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An exclusive interview with Montesa's Jordi Permanyer
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Where abouts did Montesa test a motorcycle ? Did they have some land in the mountains that they owned or did they just go to their favourite public place on the mountain ?
For motocross, we had a race track called Santiga and I remember when Pedro Pi was testing out motocross bikes we spent a lot of time at this circuit. In the case of the trial we just went to the mountains near Barcelona to test.
For motocross, we had a race track called Santiga and I remember when Pedro Pi was testing out motocross bikes we spent a lot of time at this circuit. In the case of the trial we just went to the mountains near Barcelona to test.
An exclusive interview with Montesa's Jordi Permanyer www.retrotrials.com
An exclusive interview with Montesa's Jordi Permanyer www.retrotrials.com
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An exclusive interview with Montesa's Jordi Permanyer www.retrotrials.com
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The expansion from the relatively small factory of Pamplona in Barcelona to the largest Esplugues premises was huge, what do you remember about this ?
Well this move to the larger factory was something that I did not see, because when I first visited the factory we were already at Esplugues.
Well this move to the larger factory was something that I did not see, because when I first visited the factory we were already at Esplugues.
An exclusive interview with Montesa's Jordi Permanyer www.retrotrials.com
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An exclusive interview with Montesa's Jordi Permanyer www.retrotrials.com
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Esplugues was a purpose build factory that was an incredible investment for the company and was a huge risk for the company. It was designed in 1960 and 1961, when there was a very big crisis in Spain and within Montesa and my father decided very much on the Impala Project, so it this time he decided to march onwards and continue with the building of the Esplugues factory.
Operation Impala kicked off in January 1962. Despite one of the motorcycles being in an accident just days before 3 prototype new model Impala's set off on a 20,000 kilometer adventure from Capetown to Cairo across unfrequented terrain . No major problems were encountered and the publicity gained was huge. Subsequently Montesa Impala's had huge sales and to this day command high prices as a fashionable commodity.
An exclusive interview with Montesa's Jordi Permanyer www.retrotrials.com
This was an incredible risk for my father and the factory and looking back now, I do not think he has said that he did not evaluate the risk a great deal, but we are lucky because we succeeded and had many great years in this factory.
An exclusive interview with Montesa's Jordi Permanyer www.retrotrials.com
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An exclusive interview with Montesa's Jordi Permanyer www.retrotrials.com
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I've been told by a number of people that Bultaco was a company that was not particularly financially solvent, they relied on loans and investment to continue pretty much all of the time. Was Montesa a more secure company ?
Yes yes, I think in the commercial area and the financial area of the company there was a lot more effort put into the decisions that were made and the projections into the future, allowing the company to make better decisions based upon how much money they had.Montesa was a more organised company than Bultaco and this is the reason why we survived and were taken over by Honda because, of course Bultaco did not survive. Our company was much more organised, we would have many people looking after the money and investments and making projections, where as I don't think this was happening in Bultaco, it was a lot more simple.
Yes yes, I think in the commercial area and the financial area of the company there was a lot more effort put into the decisions that were made and the projections into the future, allowing the company to make better decisions based upon how much money they had.Montesa was a more organised company than Bultaco and this is the reason why we survived and were taken over by Honda because, of course Bultaco did not survive. Our company was much more organised, we would have many people looking after the money and investments and making projections, where as I don't think this was happening in Bultaco, it was a lot more simple.