictable descendents of their parents: blue-collar, generally apolitical, and slightly to the right. Their “counterculture” was basic, not attached to politics, and aimed at personal liberation and exhilaration through mastery of a fast and risky pastime.

This somewhat conservative and slightly-right-leaning (if not apolitical) worldview was mostly an outgrowth of the riders’ socio-economic conditions. These were generally bred from blue-collar American stock. Additionally, professional work in a mechanical trade and access to a truck, van, or trailer helped make possible their riding passions. And, most ideally, being a

515 motorcycle dealer optimized the ability to ride and race. The access to motorcycles and parts at cost, and the ability to write off expenses to their business, eased the expenses of racing. Such a man could also juggle his work schedule to allow for occasional long drives. Mathew Crawford notes that the small businessman, craftsman, or tradesman is, in fact, often more independent than the white collar worker, at the same time as late-twentieth-century American educational theory and practice tend to discourage physical labor and blue-collar work as confining and limiting.18 The independent tradesman can probably defer a brick-laying or plumbing job by a day or two, but corporate schedules and college lectures are constricted by time. Such independence enabled blue-collar working men to engage in racing to a greater degree than

American white collar, knowledge, or other professional workers, who were more bound to the responsibilities and schedules of their professional work and social obligations.

Without statistical evidence it is difficult to define the religious tendencies of racers, versus the American culture at large. However, some assumptions can be made. Since most organized racing occurs on Sundays, we can see clearly that these men (and in many cases, their families), if they were Sunday Sabbath worshipers, were willing to miss church on a regular basis.19 Saturday-Sabbath worshipers were in no better a situation, as Saturdays generally constituted the travel and preparation days for a race. While some sort of religious support was available at races from designated “chaplains,” the racing circuit certainly deprived these men and their families from as close a participatory relationship with church as those who stayed home on weekends. Therefore, we might characterize racing families as being less religious (at least in church associated behavior) than American society at large. Perhaps their spirituality was

18 Mathew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work (London: Penguin Press, 2009), 18-19. 19 One acquaintance of the author recently noted that his father took him to race only after their early church service each Sunday. 516 found at the track, as Ralph Waldo Emerson found his in the woods. On the other hand, most

Sunday race meetings to this day have some sort of non-denominational chapel service on

Sundays, which is significant—and probably more than can be said for other contemporary youth activities, for which Sunday has become a primary competition day. Steve Wise, a highly respected professional motocross and road-racing champion in the 1970s and early 1980s, formed Steve Wise Ministry after retiring from racing and obtaining a ministerial degree. Even in today’s more rarified religious environment, “Christian motocross” websites abound on the internet without a hint of irony.20 In comparison to the other Sunday recreational events which do not make this provision, we might infer that religion remains at least somewhat important to some sport motorcyclists. Ultimately, I suggest that the religious involvement of sport motorcyclists during Maico’s time (and today) was slightly, if not dramatically less active, than that of non-motorcyclists.

Considering gender, we see that motorcycle sport riders and racers are overwhelmingly male. The reasons for this are predictable. Physical strength, acculturation (particularly the normative roles for women in American society) and the tendency of males to engage in high- risk activities are the principal reasons men dominate the sport. A tendency towards mechanical pursuits, while certainly not an absolute gender marker, is also often more associated with masculine habits. Females did (and do) ride and compete on motorcycles, and “Powder Puff” was a term used to describe women’s class racing events in the 1970s. Some American women achieved great honors even while competing with men on their own terms. Debbie Evans was a champion 1970s observed trials rider who became a leading Hollywood stunt rider, appearing in over 200 movies, and is still active. Nor can we ignore the many women who not only

20 Examples of these websites/organizations include: PanicREV Christian Motocross, Zoo Ministries Christian Motocross and Supercross Ministry, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes Motocross Ministry, and Motocross for Christ. 517 participated, but accomplished great things, from the very earliest days of the motorcycle in the

United States.21 In off-road motorcycle sport in the 1970s, however, the majority of female involvement was in the role of wives, mothers, and girlfriends, accompanying their male riders and supporting them in various capacities. Women’s status in the sport was not demeaned, although it seems to have reflected the general times and practices of American society at large.

Brian Thompson, Denny Swartz, and Jeanne Lokey recalled a generally accommodating attitude towards women. Dennie Moore (though perhaps over-emphasizing his case while relating the rough side of late 1960s competition events) remembered there being “no respect for women.” Yet not even in Moore’s description does the treatment of and respect for women by the sport culture approach the low points described by Alford and Ferriss, or by Joans, in reference to prevailing Harley/biker archetypes. Created initially around the Hollister myth, given image in The Wild One and later motor-exploitation films, and strengthened by 1960s biker myth, the image has dictated gender roles in biker culture for decades. In this culture,

Alford and Ferriss suggest that, “Women, largely unwillingly, were cast as minor characters in this masculinist drama, undoing decades of independence won by hopping on a motorcycle and leaving their parents, their husband, their town.” Alford and Ferriss go on to regret the prevailing norms in this culture, where women are eternally cast as “girls whose sole function is to be part of the decor, or female passengers content merely to act as accessories to the bike.”22 While women as “accessories” remain a part of professional sport/racing culture (often in the form of

“umbrella girls,” the latest manifestation of the 1970s Champion Spark Plug girls and similar

21 Alford and Ferriss, Motorcycle, 98-111. Women are on record as having traversed the United States on motorcycles, often alone or with other women, from the earlies years in American motorcycle history. 22 Alford and Ferriss, Motorcycle, 207-8. 518 marketing schemes), the practice here never nears the seemingly misogynistic levels which accompany the “biker lifestyle” or even harder faux- or real outlaw cultures.23

The role of women in both off-road and on-road motorcycle communities appears to be changing today. More girls ride off-road, and the number of women at the controls of street motorcycles has visibly increased. In the realm of Harley-Davidson, always precariously straddling a netherworld between officially sanctioned wholesome fun and the attraction to actual biker deviance, the proper role of women is contested. Harley-Davidson graciously accommodates traditionalist women passengers in their Ladies of Harley company-sponsored club, while women who demand the right to ride themselves are marginally encouraged by the mega-brand’s devotees.24 One recent bright spot in women’s entry to riding is that of “adventure touring,” where many more women appear to be becoming riders. Here, at last, street-riding women do not have to behave in an “adaptive response to male road culture,” as Joans describes women in the Harley culture.25 Adventure touring tends to involve moderately sized motorcycles, and is void of the usual motorcycle gender stereotypes.

That sport motorcycle culture remains so invisible, when contrasted against the larger

American culture of the 1960s and 1970s, suggests its essential conformity with that culture.

While motorcycling’s anti-social element has always garnered the greatest media attention and still holds a voyeuristic fascination on the part of many observers in the United States, off-road riding, road-riding for transportation, and most motorcycle sports continue within American culture as a part of its fabric. Motorcycling, and motorcyclists, enjoyed an overwhelmingly positive image in America in its early years. The first damage to the sport’s image came about in

23 “Umbrella girls” are usually paid models in who hold umbrellas over the heads of racers at the starting line of a race. Most commonly seen in professional road-racing, the practice makes some sense: the racers’ leather outfits, under direct sun, can become unbearable. 24 Joans, Bike Lust: Harleys, Women, & American Society, 86, 119, 127-8. 25 Ibid, 131. 519 the early 1920s. At that time, public revulsion to the increasingly horrendous crashes and injuries occurring in the then-popular board track racing—not to mention the influx of betting, prostitutes, and alcohol at the events—culminated in the manufacturers abandoning the sport by the late 1920s.26 Negative public opinion then abated for several decades, with the 1930s bringing the “golden era of motorcycle clubs,” as motorcycle historian Harry Sucher describes the time. In the late 1940s, public opinion about motorcycles again changed for the worse. Some returning servicemen started motorcycle gangs, whose primary charter seemed to be that of binge drinking and anti-social behavior. The gang culture achieved its mythic moment in July, 1947, in the press’s reporting of the Hollister incident. It is under the influence of Hollister and The Wild

One that the American public’s opinion of motorcycling’s ethics, to a great degree, still resides.

All the while, sport riding and racing continued; practiced by middle-class Americans who simultaneously disdained the lawless aspects of other motorcycle riders.

Ultimately, we see that sport motorcyclists were not that different from any other rank- and-file Americans. Their behavior patterns were not exceptional, and their embrace of an avocation that could possibly hurt them could be considered as American as any other hobby.

Nor did motorcycle racing pull them into countercultural or antisocial practices. It was the “boy next door” who raced dirt bikes, helped by his mother and father, who were likely traveling together to events. The key cultural values and rules of comportment differed little between sport riders and non-riders in the United States, and the sport riders were always philosophically closer to mainstream America than they were to their distant two-wheeled relatives, engaged in the biker lifestyle. In fact, based upon the differences in physicality, socialization (with respect to joining a group), type of motorcycle ridden, and expectations, the two motorcycling groups can be seen as mutually-exclusive.

26 Harry V. Sucher, The Iron Redskin (Sparkford, Somerset: Haynes Publishing Group, 1990), 123-5. 520

During the great period of popularity in sport riding, the 1970s, Maico was the brand of an elite group of these riders in the United States. Maico promised performance and victory, and—when the machine was treated with the requisite care—delivered on this promise. The name symbolized excellence, and served to identify and link those American sport enthusiasts who were the most committed to riding and racing. The United States consumed half of all

Maicos produced, and American preferences helped guided the motorcycle’s design. In the end, the Maico Company let its riders down, and quickly perished as a result of management mistakes and family problems. For a brief time, when America was dramatically changing, there was

Maico: a German motorcycle with a unique American meaning.

Figure 144. Motocross starting line; Pennsylvania, 1975. (Photo: Brian Thompson)

521

7.3 EPILOGUE: MAICO PRESERVATION AND RESTORATION27

Figure 145. Maico 400cc engine, unrestored. (Photo: the author)

In the course of this dissertation I have used the Maico motorcycle as the lens through which American sport motorcycle culture was examined. Now, looking back to this motorcycle—material culture, art object, utilitarian racing machine, or however else we may wish to think of it—what are we now to do with it? There are many Maico motorcycles in the

United States, most held by collectors. We know these have value historically, culturally, and as a monetary commodity; but, how does an owner best maintain and extract that value? This chapter will examine the maintenance of these machines in several applications, and suggest potential courses of action for owners.

What will be done with the motorcycle/artifact is largely dependent upon what its use will be. Traditionally, in the case of artifacts, be they art, devices, applied arts, or adornment, historians and collectors understood the role of the item to be one of display; the “museum

27 Many of the concepts in this subchapter are the result of verbal and written exchanges between the author and Travis Agle, a veteran of many Maico restorations and the creator of the online Maico Off-road Motorcycles and Registry (https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MAICOMOTORCYCLES/info). 522 piece.”28 These items were cleaned up, put on display in the public space or at home, and made available for further study or enjoyment. The artifact was then ready to perform its function of telling a story, being beautiful, or both. Considering devices (tools or weapons, for example), the object was probably not actually used again for its originally intended purpose. The thought of re-using a stone axe or bow-and-arrow from antiquity was an anathema to the owner/curator; it would break and thus be useless. The advent of rugged or industrial items—machine-made tools, motor vehicles, or even homes—brings a reconsideration of potential function. These objects can perhaps be used again as they were originally intended, and in doing so, enhance understanding.

An old Victorola can play records just the way it did for our grandparents, so that we can enter their aural experience; an old coffee-grinder can still grind beans with the smell and feel of decades past; and the antique automobile can still carry passengers. These devices, in continued use, help to convey a glimpse into their eras, surpassing or at least supplanting what we read in books. The owners of antique automobiles and motorcycles, in particular, often desire to use these devices for their own enjoyment, and not simply exhibit them. This re-use of vehicles presents new considerations for owners, which I will address after a short introduction of the idea of the “antique.”

The creation of “antiques” in the United States

The very idea that old items have any value at all is a fairly new concept in the United

States. Americans from the first defined themselves by their very newness; an “indifference to tradition” and a rejection of those confines of their history which served only to remind them of

28 Jules David Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method” Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring, 1982), 1-19. Prown places artifacts into one of five categories; those four listed here, with modifications to the landscape being the fifth. This categorization is basically in line with the breakdowns given by other material culture authorities, into which human material creations can be placed. 523 their humble or precarious pasts, in the servitude of European (or other) overlords.29 For most inhabitants of this country from the late 1600s to the mid-1800s, to place any loving notions on old stuff was preposterous; America was a land on the cusp of a new age, and romanticizing the old was not done for the first two centuries of our nation’s history. Moreover, as Tocqueville noted, Americans were tinkerers, always eager to improve and better adapt the implements with which they worked.30 This fondness for innovation meant that older items, instead of representing the best version of a device, were seen as antiquated and inferior to newer ones.

In the years immediately following the Civil War, some Americans began to embrace a new (and healing) identity: “post-war pluralism,” as Michael Kammen labels the idea, created a need for a common culture and a collective memory. The United States did, leaders decided, have its own unique rich history and culture. And, they felt, it was a fresh, forward-thinking culture at least the equal of the tired European past; even superior to it. The country possessed a heritage, that once identified and celebrated, would serve to unify the more settled multicultural

American sectional identities with the various other heterogeneous elements—not to mention the new waves of immigrants still coming. And our things would be part of this new cultural appreciation, helping to identify and locate this rich American past and giving the country a unifying cultural armature around which to come together.31

This newfound appreciation of American antiques flourished in the post Civil War decades. First Lady Grace Coolidge furnished parts of the White House with native antiques in

1902. In 1909 the Metropolitan Museum presented its first curated exhibit of American antiquities, opening its American Wing in 1924. With a major American museum now

29 Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), 40-52. 30 Alexis de Tocquville, Democracy in America (New York: Bantam Dell, 2004), 366. 31 Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory, 106-45 524

“legitimizing” the collecting of a specific item of material culture (a practice I will soon address, with special reference to the Guggenheim Museum) the American antiques movement was off and running. Antiquities, formerly the “old stuff” and detritus of American farmsteads and homes, were soon being sold by northeastern dealers to energetic collectors. The items usually fell into one of two categories. Briann Greenfield describes these two as either “historical” antiques, or as “aesthetic” antiques.32 Historical antiques were important to owners and collectors for their historic content: Andrew Jackson’s quill pen, a musket used in the American

Revolution, one’s mother’s comb set. The drawback to historical antiques was that there were only so many historically-significant items in a sea of other old things; furthermore, proving provenance to a buyer was problematic, at best. Aesthetic antiques, on the other hand, were valued for their visual qualities. This was something far easier for antiques dealers to assess, made saleable items vastly more plentiful, and further provided the buyer with a “promise of permanency”33 (of value) for their purchase. Buyers could assemble collections of aesthetically- selected furniture, flintlock rifles, and pottery; categorized by maker, geographical area, or style.

Sellers and buyers of antiques soon had decisions to make, as to the care of their artifacts.

Should a faded or worn old chest be repainted or re-varnished? Should broken parts be repaired?

In many instances a case could be made that the aesthetics of an item would be better appreciated if it was refinished to as-new condition. Yet, the attraction of originality was also a strong incentive. There would be, ultimately, no absolute answers to these questions, and the same questions continue to be asked. For the collectors of antique furniture and other wooden items, though, there tended to not be a rush to refinish. The knowledge that the gleam of an old

32 Briann Greenfield, Out of the Attic: Inventing Antiques in Twentieth-Century New England (Boston: The University of Massachusetts Press, 2009), 5-6. 33 Ibid, 25. 525 armchair may have taken one-hundred years to be burnished or faded the way it was, invited caution.

Motor vehicles as antiques, and the eventual debate over restoration

At the precisely the same time as these “traditional” antiques were garnering interest, the automotive industry had taken flight. As more vehicles were produced, the older motor vehicles, still retaining real or potential utility, like an old gun or tool, were often set aside, but not discarded. By the 1930s, these surviving early automobiles were technologically far-removed from the relatively advanced, aerodynamic, V-8 powered cars of the 1930s, and were being rescued by mechanically- and historically-minded enthusiasts. In 1935, the Antique Automobile

Club of America (AACA) was formed. Old motorcycles were likewise kept around and tinkered with, and the Antique Motorcycle Club of America (AMCA) incorporated two decades later, in

1954.

(Before continuing, it is necessary to define two terms, as they relate to antiques. To

“preserve” is understood as retaining, as much as possible, the original features, coatings, and condition of the item or vehicle. To “restore” is understood as returning the vehicle to the state of condition it was in, when new.34)

The founders of both the AACA and the AMCA avowed their purposes as being the preservation (in a general sense), continued operation, and enjoyment of the great vehicles of yesteryear. Members devoted themselves to keeping old cars and motorcycles around and running. They organized “field meets” where they could enjoy the company of other hobbyists, share techniques and swap parts, and examine their fellows’ workmanship. In due course, both clubs established competition show programs and rules for the judging of old vehicles. These

34 The AMCA describes “restored” condition as that of the vehicle on the “dealer’s showroom floor.” This description provides a small bit of allowance for wear (from transit), as compared to the seemingly obvious conditional description: “as new.” 526 vehicles were separated into two major categories: original condition (preserved) and restored.

To restore was the natural inclination from the beginning. After all, there were plenty of the old machines (cars, in particular) around, and who would not prefer a new-looking old car or motorcycle to one showing its age? One writer captures the simple, primal inclination to restore, when he states “Enormous pleasure can be gained by turning what appears to be an unattractive piece of junk into a beautiful antique.”35 A machine operated in public was thus much more likely to be re-painted. “Like new” was good. The appreciation of natural ageing and “patina” in industrial (automotive and motorcycle) finishes had yet to achieve the level of sensitivity of the other antiquities movements, most notably the furniture collectors.

As time passed and original machines became scarce, the acceptance and appreciation of un-restored and unmolested vehicles evolved, echoing that of the antiques movement in general.

As fewer and fewer vehicles with their original finishes were available for purchase (and to serve as examples), the vintage enthusiasts further reappraised their rush to restore. At present, both the AACA and AMCA highly value originality, and urge members to consider this option when contemplating the rejuvenation of a vehicle. The AACA strengthened its encouragement for members to consider preservation over the powerful inclination to restore, creating in 1979 the

“Preservation” class. In this judging class, the cars can be driven and receive awards, while not being denigrated for incidental road wear and tear. Since there were fewer motorcycles made than cars in the United States, motorcycle collectors confronted the problem of scarcity of original antique machines earlier. To their credit, antique motorcycle owners embraced preservation (over the immediate impulse to restore) years before than their car brethren. To place the antique motorcycle community’s collective attitude in context, it is interesting to note that original antique American motorcycles in 2014 are often valued at two or three times that of

35 Albert Jackson and David Day, The Antiques Care & Repair Handbook (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), 6. 527 a precisely restored similar machine.36 The AMCA, for its part, notes in the “A Final Word” postscript to the AMCA Judging Manual, that:

“The AMCA judging system emphasizes the importance of keeping original motorcycles as such. These are truly the rare and priceless jewels of any collector, for they maintain and show with clarity and without any doubt, the true picture. When these all important machines are sacrificed unnecessarily to restoration, we have experienced a tragic loss. Therefore the AMCA strongly encourages the preservation and judging of original condition motorcycles.”37

The motorcycle as art

Thus, we can see, most motorcycle collectors agree that, given a vehicle in reasonably- sound mechanical and cosmetic condition, it would be generally preferable to not erase the vehicle’s patina forever, and to bequeath it to coming generations as a preserved, un-restored and original artifact. Yet this is not the end of discussion on the issue. The waters were again muddied in the early 1990s, with an acknowledgement by museum curators and commentators around the world: the motorcycle can be “art.”

Many motor vehicle collectors had for decades had no problem with internally considering the automobile or motorcycle as art, and not just artifact. Outside the circle of collectors, however, this was not a universally-held elite view. The vehicle-as-art proponents did have a good case. Ornate, ornamented or simply beautiful functional objects (weapons, armor, table services, and the like) had long been accepted in general history museums and some art museums prior to the industrial age. These objects, however, were hand-produced.38 The advent

36 Conversations between the author and Indian motorcycle owners at the Indian Nation motorcycle exhibit at the AACA Museum, Hershey, Pennsylvania, 2014. 37 Antique Motorcycle Club of America, AMCA Handbook of Judging (Antique Motorcycle Club of America, Inc., 2010), 23. 38 Many of the device-objects traditionally displayed by museums were celebrated for their ornamentation, however, and not necessarily for a singular aesthetic design. 528 of the industrial age and mass- and factory-produced objects involved different processes than the traditional hand-made, artisan techniques that had characterized the making of things since the beginning of history. As industrial manufacturing merged with major design movements in the early 1900s, art museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York exhibited industrial objects and design, granting legitimacy to those who believed useful objects could also constitute art.

Art is described in dictionaries along the lines of the “quality, production, expression or realm of what is beautiful.” Classic representational visual art had, traditionally, two aims. First, it aimed to synthesize or reinterpret natural beauty (or, those aesthetics occurring in nature); this being inherent in the work’s composition, form, line, color, and skill of execution. Secondly, good art expressed an idea; that is, it conveyed meaning. Focusing on the motorcycle as industrial art object, I wrote in 1994 that, in reference to the quest for the beautiful, “The motorcycle is a symphony; a wonderful mural of line, shape and form embellished with color and texture. . . . The design of the carburetor; the glimmer of brass against alloy, of rubber against steel . . . The way the lines of the gas tank picked up the silhouette of the engine finning; the way each little cure and corner and edge and shape seem so perfectly designed . . .”39 In regards to meaning, of course, the motorcycle’s suggestions of power, freedom, speed, and sexuality are noted here and elsewhere.

“Industrial art” had begun to be accepted as such for several decades, when the

Guggenheim Museum began planning in 1991 to produce an exhibit of purely motorcycles, from an aesthetic perspective. This aesthetic emphasis was critical to the Guggenheim’s plan, as previous exhibits of industrial objects had tended to arrange the artifacts as part of a technological progression, emphasizing engineering lineage and importance first, and aesthetic

39 David Russell, “The Motorcycle as Art.” Classic Cycle Review, Vol. 3, No. 4 (1994), 17-19. 529 aspects second. Taking an industrial object out of its usual home in the history/technology museum as the Guggenheim curators did, and placing it with a whole lot of its peers, stressing aesthetics in an art museum, was not looked upon favorably by some. Both motorcycle historians

(who still felt that technological progression should be the primary unifying concept) and art critics (who were suspect of the subject, the curators, and, it seems, the presumed gruffly-attired attendees) had reservations. Typical of the latter was New York critic Hilton Kramer. According to the Wall Street Journal, Kramer decried the soon-to-open exhibit as a “bald-faced ploy to bring in money and whatever attendance might come rolling in on motorcycles.”40

The curators at the Guggenheim were soon vindicated by, at the least, sheer popular approval. The museum’s Art of the Motorcycle exhibit broke all previous attendance records, was praised by most critics, and re-wrote the guidelines for exhibits of “industrial art.” Ignoring both the motor technologists and many art critics, the museum set an entirely new precedent for what an art exhibit could be. And, as the Metropolitan Museum had done in 1909 with its exhibit and “legitimization” of antique American furniture as art, so had the Guggenheim now legitimized the motorcycle as art.

The difficulty that this overall very positive turn of events presents (from our prior discussion of whether to preserve or restore, for more historical reasons), is that an art object is usually better viewed and appreciated in excellent condition, as when the artist/builder finished with it. Reviewing the Guggenheim’s catalog of 114 displayed motorcycles, we see that only a few are un-restored, and even these are in absolutely excellent condition. Motor museums tend to prefer to display restored machines; as a past curator of several motorcycle exhibits at the national AACA museum, I can attest that museum staffs often must be gently persuaded to allow

40 Eileen Kinsella, “Guggenheim in Rare Tie-In With BMW for Bike Show,” The Wall Street Journal, May 22, 1998. 530 the display of un-restored machines, in less than very-fine condition (as was the case with a rough Triumph “bobber” in the AACA Museum’s British Invasion exhibit of 2013).

Preservation and restoration

And so, given our discussion of the motor vehicle as both historical/industrial artifact and art object, what should we do with the old motorcycle in our possession? Preserve it for posterity, or restore it as art? In earlier times, contemplating simpler (non-industrial) objects, the task was less complicated: curators might simply pick the dirt and extraneous material out of the pores of a stone axe, catalog and label it nicely, and put it on display. But what of the more advanced, man-made object, the motorcycle? What of faded or missing paint and broken mechanical parts—should these be replaced? Is it “too nice to restore,” or must it be restored to be truly appreciated, aesthetically? If it is to be placed on display, is it necessary that the engine run? (And, is it the case, as a more radical element of the motorcycle collector community would have it, that it is a cultural crime to not run it?) Do we restore or not restore antique motorcycles, and should we ride a machine or not? Finally, how does the Maico racing motorcycle fit into this discussion?

The answers to these questions will vary with a number of factors. Principally, these variables are: the machine’s physical condition, its rarity and/or value, and its owner’s intended use of the motorcycle. With regards to operating the machine, we realize that the Maico was built primarily as an off-road and highly tuned competition motorcycle, and riding this type of motorcycle in the off-road environment is physically taxing on both the rider and the motorcycle.

Driving an antique car or street motorcycle in a parade, under ideal conditions, is one thing; it is quite another to ride an antique racing motorcycle in a competition environment, where some wear and damage to both motorcycle and rider is likely. The casual riding of a racing motorcycle

531 is generally not practical. This is just a reality, and the same logic could be applied by the

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, if visitors were to ask, “Why don’t you take your

1950s jet fighters down from the ceiling and fly them more?” Fortunately, from a standpoint of historical context and “living history,” antique racing motorcycles can be appreciated in their intended environment at vintage racing events. At these meetings, specially-prepared versions of the antiques are ridden, with, we can presume, adequate reserves of spare OEM parts put away, and replaceable aftermarket parts installed where damage or wear is predictable (such as fenders, rims, and tires).

Figure 146. Unmolested circa 1971 MC400 as recovered from neglected storage. The question of whether to

restore or not to restore as applied to this poorly preserved machine would be easy to answer for most owners. Yet many originals, in better condition or historically significant, are better served by preservation

than restoration. (Photo: Travis Agle)

532

Figure 147. The previous MC400, as restored for vintage racing by Travis Agle. Not only is the motorcycle

more visually appealing, it is also operable. (Photo: Travis Agle)

The Maico is certainly an excellent vintage racing mount, if that becomes its intended purpose. Its handling and power continue to make it superior to its peers in such events.

Replacement parts are available (though often expensive) and its peculiarities may be worth the extra enjoyment of riding a thoroughbred. Still, it is a Maico, and a Maico’s need of mechanical preparation and attention has not subsided in intervening years. Riding a Maico in vintage racing activities will require many maintenance-man-hours per riding hour.

The owner may choose to display, rather then ride, the motorcycle. If the decision has been made to not ride the motorcycle, at least for the present time, the owner will still have to decide whether to preserve or restore (or some combination thereof). If the owner elects to preserve, he is not consigning himself to living with each and every fault or defect the machine begins with, indefinitely. As the AMCA encourages preservation-minded owners to do, broken and clearly worn-out parts may be successfully exchanged for appropriately-worn (but better

533 condition) other parts, as they are found. The fitting of superior used parts to a machine, to include fasteners, can produce over time an excellent and more visually-pleasing preservation.

Although obvious, a good cleaning (to include possible high-pressure water or even minimally- aggressive wet-media blasting) can work wonders in exposing the best visual qualities of the motorcycle. Modern metal preservatives, leather and plastic treatments, wax, and discrete polishing will also reveal hidden beauty.

Vintage motorcycle preservation and antique furniture preservation share much in the way we view paint remnants and surface patina. Antique furniture writer John T. Kirk believes that the surface of the antique often represents a “large part of the total personality” of the object, and again cautions that once paint is removed for the good intentions of a restoration, it is nonetheless “gone forever.”41 This “personality” of a motorcycle’s paint—its cracks, runs, the presence of over-painting or hand-writing, and its peculiar fading, discoloration, and changes— are part of the visual history and tactile personality of the machine which cannot be replicated. If possible, within the context of the owner’s plans for the motorcycle, this patina should be preserved. Wooden antiques, of course, have a great advantage over metal artifacts in that wood does not rust. Rust on metal, more accurately called oxidation (the corrosion resulting from the metal’s reaction with oxygen) must be halted. Furthermore, surfaces which are excessively oxidized may be either too weak or frankly so unattractive as to make restoration preferable in the eyes of the owner (as is the case in Figure 146). When contemplating preservation, the degrees of paint loss or damage and metal corrosion will often be the deciding factors in swaying the owner either way.

Moderately damaged surfaces can often be surprisingly “brought back” from their present state with careful touch-up paint, keeping the best of the original surface’s patina while

41 John T. Kirk, Early American Furniture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1979), 192. 534 improving areas that are excessively damaged. Most every component on a motorcycle can be repaired, given requisite time and finances. Maico motorcycles in particular can be excellent candidates for preservation, owing to the factory’s use of fiberglass and aluminum. Fiberglass is easily repairable in the home shop, and takes paint easily. Aluminum, while probably requiring expert assistance to repair, responds well to repair and is less likely than ferrous materials to be badly corroded. Aluminum does, however, oxidize, and in the right circumstances will reduce to a powdery-white material.

Having described the positive reasons for preservation, I will now discuss restoration.

Restoration should by no means be considered a dirty word, and is routinely practiced by the most reputable owners, conservators and curators in the motor history world. Although restoration may carry a negative connotation in antique furniture circles, even the most ardently pro-preservation furniture conservators would concede that sometimes, furniture must receive major repairs to be exhibited or be useful. The work of art restorers seems to not involve the same degree of negativity, and we look at a “restored” painting as a positive thing. In fact, the traditional use of removable damar varnishes to protect paintings reminds us of the idea that fine art is expected to require at least periodic manipulation by conservators.

The reasons to restore a motorcycle are, like preservation, many and valid. One reason, as

I have noted, is that the machine is generally best viewed as an art object when in as-new or close-to-new condition. Art and technology museums generally prefer as-new machines to exhibit (but often have to content themselves with the fully restored). As-new machines best convey to the viewer the aesthetic intent of the designers, and also show exactly what the object looked like to its first owner. A clean, new-condition machine better allows the acquisition of

535 information expected to take place by art/technology museum visitors, from the object. (History museums, conversely, convey other ideas, and might prefer a preserved example.)

Another valid reason for restoration is more a function of historical interpretation, and this is to be able to ride the machine (in essence, “re-enacting” with it). Using a motorcycle as it was intended (in the case of the Maico, for off-road riding/racing) best conveys the sights, sounds and smells of the time.42 Vintage competition in the past several decades, sponsored by

AHRMA (the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association) and local clubs has allowed onlookers and participants to experience and relive the great days of American off-road riding.

Riders dressed in period attire maximize the historical experience. This activity would not be possible without the restoration of these motorcycles; it is a rare old dirt bike that is operable, decades after its introduction, without needing major work.

Another benefit of restoration is the learning that takes place for the owner/restorer. For any restorer, conducting extensive work on the machine may be the best way to fully understand the motorcycle and extract its meaning. Just as beginning medical students spend their first year dissecting a body in order to understand it, the most comprehensive way for the motorcycle enthusiast to understand a motorcycle is to take it apart and re-assemble it. This protracted, demanding, often-frustrating, and intense process of repair and re-assembly is the opportunity for a unique and highly-personal learning experience. The restorer relives and imagines the machine’s meaning and history to the fullest and deepest extent. It is the mechanical equivalent of anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s admonition to look into a culture or activity in the deepest way possible; to seek “thick description” pursuant to real understanding.43 While most

42 The unmistakable aroma of burnt pre-mixed natural oils in the old two-stroke engines is one aspect of creating the reminiscence of 1960s and 1970s motorcycle riding. 43 Clifford Geertz. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,” from The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 412-54. 536 enthusiasts are not capable of doing all the work (for instance, boring a cylinder, truing a crankshaft, or reassembling a transmission), their oversight of such work, passed on to professionals, is the virtual equivalent to doing the work themselves. They will have forced themselves to fully understand these processes, whether doing them personally, or in conversation with the specialists and experts regarding work they cannot do. The level of understanding brought about by conducting a hands-on restoration far exceeds other means of learning about the motorcycle.

Finally, conducting a restoration is simply fun. The fascination and enjoyment in seeing an object progress, as Jackson and Day describe, “from junk to beautiful” is an undeniable pleasure. The restorer is satisfied in an altruistic way, as well; he is “saving” an object for posterity, as well as seeing first-hand the transformation from rusty and dirty to clean and beautiful. He or she is filled with hope conferred by “possibilities.” Fred Haefele writes about this peculiar facet of the restorer’s motivations in Rebuilding the Indian. Haefele observed that, in the case of his antique motorcyclist friend Chaz, it was “the possibilities that move Chaz, not the fact [of his machine’s real and decrepit present condition]”44 It is all possibilities, even if imagined, as we envision ourselves “wheelying into the sunset” on our restored, beautiful, one- of-a-kind creation, admired by all who look upon us.45

Maico restoration

The act of restoring a Maico motorcycle is not fundamentally different or more demanding than the restoration of any other brand. In fact, Maico restoration is often easier than some others, owing to the crudity of original factory surface finishes—assuming originality is desired versus the condition known as “over-restoration.” As previously mentioned, fiberglass

44 Fred Haefele, Rebuilding the Indian: A Memoir (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), 134. 45 David Richardson, email to the author, January 24, 2000. 537 parts are easily repaired and painted (unlike plastic, which cannot generally be sanded to remove bumps, and can be difficult for paint to adhere to). An added bonus for the Maico restorer is that the original factory paint application was so mediocre that the restorer (one looking for originality, at least) can nicely emulate original paint with a spray can, if the correct color can be obtained. Original paint often contained “bug’s eyes” and many other imperfections, so if the restorer is willing, a good facsimile is easily obtained in the home shop. Maico frame paint was likewise unremarkable and came in black and silver colors. Spraying a clear-coat on top of commercially available silver and aluminum colored paints gives a result very like the original

Maico silver frame paint. (Automotive-type non-acrylic paints, which are impervious to gasoline, should be used.)

Used OEM parts and newly manufactured replacement parts are currently available for most every detail on Maico motorcycles. Digital technology has made the reproduction of stickers and emblems an easy task, and what cannot by purchased commercially can often be reproduced quite satisfactorily by local sign makers. Restorers will need to make decisions about whether to seek OEM parts or use easier-to-obtain modern equivalents (especially in the case of

“consumable” parts, like tires and chains). This choice is often finalized by the type of use the machine will see. Motorcycles placed in running use will benefit from modern (and often cheaper and better) tires, chains, and levers, while statically displayed art-object motorcycles may be more accurately interpreted by the obtaining of original equipment items (which are often too valuable to be placed in danger on a vintage competition machine).

A requirement on most old Maicos will be the replacement or refurbishment of fork tubes. Maico tubes, for whatever reason, easily rusted and most are pitted in the exposed area,

538 between the upper and lower triple-clamps. Fork tubes may be either re-chromed or replaced with new facsimile items; either option will be expensive.

Another common problem with Maicos is that the swing-arm pivot bolt may be difficult to remove during disassembly. Lack of lubrication over time causes the pivot bolt to seize on the swing-arm inner metal sleeve, and it may be that no amount of hammering or heating will loosen the bolt. Access to a hydraulic press will be needed to extricate the bolt without bending the frame. (To prevent this happening again in the future, a Zerk-type grease fitting can be added to the swing-arm with minimal effort.)

Maico’s design for attaching the engine to the frame was somewhat under-engineered, especially for the bigger engines, and vibration would loosen the bolts and elongate the frame mounts and engine cases. The engine mounts on the frame and the engine case attachment areas will both likely require repair. When the engine is to be re-mounted into the frame (especially in the machine is to be run), the restorer should consider the use of American-made Grade-8 bolts.

These high-strength hardware items are less likely to vibrate free, are an authentic period upgrade, and will enhance the look of the motorcycle, whether it is to be ridden or not.

The restorer should consider retaining small metal pieces and having them cleaned and re-plated for future use. Some bolts and nuts are specific to the Maico and not easily obtained, so the restorer would be wise to save and label all removed parts until positive they are not needed.

Small fasteners, especially nuts, may not be re-usable even after re-plating, and comparable metric items can be purchased in local hardware stores. If the motorcycle is to be ridden, fitting an aluminum fuel tank or even using an aftermarket plastic tank can preclude an array of problems, notably breakdown of fiberglass resin and clogging of fuel filters and taps, and breakage/leakage of the fiberglass tank.

539

Maico engine parts are likewise expensive. If the engine is to be restored, expert assistance during the rebuild will help insure that the engine operates properly and lasts. Maico engines are designed around precise tolerances, and proper shimming of the transmission gears is especially critical. As of this writing, Maico experts are still available to assist with engine restoration. I advise any restorer to obtain the assistance of such an expert, or at minimum another proficient motorcycle mechanic. The restorer of a motorcycle for display-only purposes may elect to delay or not restore the engine internal parts. I cannot say that this is wrong.

However, if the owner plans to show the machine in AACA and AMCA competition, he should note that both AACA and AMCA rulebooks require that a motorcycle engine be proven to run for several seconds before being permitted to be judged in competition.

Maico primary-drive chains, endless twin- or triple-row industrial chains originally made by Renold of England, are not currently available from industrial suppliers, and will likely have to be purchased from Maico specialists. The restorer should beware of purchasing very old NOS rubber and fiber items (particularly seals and engine gaskets) as these items may harden and shrink over the years. Individual gears for bikes that are to be ridden can be the hardest part to source, as they have not yet been remanufactured, and the only sources of replacement gears are the few remaining NOS items and from donor engines. An expert mechanic should review replacement gears for a motorcycle that will be ridden, as nearly-imperceptible wear can significantly affect operation. Maico kick-starter gears and levers were designed with extremely fine intermeshing splines, and these damage easily (if they are not already ruined). Before kicking-over an engine, the owner should ensure that the kicker lever is properly tightened on the kick-starter gear output shaft.

540

Lastly, the restorer should beware of purchasing “Wheelsmith” items, as many parts

(even entire “Wheelsmith motorcycles”) advertised as such, may not be so, at all. If authentic,

Wheelsmith and other aftermarket components usually increase value and historical interest.

Expert assistance will help avoid expensive errors.

These, then, are the principal decisions facing the restorer: to preserve, to restore for static display, or to restore functionally, for use. Each choice has its valid points and will be best pursued in certain circumstances, after thorough consideration by the owner. The owner should enjoy the process in any case, knowing that something is being saved that is historical and beautiful.

541

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544

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548

Personal Interviews

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Hamilton, Miller “Gig,” interviews with the author, June 19, 2007 and April 7, 2008.

Hamiliton, Miller “Gig,” phone conversation with the author, November 14, 2013.

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Higgins, Barry, interview with the author, January 8, 2014.

Jonsson, Ake, interview with the author, November 25, 2008.

Kenney, Bryan, interview with the author, September 12, 2012.

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Lokey, Jeanne, interview with the author, January 12, 2014.

Lowery, Curt, interview with the author, (date not recorded).

Maisch, Wilhelm Jr., interview with the author, (date not recorded) 2008.

McCabe, Jim, interviews with the author, January 2008 and February 2009.

Moore, Dennie, multiple interviews with the author, March 27, 2007 through November 14, 2013.

Narayana, Selvaraj, interview with the author, June 27, 2008.

Schank, Charles, interview with the author, October 6, 2009.

Shambaugh, Craig, interview with the author, September 11, 2008.

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Sieman, Rick, interview with the author, October 28, 2012.

Smith, Greg, interview with the author, February 9, 2009.

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Swartz, Denny, interview with the author, January, 2009.

Thompson, Brian, interview with the author, November 5, 2008.

Wawrynovic, Paul, interview with the author, November 8, 2008.

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Appendix A

IDENTIFICATION AND DATING OF MAICO MOTORCYCLES

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”1

When seeking to identify a particular year or model of Maico motorcycle, we should remember that Maico Fahrzeugfabrik GmbH was a relatively small operation, compared to other motor vehicle manufacturers. In fact, the company employed only about 240 workers in its prime, during the 1970s and 1980s. Because of its modest resources, Maico did not subscribe to the “model year” practices until 1975, electing instead to pursue a more economical corporate policy of gradual and continuous design improvement. This was not a system Americans were used to, and starting in the late 1960s, American importers began to promote new models as being of a particular year. Previously, they simply advertised the newest model as having been updated, as in “The New X4A.” This labeling had actually matched the factory’s philosophy.

Older parts were usually used until expended or the goal for future replacement parts was met, and changes in design were incremental: an engine modification now, a frame modification next year. Thus Maico motorcycles prior to 1976 require terms less arbitrary than simply model-year.

This is difficult in an American context, given the United States’ decades-old adoption of the

(automobile industry’s) model-year concept. For example, a particular machine might be very aptly described as “circa 1971”, or “late-1974/early-1975.” Further complicating precise dating is the scarcity of factory records, the inaccuracy of some official factory information, and the common practice by previous owners of exchanging older for newer factory and aftermarket components on bikes, in order to keep them current and competitive.

1 Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (New York: Harper, 1892), 3. 551

Figure 148. Circa 1969 MC250, as raced by Pennsylvania competitor “Trapper” Jon Reiter.

(Photo: Karyn Russell)

The judicious use of all sources—frame and engine serial numbers, careful identification and analysis of the components installed, input from other enthusiasts, and a good dose of

Sherlock Holmes-like reasoning—creates the most accurate and best overall description of any machine’s likely origin and history. As a companion source to the Frame/Serial# and the Model

Year Change appendices, both included later in this work, I will here discuss Maico motorcycles from yet another perspective: a “ground up” analysis, reviewing the major components and key identifying features individually. Using the production dates of the major component groups, together with other historical sources and a review of the machine’s condition and apparent use, the analyst will be able to approximately date the assemblage as a whole, and furthermore to suggest a history of any particular motorcycle.

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This dating technique differs from the usual practice of pronouncing an absolute year of manufacture for a machine, and then deciding what parts are “wrong” for that year. The process of deriving the motorcycle’s approximate date from that of its principal components is more appropriate to Maico, for exactly the “small-factory” rationale previously discussed. The following analysis is arranged and elaborated upon in this way, by major component group.

Since Maico did subscribe to a model-year system after 1975, I have denoted 1976 and later motorcycles and components in accordance with this system.

Identification numbers. Maico frame numbers are usually six- or seven-digit numerical sequences. These appear on the metal plate riveted to the steering head, and are also stamped into the steering head itself. On the plate are printed a year-of-manufacture field (“19__”) [never used, at least for mid-1960s machines, on], a model field (generally stamped “MC” for motocross or “GS” for “Gelandesport” (enduro), together the marketed engine size (e.g.,

“MC250” or “GS440”), and finally the actual engine size field (e.g., “438 cc”). Additional unchanging data shown on the tag includes the company name and the Pfaffingen location.

From 1968 to the end of 1974, Maico appears to have used a generally continuous, chronological six-digit frame serial numbering system. Engine numbers generally appear either on the upper right sides of the engine cases, underneath the cylinder fins on pre-contoured-case engines, or on the right/rear of the inner engine cases on later square-barrels and radials. Engine numbers usually include prefixes or suffixes which indicate close or wide ratio gearboxes and the number of gearbox ratios.

Date-of-manufacture numbers may appear on Maico cylinders and heads as month/year digits (i.e., “6/68”, “5/71”, etc.), indicating the month and year of manufacture of the item.

Occasionally this can be baffling. For example, when examining a 360cc cylinder, sold through

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1968, what do we make of a manufacture date on the cylinder of “5/71?” The only answer for this apparent contradiction is that the part in question is a replacement part, made in some cases after the model itself may have no longer been produced. The presence of an earlier date on a component of a particular year (for example, a cylinder stamped “5/71” on a motorcycle purchased new in 1972 or 1973) can be attributed to Maico’s practice of using up parts prior to beginning to fit newer, upgraded items. In either situation, dating a motorcycle on the basis of a cylinder or head stamping date alone can lead to erroneous conclusions.

Paint and Colors. Starting in the late 1960s, Maico competition motorcycles came from the factory in the following [body part] colors: yellow, red, orange, light blue, metallic dark blue, and white. The latter two were uncommon, and neither blue was used after about 1969. Prior to

1970, the light blue was used on 250 and 360 machines, with the dark metallic blue used apparently on only the first 125s. Factory paint quality was always mediocre at best, with runs and tick marks routine. White ABS-type plastic fenders and side-covers appear on some 1976 and 1977 models. After 1976, red becomes virtually the only production Maico color.2

Iron-barrel and oval-barrel frames were painted blue or metallic green. From the square- barrels on, black is the frame color until circa 1973, when frames were painted gray. From 1977 through 1983, all production frames were painted red.

Gas Tanks. Prior to 1966, Maico off-road bikes came with round, steel tanks. The 1966 and 1967 scrambler models had a round fiberglass tank, nicknamed by some the “turtle-shell,” while the GS (enduro) models retained the steel tank. In 1968, the highly-recognizable “coffin” fiberglass tank appeared (Figure 149), and was used in large and small sizes through 1974 on all models, and into 1975 on some remaining four-speed models. Surely this design, more than that of any other component but with the possible exception of the radial engine, differentiates the

2 Refer to chapter 1.4 for additional data on pre-1968 models. 554

Maico from all other motorcycles in visual terms. It became the signature Maico difference. The small and large fiberglass fuel tanks are a unique product design, from an aesthetic perspective, though functionally they often performed less than adequately (due to leakage).

Figure 149. OEM large (left) and small fiberglass tanks. (Photos: the author)

In 1972, Eastern Maico distributor Dennie Moore watched a near-catastrophe unfold: nearly every large factory fiberglass tank received by Eastern Maico was not constructed to standard, and leaked from new. Despite pleas from Moore to address the problem, the factory at first did nothing. Moore was thereby forced to absorb the cost of refitting better tanks to these machines. Ultimately, another fiberglass tank, designed by Moore and produced by American race-car driver and fabricator Bob Bondurant, was fitted.3 In 1973, factory fiberglass tanks (the large tank only) appeared with riveted edges; a modest attempt to fix the fiberglass tank de- bonding problem. This did little to correct the actual manufacturing problem, and may actually have exacerbated laminate de-bonding and leakage.

3 Robert “Bob” Bondurant (American, born 1933) raced motorcycles and then cars around the world in several classes. Bondurant opened his first racing school after injuring himself in a racing crash in 1967, and also applied his considerable experience in motor-sports to design, fabrication, and technical consulting to other motor sports organizations. 555

There was, however, an attractive alternative to fiberglass that company-sponsored racers had long embraced: aluminum-alloy. The equally well-recognized factory aluminum coffin tank appeared first in about 1973 (Figure 150), produced by various West German manufacturers after

Maico’s specification, and constructed generally along the lines of those the factory riders had been commissioning for several years. The metal German tanks became more common on production bikes in 1974, and some American buyers recalled being able to specify either fiberglass or metal tanks when buying a 1974 model. Curiously, despite the aluminum tank’s popularity and fairly common numbers today, Moore recalled that not a single motorcycle imported by Eastern Maico came equipped with the metal tank, through the end of his involvement with German Maico in 1973. Throughout the early-to-mid 1970s, metal, fiberglass, and plastic aftermarket tanks by Wheelsmith, Cole Brothers, The Fiberglass Works and others entered the market as alternatives to the stock fiberglass units.

Figure 150. OEM 1974 501cc (left) and 1976 (right) tanks. Figure 151. OEM 1978/1979 tank.

(Photos: the author)

The 1975-era “GP” motorcycle redesign featured a plastic resin tank of squared sides and top, with a rounded front. 1976 and 1977 models utilized a West German aluminum coffin tank

556 along the lines of previous units (Figure 150), while 1978 models used a rounded aluminum tank

(Figure 151). 1980 and later years utilized plastic, exclusively.4

Several different West German aluminum tanks were fit by the factory in the mid-1970s.

Aluminum tanks fitted to four-speed models tend to have a rectangular “bread-loaf” appearance and mount in the front with a bolt through roughly the extended centerline of the tank. 1975 GP models through the 1977 models, while sharing a similar overall tank design but with a more exaggerated “coffin” shape, have the mounting bolt in a position above the extended centerline.

Some higher-capacity tanks fitted to 1974 501 models (Figure 150) are of similar external dimensions to 1975 through 1977 aluminum tanks, though utilizing the centerline mount. Extra- large capacity aluminum tanks were fitted by the factory to GS models from 1974, on.

Wheels. Maico originally fitted chromed-steel rims, completely transitioning to aluminum rims by about 1975. Unusual by American tastes, Maicos are known to have actually emerged from their packing crates with one steel rim and one aluminum rim. The principal supplier of aluminum rims in the 1960s-1970s was Akront, although some machines appear to have been fitted with Borrani rims. Earlier aluminum rims, fitted to Scrambler models, were made by Altenberger of Germany. The transition from the earlier style “mud-catcher” high-sided aluminum rims to the non-ridged versions occurred in time for the 1975 models. Steel rims were produced by Italian manufacturer Radaelli. Tires fitted from the 1960s-on are exclusively

Metzlers, although Continentals were fitted on early 1960s machines. Wheel sizes on Maico off- road bikes from the late 1960s on were the classic 18 inch rear and 21 inch front combination.

Forks. Forks fitted to early (1955-1958) bikes were predominantly Earles-type units.5 Of the early telescopic-variety units, none had the offset-(leading) axle design until 1966, at which

4 1976/1977 aluminum tanks will fit 1975 model frame mounts, and such a retrofit by owners was common. 557 time the oval-barrel bikes received the new offset-axle fork. Throughout the later-1960s and ending with the last four-speed 250s, 400s and 440s in 1975, Maico utilized this external-spring, leading-axle front fork. Maico front end design, incorporating both the offset axle and the nearly in-line fork tube and steering stem arrangement, is the reason behind Maico’s exceptional steering characteristics. Eventually, this same design would be adopted on all motocross motorcycles, and it remains standard practice to this day. The fork design provided superb damping and rigidity for its time, and the unit’s progressive action and ability to save the rider from otherwise-horrendous front wheel landings was legendary. Fork tube outer diameter was intentionally engineered to 36 mm for additional rigidity (one millimeter larger than the prevailing trend at the time, 35 mm). Travel ranged from 6.0 inches to 7.5 inches as the damper assemblies increased in length through the early 1970s. Some 125ccc machines were likely fitted with the older 6.0 inch travel forks (apparently until the supply was exhausted), and may have had sliders stamped with “125”.6 Beginning with the five-speed models in 1975, internal-spring forks were provided, and increases in diameter and travel were incorporated as the years progressed. The forward-facing strengthening rib on 1975 model fork sliders differs slightly from later practice, being an asymmetrical rib similar to previous external-spring sliders.

Wheelsmith offered a modification to the external-spring Maico forks, consisting of welded-on aluminum cooling fins and different damper units, providing greater travel. Some riders also modified the damper internals themselves in an attempt to lessen the possibility of hydraulic lock; see the chapter “Modifications and Aftermarket Performance Upgrades” for images of this work.

5 Named after inventor Ernest Earle, the Earles-type of leading-link fork incorporates twin shocks, with the pivot point located aft of the front wheel (as opposed to traditional leading-link forks, wherein the pivot point is aft of the front axle, but not as far aft as on the Earles units). 6 The situation of 125cc machines being factory-fitted with shorter-travel forks and the presence of stampings on these forks are discussed in chapter 5. 558

Frames. Maico frames during the most popular years can be broken down into the following categories:

1) 1955-1965 Single front down-tube, mild steel7

2) 1966-1972 Double front down-tube, chrome-molybdenum “Wide frame”8

3) 1972-1974 “Narrow frame”, non-LTR (long-travel suspension)

4) 1974 (“1974 ½”) “Narrow frame,” LTR

5) 1975 “GP” (with conical-bearing steering head and designed for internal-spring front

forks)

6) 1976 -1977 AW (known as “Adolf Weil Replica” in 1977; minor differences between

the two years)9

7) 1978-1979 “Magnum” series

8) 1980 Mega-110

9) 1981 Mega-2 (“round”- or “square”-back backbone designs)

10) 1982-1983 (Alpha-1 and -2 series mono-shock)

“Wide frames” mounted the seats with two bolts on either side and to the rear of the seat.

“Narrow” frames cut a slightly narrower profile when viewed from above, and mounted the seat with a single bolt to its center-rear. The 1974 (“1974 ½ “) LTR design is the narrow-frame,

7 Of the 1955-65 frames, Scramblers had oval-tubing loops; street and 1955-61 enduro bikes had round-tubing. 1962-65 enduros had oval-tubing, like the scramblers. 1962-63 (early) enduro frames were painted green. In 1968, early frames accepted both the square- or oval-barrel engines; later that year the frames were re-configured to the integral air-box design, and would no longer accept the oval-barrel engines. 8 Chrome-molybdenum (“chrome-moly”) was used in Maico frames 1966-on. Jim McCabe contended that the new chrome-moly double loop frames, while lighter and stronger, did not dampen vibration as well as the older mild- steel single-loop frames did. Earlier versions of the 1966-1968 double loop frames had the down-tubes very widely separated, in order to allow clearance for the oval-barrel exhaust. 9 Technically, the 1977 model was the first machine to be marketed as the “Adolf Weil (AW) Replica”, but in retrospect the 1976 and 1977 machines are indeed very similar, differing primarily in terms of color scheme. 1977 AWs also incorporated different porting, the “wedge” cylinder cut (after Wheelsmith’s fashion), the replacement of the aluminum rear brake pedal with a stamped-steel piece, remote-reservoir shocks and other minor changes. 10 Some late 1980 frames incorporate 1981 geometry, while retaining 1980 serial numbers. 559 external-spring version with the first generation forward-mounted rear suspension. The 1975 GP design incorporates almost identical geometry, but with provisions for the new five-speed motor and a strengthened conical-bearing steering head. The older four-speed motors will work in this newer frame, providing either an old steel hub or the “narrow” aluminum rear hub is used (such as was done with the early GP400/440/4s). Five-speed motors will not fit in the older narrow or wide four-speed frames without significant work to align the countershaft and rear sprockets.

Subsequent frames were all major redesign efforts. Maico frames since at least the mid-1960s were fabricated from chrome-moly (molybdenum) steel and were assembled on jigs, joined with either welding or brazing at the various joints. Very early wide frames incorporated a non- folding foot-peg design; folding pegs appeared in the late 1960s. Maico swing-arms through the beginning of 1972 are approximately nineteen inches (bolt-center to swing-arm end); sometime in 1972, the swing-arms were lengthened by about an inch.

125cc machines in 1977 and later used a frame of the same dimensions as the larger bikes, but with slightly-thinner tubing. Frames prior to this year are identical between engine sizes, with respect to geometry and tubing size. Additionally, swing-arms on 125cc bikes, prior to circa 1975 and utilizing the old-style symmetrical rear hub, have a minor built-up modification on the right side, allowing the swing-arm to dovetail into the right-side hub slot. Despite claims to the contrary, the 1977 125cc appears to be the only known case of post-1960s Maico frames not being identical throughout the engine range. 125cc Maicos do have different engine cases; thus these models utilize different engine mounts. The frames, however, are essentially the same for every year until 1977, when slightly thinner-wall tubing was used on the 125s.

Early frames used for the ground-breaking 1981 models (manufactured in late 1980/very early 1981) featured a square-holed upper frame member (sometimes referred to as the “square-

560 back” or Mega-form); this was replaced early in the model run by the “round-back” frame, later in 1981.

Air boxes. The earliest air boxes (vice the can-type air filter assemblies fitted to 1968- and-earlier round-barrel and 1968 square-barrel models) appeared in late-1968 and were of a black, nylon-like ABS plastic. Boxes fitted from around 1970 through the last non-LTR models were of angular fiberglass, neatly filling the triangular cavity behind the engine and below the seat (Figure 152). These full-sized boxes went through several modifications over the years

1970-1973, with at least three variations known to the author. 1974 LTR models came equipped with a smaller, “floating” fiberglass or very lightweight plastic box suspended within the frame members. This box was re-created in stronger high-impact nylon-like material for the 1975-1977 models, covered also on each side by number plates.

Figure 152. OEM 1970 through 1974 fiberglass air boxes. (Photo: the author)

Engines. Maico engines (except for the 125cc) are, through 1981, predominantly conventional piston-port, two-stroke, air-cooled designs. They use chain primary drive and deliver power to the countershaft through four-, five-, or six-speed transmissions. The larger

561 engines of 250cc, 360cc, 400cc, 440cc, and 490cc displacements can be generally broken down into the following subgroups:

Oval-barrel engines (pre-1968; remaining oval-barrels sold into 1968)

Square-barrel, round-case engines (1968-1970) (Figure 153)

Square-barrel, contoured-case engines (1970-1972)

Radial-finned four-speed engines (1972-1975) (Figure 154)

Radial-finned five-speed engines (1975-1977) (Figure 155)

“Low profile” engines (1978-1982, “Magnum” series)

Primary-gear-drive engines (1983) (Figure 158)

125cc and 501cc engines present exceptions to the descriptions above. 125cc engines were designed initially for street applications and modified later for road-race and off-road use

(Figure 156). These engines were originally equipped with five-speed transmissions and soon after the start of production were given six-speed versions. Some sources claim that eight-speed versions were produced in Germany, but this is a misinterpretation based upon the use of “/8” model post-fixes used to designate the upgraded radial 125 engines. The 125s all utilize rotary- valve induction, from Bing carburetors mounted inside or behind the right side cover. Outwardly, the small engines were changed from a square-barrel-like head and cooling-fin design to a radial design for 1974. The 501cc engines (Figure 157) were square-barreled, piston-port designs throughout their production. The first production 501 motors were fitted with three-speed transmissions. The big 501s were soon after fitted with four-speed units, retaining these until the end of their production in about 1980.11

11 While the 501 was produced and marketed in Europe through 1980, it ceased to be imported to North America after 1974. 562

Figure 153. 360cc engine. Figure 154. Four-speed 440cc Figure 155. Five-speed 400cc

(Photo: Gig Hamilton) engine (Photo: the author) (wedge) engine. (Photo: the author)

Engine case construction (through the radial four-speeds) is closely based on engines originally designed in the 1950s, and the evolutionary vestiges of this heritage can be seen in the extra aluminum structure present on the right inner engine cases of these models. Minor porting and timing changes were made throughout the years to produce better power characteristics, and the more visible external features exhibit a “form-follows-function” look as a result of this engineering. When the engine cylinder design was changed from square-barrel to radial (Figure

154), and, soon after, the transmission from four-speed to five-speed (Figure 155), significant internal changes were also made. The result is extensive parts non-interchangeability, a situation generally rare for Maico. Within the 1975 through 1977 five-speed group, 1977 AW engine top ends incorporated a “wedge” design, in which a substantial amount of metal was removed from the rear-facing cylinder and head fins (Figure 155). Also, the two lowermost cylinder fins were entirely removed on all sides. These alterations were a direct factory adaptation of the

Wheelsmith practice of several years prior.

A quick way to differentiate 250cc from open-class (360/400/440cc) Maico engines at a glance is as follows:

563

On square-barrel engines: Open-class engines (Figure 153) have an approximate ¾ inch

“gap” between the top cylinder fin and the head, visually larger than the gap between cylinder fins. 250cc engines don’t possess this noticeable gap and have about the same distance between head and top cylinder fins as between all other cylinder fins.

On [1972-1980] radial engines: Open-class engines have gaps between all fin-supports

(the vertical molding between pairs of fins on each side, to add strength and reduce noise and vibration). 250cc machines have no gap between the two uppermost cylinder fin supports.

Some other minor notes are:

 360, 400, 440, and 490 engines share an identical rod assembly. The difference in

displacement is determined either by the cylinder’s bore size, or in the positioning of the

big end (bottom end) of the rod on the crank, relative to the crankshaft center, so as to

alter total stroke (as is the difference between the 360 and 400 engines, which have

identical bores). The 360 cylinder/liner assembly can be differentiated from the 400

assembly in that on the 360 the liner is basically flush with the top of the cast cylinder; on

the 400, the liner is positioned higher and projects about two millimeters above the

cylinder. The liner used is identical in the two engines.

 Some Maico engines came from the factory painted entirely black in around 1973. This

brief practice was apparently a carry-over from Maico factory riders painting their

engines black, in the belief that this caused the engines to convey heat to the atmosphere

more easily. Original examples of painted square-barrel and radial engines exist.

 A variety of left outer (clutch) cases for the contoured-case engines were made. These are

all similar in general form, but possess minor variations in order to accommodate either

twin-row or triple-row primary chains and to house the different clutches provided.

564

 Compression release ports were fitted to big-bore Maico engines and replacement

cylinders beginning about 1970.

 1977 AW “wedge” top-ends (cylinder and head) were nearly all painted black

 501cc engines (Figure 157) share a similar top-end design with the other square-barrels

but differ visually in not having the head fins splayed outward, but running fully fore-

and-aft. (That is, when viewed from the side, the outermost head fin is positioned upright

and is completely visible, thus obscuring inboard fins.)

 Carburetion was exclusively by German Bing. Early square-barrels and round-barrels

used a remote-float unit till about 1968. 125s had the carburetor moved from the original

position, under the right side cover, to a position aft of the cylinder (connected to the

rotary valve cover by means of an aluminum feeder pipe) in about 1976.

 GS radial 400/440cc models came from the factory with the heads slightly shaved on the

left side and some left-side cylinder fins bent, to allow clearance for the huge up-pipe.

 Later [1981-1983] 250cc reed-induction engines (Figure 158) utilize a conventional

rounded horizontal cylinder-fin and vertical head-fin design. The 490cc engine in these

years retains the traditional Maico “square-ish” radial-fin design. These later 490cc

engines have no gap between the fin supports on the lowermost three fins. Some GS490

enduro cylinders employed reed-induction in 1981.

565

Figure 156. Circa 1972 125cc Figure 157. 501cc engine (four-speed). Figure 158. 1983 250cc

rotary-valve engine. (gear primary transmission).

(Photos: Karyn Russell)

Fenders and side-panels. The composition and grouping by style of fenders used on

Maico off-road motorcycles is as follows:

Steel or aluminum (pre-1971)

Fiberglass (1970-1975)

Molded plastic (1975 GP)

Molded high-flex plastic (1976-1983)

Maico fenders from 1955-1964 were painted rolled-steel, possibly with pin-striped accents. On motorcycles produced from 1965-1968, Enduro models came equipped with painted or chromed steel fenders, while motocross (Scrambler) models came with aluminum. Off-road machines produced in 1969 all had aluminum fenders. In 1970, Maico began equipping off-road bikes with fiberglass fenders, but some early machines that year were fitted with aluminum fenders.

The classic Maico fiberglass fenders first appeared in 1970, with the first front fenders being slightly “deeper” than the subsequent, shallower front style. The rear fender and the second

566 generation front fenders kept their basic design until the changeover to the five-speed GP models in 1975. The Maico fender is, like the coffin gas tank, both beautiful and very distinctive; few vintage motorcycle enthusiasts would confuse a Maico fender for anything else. Together with the unique gas tanks, air-boxes, external-spring forks, and engine top-ends, the fenders helped to made the Maico motorcycle an aesthetic object dissimilar to most any other machine of its time.

1975 new-style GP machines came with a newly-designed plastic tank, fender and side panel, offered in either yellow or red, and sometimes with white fenders and side panels. Again, contrary to the usual long-production Maico practice, this design package was offered for only one year before being discontinued (although the 1975 front-fender shape was carried-over into

1976 and 1977).

“1975” model year Maicos.12 The greatest diversity (confusion?) within a model year

(remembering that “model year” is an expression best used loosely with respect to Maico) is certainly that surrounding circa 1975 factory production. 1975 is the year during which Maico began the transition from the old four-speed engine and external-spring fork design, to the new generation five-speed engine with internal spring fork, and completely re-designed frame (Figure

160). The list of known permutations of these changes, as they were distributed from the German factory to North America in 1975, is as follows:

1) Four-speed engine in external-spring, 1974 ½ frame (MC 250/400/440/501)

(Figure 159)

2) Four-speed 400/440s in the new frame (GP 400/440/501/4)

3) Five-speed 250/400/440s in the new frame (GP 250/400/440/5) (Figure 160)

12 I refer here to the new 1975 frame as the “GP model” for simplicity, although many current Maico owners also refer to the 1974 ½ LTR frame also as a “GP.” And not without reason, as Maico advertising in late 1974 through 1975 referred to these bikes as GPs also; though perhaps more as an echo of what the press had been referring to them as. As the new-framed 1975 models were clearly advertised as GPs by the factory from their introduction, the use of the term “GP” in this text is reserved for these newer models only. 567

4) GS four-speed 250/400/440s in the non-LTR 1973-type frame (GS

250/400/440)

5) (six-speed) 125 engine in the 1974 ½ frame (MC 125)

All GP models (as I will refer to them here, meaning those motorcycles incorporating the new frame and new internal-spring fork, with either the four- or five-speed transmission) appear to have been imported with the 1975-only plastic resin fuel tank and matching fenders. However, an aluminum version was available at the time, and identical 1976 through 1977 aluminum tanks later found their way onto 1975 machines, in time. GS models were equipped with the very- large-capacity aluminum tank only.

The new 1975 GP 38 mm internal-spring fork offered 200 mm (7.8 inches) of travel. The

“narrow” aluminum hub, which produces a wheel assembly interchangeable with the older black steel hub assembly on pre-1975 motorcycles, was originally developed to adapt the older four- speed 400/440 engines into the new GP frames (specifically, to align the countershaft and rear wheel sprockets). This was prior to the redesign of these engine capacities into the new five- speed specification bottom end. Later-year 1974 LTR bikes are also known to have come from the factory with the new aluminum “narrow” rear hubs, but likely in small numbers, after the steel hubs were all used up. The 1975 GP250/5 and all later 1976-on aluminum rear hubs are

“wider” on the drive-side, and will not interchange with pre-1975 applications.

568

Figure 159. 1974.5/1975 MC501 (four-speed). (Photo: Karyn Russell)

Figure 160. 1975 MC250 (five-speed “GP” model). (Photo: Karyn Russell)

569

Appendix B

MAICO DISTRIBUTION IN NORTH AMERICA, 1955-1986

The earliest distributor of Maico motorcycles and parts in America appears to be Whizzer International in Pontiac, Michigan, though Maicos certainly appeared in North America when brought back by Americans, or perhaps emigrating Germans. The machines were brought to America in slightly greater numbers after World War II, as American soldiers stationed in occupied Germany after the war brought back motorcycles purchased in the country. Not until the mid-1950s would Maico become even marginally recognized by American riders.

Whizzer International 350 S. Sanford St., Pontiac, MI 1955-19581

Gray International 4461 W. Jefferson Ave, Detroit, MI 1958-19702 (Nick Gray)

White Motors 1514 Newport Blvd., Costa Mesa, CA 1964-Unknown

Cooper Motors 110 E. Santa Anita Ave., Burbank, CA circa 1966-19763 (Frank Cooper)

Eastern Maico Royal & Duke Sts., Reedsville, PA 1969-19734 (Dennie Moore)

Debenham Imports Rt. 1, Box 211, Antioch, IL circa 1970-1980

Maico Southeast 6918 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL circa 1970-1971

Amor Sales, LTD 3143 W. Broadway, Vancouver 8, BC circa1970-1971

Maico Motorcycles, Inc. (Maico East) Electric Ave., Lewistown, PA 1973-19775 (Tom Steele)

1 Whizzer International, operated by the Gray brothers, was better known as the American distributor of the Whizzer motorized bicycle. 1955 is the year of Maico’s first American importation—not the first year of the Whizzer International corporation. 2Gray International was formed by half of the Gray brothers (Nick Gray), following his departure from Whizzer International. The company ceased operations sometime around Nick’s death in 1970/1971. The later business name “ENGRAY Industries” also appears in period magazines. 3 Cooper Motors was named the North American distributor in 1971, granting regional distributorships to Eastern Maico and Debenham Imports. Original address: 2815 W. Olive St. 4 Ceased affiliation with Maico in mid-1973; and briefly re-affiliated 1982. Original address: PO Box 875, State College, PA. Eastern Maico Distributors, Inc. still exists, though the corporation is inactive. 5 Tom Steele, previously Dennie Moore’s vice-president at Eastern Maico, replaced Moore as the Eastern region distributor for a short time after Maico-Pfaeffingen disenfranchised Moore (and soon after Frank Cooper on the west coast) and installed Otto Maisch-owned US distributors. German nationals were ultimately placed in charge of both regional distributorships—to the company’s ultimate disadvantage. 570

Distribution circa 1978–1980: East/Headquarters: Maico Motorcycles, Inc., 1256 Progress Rd., Suffolk, VA Midwest: Debenham Imports, Rt. 1, Box 211, Antioch, IL West: Maico West, Inc., 110 Santa Anita Ave., Burbank CA Canada: Maico Motorcycles, 64 Healy Rd., Bolton, Ont.

Distribution circa 1981-1983: East: Maico USA, 1256 Progress Rd., Suffolk, VA West: Maico West, Inc., 110 Santa Anita Ave., Burbank, CA

M-Star Distribution 1984-86: M-Star Motorcycles, 740 East Santa Maria St., Santa Paula, CA

571

Appendix C

TOP-TEN MAICO FINISHES IN THE NORTH AMERICAN INTER-AM AND TRANS- AMA SERIES RACES BY YEAR, 1970-1974

(* indicates Inter-AM event; all other races Trans-AMA)

The following data was extrapolated from the AMA’s database of past AMA racing results, and may possibly contain errors. Its inclusion here is to provide something of a picture of Maico riders’ accomplishments during the company’s most successful years. Motocross results prior to 1970 are not currently available from the AMA. Hopefully, no offense will be taken by those interested in the years from 1975 on, either; data is available for these years by contacting the AMA. The number proceeding the racer’s name indicates his overall placing in that class and race. Regarding the origins of, and differences between the two events, historian Ed Youngblood makes the following comment: “The Inter-Am was created by promoter Edison Dye in 1967, and preceded the Trans-AMA. The demise of the Inter-AM, and transition to the AMA- sanctioned international series, was connected with the AMA’s gaining national FIM affiliation in 1970 and 1971. Edison Dye continued for a time as the promoter of some of the AMA- sanctioned races, but the relationship was never an easy one.” (Youngblood’s full RacerX Illustrated essay on the two series can be accessed at http://www.motohistory.net/bibliography.html.)

Year Date Location 500 Class 250 Class

1970 Oct 11 LaRue, OH 6-Cliff Graham

Oct 18 New Berlin, NY

Oct 25 Delta, OH

Nov 1 Franklin, CA

Nov 8 Lewisville, TX 2-Mark Moore

Nov 15 Irvine, CA

Nov 21 Puyallup, WA 3-Bill Cooke 4-Dick Poulin

Nov 22 Carlsbad, CA

1971 Jun 27* Castaic Park, CA 3-Bryar Holcomb 8-Tim Hart

Jul 4* Denver, CO 3-Jim Wicks

572

Jul 11* Houston, TX 5-John Mayer

Jul 18* Orlando, FL 4-Jim Weinert

Jul 25* Linville, OH 5-Ben Taylor 5-Jim Weinert 10-Nelson Boyer

Aug 1* New Berlin, NY 1-Tore Jonsson

Sep 19 Carlsbad, CA 8-Tore Jonsson 1-Tim Hart 4-Gary Chaplin 7-Joel Witte 8-Steve Mobbs

Sep 26 Boise, ID 1-Tim Hart 7-Gary Chaplin 9-Michael F. Welland

Oct 3 Elkhorn, WI 1-Adolf Weil 2-Tim Hart 3-Steve Mobbs 7-Gary Chaplin 8-Jean Ramsay

Oct 10 New Berlin, NY 1-Adolf Weil 1-Tim Hart 6-Willi Bauer 8-Tore Jonsson

Oct 17 Copetown, Ont 2-Adolf Weil 5-Gary Chaplin 10-Willi Bauer 7-Tim Hart

Oct 24 Delta, OH 6-Adolf Weil 2-Mike Cram 6-Tim Hart 7-Gary Chaplin

Oct 31 Orlando, FL 5-Adolf Weil 5-Gary Chaplin 7-Willi Bauer 6-Tim Hart

Nov 7 St. Peters, MO 4-Adolf Weil 1-Tim Hart 6-Willi Bauer 2-Gary Chaplin 8-Joe Castagno

Nov 14 Tulsa, OK 5-Adolf Weil 1-Gary Chaplin 8-Willi Bauer 2-Tim Hart

Nov 21 Puyallup, WA 7-Willi Bauer 2-Gary Chaplin

573

3-Tim Hart 8-Joe Castagno

Nov 28 Livermore, CA 2-Adolf Weil 4-Gary Chaplin 6-Willi Bauer 6-Tim Hart

Dec 5 Irvine, CA 4-Adolf Weil 4-Tim Hart 10-Gary Chaplin

1972 Jun 25* Boise, ID 5-Bill Cook

Jul 2* Olympia, WA Jul 8* Los Angeles, CA Jul 16* New Berlin, NY 9-Doug Sanger

Jul 23* Elkhorn, WI 10-Bill Cook

Jul 30* Lexington, OH

Sep 24 Copetown, Ont 6-Gary Chaplin 5-John Franklin 6-Gary Ingram 7-Ed Kopp

Oct 1 Linville, OH 2-Hans Maisch 9-Bill Cook 4-Ake Jonsson 6-Brian Kenney

Oct 8 St. Peters, MO 1-Ake Jonsson 5-Bill Cook 3-Hans Maisch

Oct 15 Gainesville, GA 1-Ake Jonsson 5-Bill Cook 6-Brian Kenney 6-Gary Ingram 10-John Franklin

Oct 22 Orlando, FL 1-Ake Jonsson 10-Gary Ingram 8-Hans Maisch

Oct 29 Houston, TX 1-Ake Jonsson 8-Bill Cook Nov 5 Carlsbad, CA 1-Ake Jonsson 8-Gaylon Mosier 4-Hans Maisch

Nov 12 Phoenix, AZ 1-Ake Jonsson 4-Bill Cook 8-Hans Maisch 5-John Dallaire

Nov 19 Puyallup, WA 1-Ake Jonsson 7-John Franklin 5-Hans Maisch 8-John Dallaire

574

9-Gaylon Mosier

Nov 26 Livermore, CA 1-Ake Jonsson 6-John Dallaire 7-Ron Self 9-John Franklin

Dec 3 Irvine, CA 1-Ake Jonsson 2-Rich Eierstedt 3-Hans Maisch 5-Gaylon Mosier 8-John Franklin 10-Ron Self

1973 Jul 1* Toole, UT 1-Robert Plumb 2-John Dallaire 3-Bob Harris 5-Rex Staten

Jul 7* Los Angeles, CA 1-Robert Plumb 2-Bob Harris 4-Lars Larsson 6-David Messer 7-Rex Staten

Jul 15* Baldwin, KS 2-Bob Harris 4-John Dallaire 8-Gary Ingham 10-James Snow

Jul 22* Delta, OH 9-Gary Ingham 9-Gary Chaplin 10-James Snow

Jul 29* New Berlin, NY 2-Bob Harris 4-Gary Chaplin 4-John Dallaire 6-Gary Ingham 9-James Snow

Sep 23 Springville, NY 4-Gerrit Wolsink 7-Ron Self 9-Bob Harris 8-Rick Jordan

Sep 28 Philadelphia, PA 1-Gerrit Wolsink 5-Ron Self 2-Adolf Weil

Sep 30 Copetown, Ont 1-Adolf Weil 10-Ed Kopp 5-Willi Bauer

Oct 7 Lexington, OH 2-Willi Bauer 9-Ron Self

575

5-Adolf Weil 8-Werner Shutz

Oct 14 Washington, IN 1-Willi Bauer 5-Ron Self 4-Adolf Weil 5-Werner Shutz 10-Gerrit Wolsink

Oct 21 Gainesville, GA 1-Adolf Weil 6-Ron Self 3-Willi Bauer 4-Gerrit Wolsink 9-Gary Jones

Oct 28 Orlando, FL 1-Adolf Weil 8-Rick Jordan 4-Gerrit Wolsink 5-Willi Bauer

Nov 4 Houston, TX 2-Gerrit Wolsink 5-John Franklin 3-Gary Jones 9-John Campbell

Nov 11 Phoenix, AZ 1-Adolf Weil 7-Robert Brown 3-Willi Bauer 10-John Dallaire 4-Gerrit Wolsink

Nov 18 Puyallup, WA 2-Gerrit Wolsink 8-Rich Poulin 3-Willi Bauer 9-Bill Cook 10-Steve Stackable 10-Rick Jordon

Nov 25 Livermore, CA 2-Adolf Weil 7-John Dallaire 3-Willi Bauer 8-John Franklin 4-Gerrit Wolsink 10-Rich Poulin 5-Werner Shutz 7-Rex Staten 10-Gary Jones

Dec 2 Irvine, CA 1-Adolf Weil 5-Robert Brown 4-Willi Bauer 6-Bill Cook 5-Gerrit Wolsink 9-Rich Poulin 10-Steve Stackable

1974 Jun 30* Salt Lake City, UT 9-Robert Brown

Jul 6* Baldwin, KS 3-Steve Stackable 8-Chuck Lampe

Jul 21* Lexington, OH 10-Bob Harris

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Jul 28* Springville, NY 9-Bob Harris

Oct 6 New Berlin, NY 6-Adolf Weil

Oct 13 Linville, OH 7-Jim Slife 8-James Wicks

Oct 20 Gainesville, GA 2-Adolf Weil 5-Barry Higgins 6-Robert Plumb 9-Marty Zappa

Oct 27 Orlando, FL 5-Robert Plumb 6-Barry Higgins

Nov 10 Lake Whitney, TX 3-Steve Stackable 5-Adolf Weil

Nov 17 Puyallup, WA 9-Gary Chaplin 9-Lars Larsson 10-Sal Defeo

Nov 24 Livermore, CA 3-Adolf Weil 9-Robert Plumb

Dec 1 Irvine, CA 6-Adolf Weil 8-Robert Plumb 8-Hans Maisch

Notes: 1) Results were obtained from AMA archives. No data is available prior to 1970. 2) Rick Jordon (250cc) is listed in AMA records as a “CZ/Maico” rider

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Appendix D

MAICO MODELS AND FRAME/ENGINE NUMBERS & NOTATIONS FOR COMPETITION MOTORCYCLES, 1955-1983

The following list was constructed utilizing the best information available, derived from well-substantiated motorcycles, factory data, import invoices, and some amount of intuition. Because even factory literature is known to be at times incorrect (not to mention the many website lists that publish wrong information) this list was produced with only the most verifiable data. As a result, what is shown is highly (though probably not absolutely) accurate. Data which could not be reasonably verified is listed as unknown (UNK). While such gaps are unfortunate, I have resisted the urge to make assumptions beyond those allowed by substantial factual data. A very useful website for additional information on Maico frame and engine numbers is the Maico Off-Road Motorcycles & Registry (a Yahoo Group), which allows members to post frame/engine number information, and includes many hundreds of such entries. In years prior to 1969, I have not listed every model made. (In fact, information on these motorcycles is virtually non-existent. Accordingly, these early machines are not further broken down into actual models; e.g., Scrambler or Enduro. Perhaps better data will become available one day to assist those who may benefit from it.) From 1969, each model in the line-up, in light of the best information available to me, is shown, be it with or without frame and engine numbers. Where a model was manufactured but not imported to North America in any remotely- substantial quantities (such as was the case with 125s and 501s from 1979 to 1983, and 1975 to 1980, respectively) it may not be listed under these latter years. For similar reasons, models such as the street bikes and “Motoball” models are not listed. Note that the last three zeros (in the case of six-digit numbers) and the last four zeros (in the case of seven-digit numbers) are place holders. In either case, the first three digits of each number signify the series of production. (Example: a circa 1955 250 could possess frame numbers from 260001 to 260999.) Finally, remember that this information applies to a company that did not adhere to a strict “model/year” production philosophy, and often continued to use up parts till the supply was exhausted. This resource will be best used to closely place a motorcycle, with known frame or engine number, in a year of manufacture. For example, “This motorcycle, made in the 1950s with a 260176 frame number, should be a 1955 250,” rather than, “To be an authentic 1974 GS250, a motorcycle must have a frame number starting with 340, and an engine number starting with 278.” In summation, historians should accept that with Maico, nearly any combination is possible.

Year Model Frame# Engine# Remarks

1955 175 UNK UNK 250 260000 UNK

1956 175 UNK 140000 250 270000 254000

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1957 175 UNK UNK 250 270000 UNK Alloy cyl (cylinder) first available 1958- 175 UNK UNK 1959 250 180000, 251000 254000

1960 175 UNK UNK 250 180000, 189000 UNK

1961 175 UNK UNK 250 180000 UNK

1962 MC250 251000 UNK GS250 251000 UNK

1963 MC250 210000 270000, 271000 Iron-sleeve alloy cyl avail MC360 210000 270000, 271000 (250cc)

1964 MC250 280000 UNK MC360 280000 UNK

1965- MC250 265000, 280000 270000 1966-double-tube frame1 1967 MC360 280000 340000, 360000 1966--Iron-sleeve alloy cyl GS360 280000 360000 avail (360cc)

1968 RS125 UNK UNK New frame introduced2 MC/GS125 UNK 810000 5-spd 125 introduced3 MC250 380000 272000 Square-barrel introduced MC360 380000 UNK (oval-barrels discounted)

1969 RS125 UNK UNK MC/GS125 880000 810000, 812000 MC250 UNK UNK Last year “wide” frame (all) MC360 380000, 381000 380000, 381000 GS250 UNK UNK GS360 UNK UNK

1970 RS125 UNK UNK 6-spd 125s arrive in the fall

1 The double down-tube frame was introduced in 1966. Frames from 1966 to early 1968 would accept the oval- barrel engines. 2 The new parallel down-tube frame was released in 1968. Early frames would accept the oval-barrel engines; later- 1968 “air box” frames would not. Oval-barrel equipped bikes were discounted $100 less than square-barrels by the distributors in order to liquidate remaining older models. 3 An earlier version of 125 scrambler was pictured on factory literature in late 1965 or early 1966 but was not imported in quantity by the American importers. This early version had a small cylinder and 17 inch wheels and did not correspond to American tastes at the time. Very early 125s utilized chain primary drive. 579

MC/GS125 880000 812000 “Narrow” frame introduced MC250 381000, 382000 272000 on MC & GS models MC400 381000, 382000 400000 MC501 501000 501000 GS250 UNK UNK GS400 UNK UNK

1971 RS125 UNK UNK MC/GS125 881000 812000 MC250 383000 273000 MC400 383000 400000 MC501 501000 501000 GS250 UNK UNK GS400 340000 401000

1972 RS125 890000 812000 MC/GS125 881000 812000 MC250 385000 274000 MC400 38500-386000 402000-403000 possible 388000 frames MC400(Rad) 387000-388000 403000-404000 Radial engine introduced MC501 501000 501000 GS250 385000 274000 GS400 UNK UNK GS440 UNK UNK

1973* RS125 UNK UNK *includes early non-LTR MC125 881000 812000 1974 models MC250 390000, 391000 276000-278000 *All 250s/400s/440s are MC400 387000, 389000 403000, 404000 radial models MC440 39000-393000 440000 *440 introduced MC501 501000 501000 GS250 340000 278000 GS400 UNK UNK GS440 UNK UNK

1974* MC/GS125 881000 812000 *“1974 ½” LTR suspension MC250 393000-395000 277000-279000 models (MCs only—GS MC400 389000 405000, 406000 models remain non-LTR) MC440 393000, 395000 440000, 441000 MC501 501000 501000 GS250 340000 278000 GS400 UNK UNK GS440 340000 441000

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1975* MC/GS125 881000 813000 *See note-6 MC250/5 3210000 3210000 Major design change MC400/4 3210000 407000 to 5-spd machines MC440/4 321000, 3410000 441000 on GP (MC) models MC400/5 UNK UNK MC440/5 UNK UNK MC501 501000 501000 GS250 340000 278000 GS400 UNK UNK GS440 341000 324000

1976 MC250 3260000 3210000 MC400 3260000 3230000 MC440 3260000 3240000 MC501 501000 501000 GS250 2260000 3210000 GS400 UNK UNK GS440 UNK UNK

1977 AW125 3250000 3250000 AW250 3300000 3210000 AW400 3300000 3230000 AW440 3300000 3240000 AW/GS501 UNK UNK GS250 2300000 3210000 GS400 2300000 3230000 GS440 2300000 3240000

1978 125 Magnum 3350000 3350000 250 Magnum 3360000 3360000 400 Magnum 3360000 3370000 440 Magnum 3360000 3380000 GS125 UNK UNK GS250 2360000 2360000 GS400 2410000 UNK GS440 2360000 UNK

1979 250 Magnum-II 3410000 3360000 400 Magnum-II 3410000 3370000 440 Magnum-II 3410000 3380000, 3480000 GS125 3400000 3400000 GS250 2410000 2360000 GS400 2410000 2370000 GS440 2410000 2380000

1980 250 Mega-1 3460000, 3470000 3460000

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400 Mega-1 UNK UNK 440 Mega-1 3460000, 3470000 3480000 Last year for 440 GS125 2400000 2400000 Possible “E” designation GS250 UNK UNK on all GS models. GS400 UNK UNK GS440 2410000 2380000

1981 125 Mega-II UNK UNK 250 Mega-II 3500000, 3510000 3500000 400 Mega-II UNK UNK 490 Mega-II 3500000, 3510000 3520000 GS250 2500000 3480000, 3510000 GS400 UNK UNK GS490 2510000 2520000

1982 250 Alpha-1 3530000 3530000 490 Alpha-1 3540000 3540000 250 Alpha-1E 2530000 2530000 490 Alpha-1E 3540000 3540000

1983 250 Spider 3610000 3610000 490 Spider 3620000 3620000 490 Sand Spider 3620000 3620000 490 Spider-E 3620000 3620000 250 Spider-E 3610000 3610000

Model pre-fixes and post-fixes: MC…motocross GS…gelandesport (enduro) AW…Adolph Weil replica RS…road-racer E…Enduro /8…later 125 (See note 7, below)

Engine Pre-fixes: T…close-ratio square-barrel S…wide-ratio square-barrel U…close-ratio 4-speed radial/501 K…wide-ratio 4-speed radial/501 M…close-ratio, 250 R…close-ratio, 400/440 G…wide-ratio, 400/440

Engine Post-fixes: /4…4-speed /5…5-speed

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/6…6-speed 125 /RS1 (or /RS2)…125cc road racing engine

Notes: 1. Model year 1974 denotes forward-mounted (long-travel) rear suspension (LTR). These machines are commonly referred to as “1974 ½.” Very early 1974 models with standard non-LTR suspension are listed under model year 1973. 2. The term “GP” was used by the factory in advertising for model year 1975 4-speed and new-generation 5-speed machines. In recent years, “GP” has been more commonly used by enthusiasts to describe the “1974 ½” LTR machines and essentially identical 1975 4- speed. 3. GS models. in model years 1977-1983, a number ‘2’ (vice ‘3’, as on the MC model) begins each frame and engine number. Thus the frame number for a 1977 GS440 would be 241xxxx, while the motocross MC440 would be 341xxxx. 4. MC501. As the three-digit “501” prefix remains the same from year to year, year-dating of MC501s will depend on the motorcycle’s components. 501s were likely released as GS models in 1976 (and certainly in 1977), but whether the model prefix stated MC, GS, or AW is uncertain. Importation of 501s to North America tapered off after 1974, although 501 MCs and GSs were produced and available in Europe through 1980. 5. MC/GS/RS125. Reliable data for the 125s is difficult to compile, owing to the relative scarcity of the machines. Although the 6-speed transmission would appear to have been fitted to only 812xxx engines, a 6-speed 811xxx engine was authenticated (possibly a street engine). MC125s, like the GS/Enduro models, were often the recipients of the remaining previous years’ parts, as well. Thus a 1975 might likely have left the factory with external-spring pre-1975-type forks, mated to a 1975-style frame with updated plastic air-box/number plates, and so forth. 1977 appears to be the last year of even minimal importation of 125s to North America, although several 1978 125s have been seen in the United States, and production and European sales continued into 1983. Sales of the 125 line in Europe were probably always stronger in the US due to both the various European nations’ legal stipulations (limiting motorcycle displacement by age), the Maico 125’s fragility, and to America’s general desire for larger engines in their motor vehicles. 6. 1975 motocross models. Motocross bikes (GP designation in period advertising) will indicate MC on the headstock nameplate. 7. /8 model post-fix on MC/GS-125s. The “/8” designation was meant to indicate upgrades to circa-1975 and later radial 125 engines with 6-speed transmissions. These upgrades appear to be mostly in the transmission, with a re-designed “T-bar” (or selector key) engagement rod with four engagement dogs (vice two), and strengthened gears (each gear bearing the “8” stamp). The “/8” model post-fix can be confused with the earlier engine post-fixes (/5 and /6), which referred to the five- or six-speed transmission fitted. Despite a bit of Maico legend to the contrary, there is no evidence that Maico ever produced an eight-speed transmission for the 125s.

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VITA David Wayne Russell

EDUCATION Penn State University, Harrisburg Ph.D., American Studies, May, 2015 M.A., American Studies, June, 2006 Kutztown State University B.F.A., Communication Design/Painting, June,1980

PUBLICATIONS “Military Brats” and “Motorcycles and Motorcycle Clubs,” essays for The Encyclopedia of Youth Culture (forthcoming, 2015).

“Passing it On: Youth and the Future of Vintage Motor Clubs,” The International Journal of Motorcycle Studies (on-line, March, 2014); with revised version in The Antique Motorcycle (September/October, 2014).

“Showing Off: Ideas on how to let your antique motorcycle collection see the light of day,” Ed Youngblood’s MotoHistory (online, July 2010).

“That Long Grey Chain,” Era Helicopter Safety Review (Summer, 2008).

“Another Casualty of War? A Rushed Withdrawal from Iraq Could Marginalize and Alienate Military Veterans,” (lead article) As I See It; in The Sunday Patriot News, Harrisburg, PA (September 2, 2007).

“The Dirt Bike and Off-road Motorcycle Culture in the 1970s,” The International Journal of Motorcycle Studies (on-line, March, 2005).

“The Motorcycle as Art,” Classic Cycle Review, Vol 3, No 4 (July/August 1994).

“Power, Attitude, Trim: A Picture of Primary Flight Training,” The Marine Corps Gazette (May, 1991).

PRESENTATIONS “The Wild One and the history of American Motorcycling,” Lower Paxton Township Council on the Arts Movie Night Series (May 31, 2014).

“Das Boot and German U-boat Operations in World War II,” Lower Paxton Township Council on the Arts Movie Night Series (May 30, 2013).

“Thoughts on What Determines Value in Vintage Motorcycles,” International Journal of Motorcycle Studies Annual Conference, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (June 7-10, 2012).

“Racer and Race: An African-American Motocross Racer,” Irish American Studies Conference, University College, Cork; Cork, Ireland (April 27-29, 2012).

“Science and Faith, 2005” Writer and moderator of panel discussion of scientists considering the intersection of science and religious beliefs in modern America. New Love in Christ Church, Linglestown, PA (2005).

“Report from Iraq” Presentations/lectures on Iraqi War deployment as artist in April-May 2005 (June/July, 2005).

CURATORIAL EXHIBITIONS, LEAD CURATOR Indian Nation: The Indian Motorcycle and America. Antique Automobile Club of America Museum, Hershey, PA (2014).

A Welcome Invasion: British Motorcycles in America, 1940-1980. Antique Automobile Club of America Museum, Hershey, PA (2013).

Dusty Jewels: Off-road Motorcycles of the 1970s. Antique Automobile Club of America Museum, Hershey, PA (2012).

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