Early KTM circa 1967.

[Dale Fisher]

Thanks to the link provided by Speedy I've found much more to probe through than just the ISDT pages and have been posting motocross pictures on Facebook from the Sittendorf, Austria events from the 1960's.  Advancing to 1967 I came across these early KTM's.













Dale Fisher
POG Memberships
74 Berkshire 100
70 Six-Days 125
73 Jackpiner 175

[tofriedel]

I like the hi-tech boots on the rider on #105.  Almost as good as the boots I worn back in 68.

Tony

[checkcrew]

i like the guys in the crowd with the black shades - future KGB agents [8D] - LOL -

great pics Dale !!!

Mike Gallagher, NJ.
[email protected]

[brian kirby]

So are those early Penton prototypes or some bike KTM was building before JP started building Steel Tankers?

Brian

[Mick Milakovic]

I was always under the impression that KTM was a small street-bike based business before JP cme along.  Those bikes are sachs-engined; are they Sachs frames also?  Are they just street bikes with knobbies and high pipe?  The orange frame hints that they are KTM design, since they adopted the color in 1978.

Mick

[Big Mac]

Can't be true. Official Penton history is that KTM was a moped manufacturer before the Six Days versions. Early 60s KTM ISDT teams had to be moped-mounted.

[checkcrew]

i have a hunch but "IMO" these bikes are early Zundapp's with KTM badges,
here are a couple photos of one of my 72 Zundapp GS125's
look at the simalarities in the frame, rear wheel { flipped over to accept the Sachs right side drive } and sprocket and the forks, seat looks very similar as well, same front wheel and brake stay, also Zundapp's had "orange" painted frames,
what do you guys think ??





Mike Gallagher, NJ.
[email protected]

[Paul Danik]

From what I have been told, read, and heard during discussions during a few POG meetings over the years,

Fritz Dingel, a Cleveland based Hungarian importer with ties to Eric Trunkenpolz at KTM, was looking to have the Penton Brothers become dealers for the KTM produced Hansa that he was importing. The Hansa name was Dingel's brainchild as he was hoping to have folks relate the name Hansa with the well received Honda. The Hansa was basically a small Sachs powered street machine built by KTM.

Dingel supplied Penton Brothers with a Honsa for evaluation with high hopes, those hopes were dashed when young Jack broke it in half at a race. Dingel was in a bad position as he wanted the Pentons to become dealers of his imported machines and he needed to prove to them that KTM could indeed produce a quality machine for them to handle. Dingel convinced Trunkenpolz to crate up and send over one of the hand built machines that a couple of KTM engineers had built. When that machine arrived Jack and others at Penton raced it and they were virtually untouchable. That machine was built in part by KTM employee Siegfried Stuhlberger, whom John nicknamed Ziggie.

The machines that you are looking at in those photos are the same, or very similar to, the one that was sent over to prove to Penton that KTM could indeed build a good quality machine.  They were basically hand built one off machines, not production models.

After a POG meeting one night as we sat around the table, Jack asked out loud, "how did we ever get Ziggie's hand built machine over here before Dad ever visited KTM?" As Jack, Dane and Paul Busick all put their knowledge together and cleared the cobwebs on this issue, they agreed that it was Dingel who arranged for it to be shipped over, as is explained above.  

John later met Ziggie at the ISDT in Poland where he was riding one of those hand built Sachs powered machines, Ziggie invited John to visit the KTM factory and meet Eric Trunkenpolz, that started the relationship between John and Eric "T".

When the Steel Tanker was first built, it is obvious that KTM had the knowledge to build those machines that you see in the pictures, but at that time it was not feasible to build those machines in serial production at a cost that would allow them to be sold in the US market as was John's concept. A few years later as KTM improved its production abilities, the Steel Tank machines were replaced by the CMF models that incorporated many of the attributes of the hand built machines.

The question often arises as to why the early CMF machines had 32mm forks when the Steel Tankers had 35mm forks, the most common answer is cost, but possibly it was felt that the lighter forks would be sufficient for the newly designed CMF Penton.  

I hope I have answered a few questions, and surly encourage anyone to correct, confirm, or add to what I have written.

Paul

[Paul Danik]

The picture above, # 2 is Farioli, many of these photos and the KTM history are captured in the book KTM by Friedrick F. Ehn. Problem is the text is not in English, it would be awesome to have some of it translated. The book is worth the price just for the photos. One of the most obvious differences the book shows from the production Mustang and the Comet Super 4, which looks to be what Fritz imported as the Hansa, is the twin downtube frame. Then when you look closer the shocks are different, and the list probably goes on and on. These race machines were indeed modified versions of the KTM production street machines, the interesting question would be, how many of the major components are interchangeable ?

A search of this site under Hansa will provide some neat photos as well as information put forth over the years

http://www.pentonusa.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11808&SearchTerms=Hansa

Awesome book, I am sure than some of you have it..

http://www.amazon.com/KTM-Weltmeistermarke-aus-%C3%96sterreich-Friedrich/dp/370590034X

Here is some wonderful info from our late friend Dane.

Posted - 11/21/2005 :  1:38:08 PM  Show Profile  Email Poster  Reply with Quote
President Danik asked me to share my thoughts about when I learned that Uncle John was going to have his own motorcycle. While I don't exactly remember my thoughts, there are memories that may be interesting to everyone.

After a number of years of experimenting with the European two strokes and in one case, a Japanese two stroke, (an RH250 Suzuki much like the RN 250 that is in the AMA Heritage Museum's Motocross America exhibit) and having seen the potential of the small displacement, European two stroke machines used in the ISDT, JP really began to lust for an out of the box, small displacement two stroke racing machine.

He had been bugging Husqvarna to build a 125, but Husky didn't want anything do do with that idea. Around this time, there was a business man living in Cleveland, who was originally from Mattighofen, where KTM was located, and who was importing a 100cc street machine called a Hansa. The name was supposed to be something like Honda, and he thought that people would flock to them, as a method of inexpensive transportation. I don't remember how Mr. Dengel decided to visit Penton Honda, but he brought one of these things out to the Honda store, and tried to get John to start selling them. The only part of the machine that caught JP's attention, was the Sachs engine. He'd seen these engines in many of the bikes at the ISDT, and knew of their potential. In the end, he told Mr. Dengel that he'd see what it was capable of.

After doing some work to make the thing race worthy, Jack was assigned to ride the bike at a competitive event. I don't know if it was a motocross or a hare scramble, but whatever, Jack learned that the bike wasn't up to the task, and he literally broke the bike in half. When Mr. Dengel came back to check out how the machine had made out, he was presented with the "pile of Hansa". He was undeterred, and told JP that since this bike had only been a street bike, he wasn't surprised that the bike wasn't up to the task of racing.

HOWEVER, he assured JP that KTM had built and could build a suitable racing machine and that he'd get KTM to send us one of these machines.
Not too long after this, a crate showed up, with a bike that I like to think was the catalyst in getting JP going on his idea of building a bike like he wanted.

The bike that KTM sent, was one a Sigfried Stuhlberger built, 100cc, 6 speed (Two more gears than most of the racing machines on the market at that time had!) Hansa. And perhaps the most notable thing about the machine, was that it had an exhause on it, that was used in the enduro world, and it was super quiet compared to all of the open expansion chambers of the day. It was so quiet, that when you wanted to start a race on it along side all of the noisy machines, you couldn't hear it! You had to start the race by feel instead of sound.

Well, that machine kicked the tail of everything it came up against in the 100cc class and even most of the 125's that it was raced against. JP was sold, that KTM could make a real racer, and he got to work putting together his list of ideas to put into his machine.

I think this all took place in early 1967, and by December that year, the prototype Penton 125 Six Day was completed.

Being very honest, when all this was taking place, I remember the broken in half Hansa, and the "6 speed", but I was never in on the conversations about the Pentons. I knew that KTM was going to build a bike, but I really didn't know what it was going to be like.

Up until that time, the only race ready machines that I remembered very well, were the Huskys, the CZ's, some Bultacos, a Greeves, and some Moto Beta's. I think in my mind, I thought that the Penton was going to look like the 6 speed, which was a little beaten, but when the prototype showed up, it was the most beautiful race bike I'd ever seen. Well, at least the small displacement version. I still liked the maroon and silver of the Huskys, but since this was a small displacement machine, there was no comparison.

Later on, I learned that the 100cc verson of the bike was going to be a dark red, and of course, because I liked the maroon of the Husky, I decided at that point, that I had to have one of those.

One side note, the 6 speed's frame configuration looked markedly different than the Hansa and the prototype Penton. Keep in mind it has been 38 years since I saw that machine, but I do remember basically what it looked like. You know the picture of the 50cc machine that is on the front page of this Web site this month? Well, that's just about what it looked like. I remember that the "color" of the machine was a non metallic maroon, with a black frame and silver trim.

The prototype Penton Six Day cost Uncle John, $10,000 and a handshake. The first 10 production machines cost $60,000 and that's what got this whole thing off the ground. Keep in mind, that this was 1967. Think about how much money that was at the time?

Dane
Edited by - TGTech on 11/21/2005 5:16:53 PM

[dennis brown]

i did a little digging and got this info from  a site, history of ktm.the first title was won in the austrian championship on a 125 in 1955. . it won its first gold medal at the isdt in 1956 the rider was egon dornauer.  and in 1964 ktm fielded a factory team at the isdt

dennis l.brown

[rob w]

The way everything adds up to me, KTM could not have been anymore fortunate that John Penton came along when he did.
Obviously at the time KTM had a big interest in off road racing.
But the good sales, proven success, and connection to the U.S. market of John Penton's product, gave KTM the confidence to pursue the development of their own motorcycle.
Also the money generated by manufacturing 6800 Penton motorcycles (Steel tankers) helped them greatly to grow as well.
I believe KTM had a proto-type of their first engine in 1970, so they were off and running full speed on their own ideas, very shortly after knowing John Penton's concept was the right track to follow, and build on.
When John Penton walked through the doors of KTM for the first time, it must have been like their savior had just fallen from the sky.

[SouthRider]

The interesting thing - and actually quite odd - is that from the photos they appear to be more technologically advanced than a steel tanker.

Look at the airbox.
The forks appear to be leading axle.
The rear brake seems to be fully floating with snail type axle adjuster.
The shocks even seem to be mounted quite forward for the mid to late 60's.
And they already have ISDT type magura levers.

There are even aluminum ridged Akront rims.

Any chance that these photos are misfiled and from the early 70's?

_____________________________________________________________________________________

"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible, for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, that we are now qualified to do almost anything, with nothing."

1972 Penton Berkshire 100
1983 Husqvarna 250 XC
2011 Jayco 31.5 RLDS
2009 Chevy 2500 HD Duramax

[Dale Fisher]

Keep in mind these were from an Austrian archive site.  Not quite Swiss but I think known for things usually being pretty orderly.  First picture is from the cover of the event brochure.  Second picture is the entry list with the two bikes listed.  Third is the link to this particular brochure and the complete set of the event pictures.  Note: I thought the same thing when I first spotted them [?]





http://www.technischesmuseum.at/motorsport-in-oesterreich/veranstaltung/articleid/2505

Dale Fisher
POG Memberships
74 Berkshire 100
70 Six-Days 125
73 Jackpiner 175