Uncle John's new idea circa 1967

[TGTech]

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

[robbersroost1]

Dane, This is my all time favorite post. Wish someone had a picture of the broke in half Hansa. Keep up the good reporting.

Terry Laible

[Rocketman]

Very interesting read. Thanks.

Lord, please let me be more like the person my dog thinks I am.

[Paul Danik]

Dane,
   Thanks for the great reply.  I remember as a youngster going to Penton dealer school and hearing little bits of information about KTM and the Hansa once in awhile but most of that information was only known to a select group, or so it seemed to me.  It was all part of the mys'tic of any trip I took to Amherst, the smell of all of the new bikes "in the crate" filled the warehouse area and Uncle Ted was always involved in some project in his machine shop that would lead to the next improvement "at the factory". In the evening all would gather at the R&D building to watch movies taken at the latest ISDT event in some place that I had usually never heard of. In my dreams that night I would be riding my Penton...... No wonder.

Thanks again Dane.
Paul