Appreciation

[TGTech]

I'd like to publicly express my appreciation to our Club's President Danik, for everything that took place at last weekend's meeting at the Heritage Museum. He seems to have the ability to see all of the details that our members would like to know. Thank you Paul.

Dane

[Rocket]

I will second that, very enjoyable weekend and very interesting "history" lesson.
Rocket

[slvrbrdfxr]

Yes, I have to agree. Great Job !! It was nice to see everyone and the information provided was fantastic. I'm already looking forward to VMD and the KTM HDQ event in September.
Dave McCullough

[Knute]

I agree guys.  I believe Kalman's insight into the early days of KTM and the origin of the Penton were perhaps some of the most significant moments in POG history.  The icing on the cake was after the meeting when he pulled Mr. Trunkenpolz's hand written production figures from his briefcase.  What an incredible day.  Thanks again to Paul and the rest of the POG leadership for all you did to make this event possible.

Kent Knudson

[454MRW]

I was wondering if the production figures/ending serial numbers for each year going to be posted on the production figures/frame serial numbers page of the site? Mike

Michael R. Winter
I enjoy rebuilding and appreciating Pentons!
1974 250 HS Pentons-1980 KTM 175-400'S

[Paul Danik]

Mike,

    The tablets that contain the production figures had at one time been the personal property of Mr. Trunkenpolz, Kalman stated that when KTM went to computerization Mr. Trunkenpolz gave him the notebooks. Kalman has agreed to put the production figures into a spreadsheet type document and forward it to us. I do not know if the figures contain serial numbers, when I looked at the notebooks I saw monthly production figures for the various models and figures pretaining to the number of machines shipped to various countries.  
   
     I had just a brief look at the notebooks, possibly Kent or one of the others saw more than I did and can report their findings.

     I am sure that when we recieve the figures we will get them out for the membership to view and analize.

Thanks
Paul

[454MRW]

I guess that I was assuming that since Mr. Cseh stated that the frame or serial numbers were the same on bikes shipped to other countries as the ones shipped to the US it may indicate they would run from XXX00001- to the number produced in each year, but I am sure there are exceptions to that. It would certainly make determining the break between 1976 and 1977 MC5 production somewhat easier regardless, because of the frame 550-xxxxx serial number for 2 years of production and the 855-xxxxx from 1978 MC5 to the early 1979 MX6 run. I look forward to the information from Mr. Trunkenpolz tablets being shared with the group. Mike

Michael R. Winter
I enjoy rebuilding and appreciating Pentons!
1974 250 HS Pentons-1980 KTM 175-400'S

[Knute]

Paul, my recollection is the same as yours.  I believe the figures were broken down 2 ways.  One section was the # of bikes shipped to each country by month.  The other section was bike size (cc) shipped (or manufactured) each month.

Mike, hopefully some math can be applied to the production numbers and we can determine things such as which month each MC5 (550) was produced.  When interpreting these #'s though, you need to be aware that there is an ongoing debate about determining what model year a Penton is.  For example, if a bike is stamped 312 some call it a 1973 and a bike stamped 401 a 1974.  On the other hand, red 250's were made as early as 310.  Are they 1973's or 74's?  Further, most manufacturers introduce their new models several months in advance of the actual new year.  Then, any motorcycle produced from there on out is the newer model year, even though it may have been produce in September of the previous year.  This is currently the case in the automotive and motorcycle industries.  So, in reality, there are 3 different ways that Penton's can be dated...1. Actual production date, 2. Introduction of significant feature changes, 3. Model year.

The source of this issue lies in the fact that KTM/Penton, unlike most manufacturers, made running changes in their motorcycles... irrespective of model year.  New ideas and components were incorporated as soon as it was feasible, so each new batch of Penton's entering the country was typically different than the previous.  And therein also lies one of the coolest parts of owning a Penton...the uniqueness of each motorcycle.

Thanks again Paul, and congratulations on your new plaque.  I can't think of a more deserving person.

Kent

[Gary Roach]

I believe Paul was also instrumental in having Penton numbers V001, V002, and V003 together again after 40 years! Great job, Paul.

Gary

[Paul Danik]

Being as V-003 belonging to "Big Al" Born lives at the Museum, that one wasn't to hard to accomplish. But I must say, we sometimes have a bit of a problem getting it far enough into the elavator that the door will close, the trick is to back the bike in, but we seem to forget that from one year to  the next.

   When I approached Dale Barris, owner of V-001, I explained how the POG had hired an armoured truck with three armed guards for the trip if he would let us display his Penton at the meeting.  Dale really laughed, then he proceeded to agree to allow us to display his prized Penton.  I was dissapointed when I called Dale's shop on the Thursday before the meeting, to try to get Dale to attend, to find out he was out of the country, it would have been great to have had Dale at the meeting. A big thanks goes out to Ollie and Al Martin, who along with Art Busic, took care of all of the work involved in actually getting the bike to and from the meeting.

   V-002 has been an object of attention for almost the entire 10 years that the POG has been going.  I knew that Dallas had the machine and I would often stop and visit with him on my way to POG meetings, giving him newsletters and other POG/Penton items to try to get him fired up. Dallas always said how the bike was buried in his garage behind and under a pile of stuff and that sometime he would dig it out and give me a call to come see it.  When this meeting started to come together it seemed like the time to pull out all the stops, so we tag teamed Dallas. "Big Al" Born and Dallas go way back, together "Big AL" and I  put the pressure on him, for several months before the meeting Al and I would take turns talking to Dallas, each time he would say he would "try" to make it.  I have to say in Dallas's defence he has a job that requires him to work most Saturdays. Dallas said the bike looked really bad, and that if he came he was just going to "bring it like it was".  I told Al I didn't care if it had chicken dropings on it and was only a bare frame, just as long as it was V-002. Then the day came, next thing I hear " Big Al" say that Dallas was rolling in his bike, I was stunned, his bike was awesome, as the picture above shows.

 A side note to this is that V-002 was originally bought and owned by Larry Maiers, awhile back Larry called and told me he still had the original invoice for the machine and offered it up for inclusion in the POG archives. When the invoice arrived, I noticed that John Penton had put a check mark in the box that indicated that Larry had "charged" the bike, when John was informed of this he started to look to see if Larry had kept up his payments, I haven't heard the final results of JPs search yet

I used to race against Dale Barris and Dallas on their Pentons many years ago, they were both really super riders and very nice gentleman. I never had the chance to race against "Big Al", but I know he would have covered me with dirt, then probably come over after the race and offer to help me clean up:D  The bottom line is that it is easy to get things to happen when you work with such nice people, and as Dave Mungenast used to say, "you meet the nicest people on a Penton".

Paul

[ABORN]

My "Thanks" also go out to Paul for all the work and worrying he did towards making our day at the AMA Museum.  I dont think Paul lost any weight over the event but I'm sure he gained a few gray hairs as he was very concerned that things go just right, as they did.  For about a month before that meeting, if our phone rang any time after 7:00 p.m., Margie would say:  you may as well answer it because its likely Paul and most of the time it was.  It really was great to see Dallas after all those years. I'm sure that having Pentons 1, 2, and 3 there made his day, month and year.  Thanks to Dallas and Dale too, as well as Kalman for his wonderful presentation. Also I want to thank Toni/Gary for the beautiful cakes (what an honor) and for all the pizza that was provided by the Buehners and for all who donated items for the door prizes (see Feb. minutes). And, what would we do without the Guthries? I would like to remind all members that Paul does not only excel at making things happen at the Museum meeting but at all of our events.  Most of all, I'm thankful that God has given John Penton good health so that he is still able to travel and be with us for all of the Penton family reunions that we have.  Big Al

[thrownchain]

Can we expect another "re-union" in Sept. at KTM??? or maybe even at Mid Ohio??

[Paul Danik]

Dan,

    The September 13 - 14 event at Amherst will be a very special time for all of us, given that we will be able to visit a lot of the locations where the Penton heritage originated from back in the day, accompanied by a number of the folks who helped to make it all happen. Some of the locations that we plan to visit include the original Penton Brothers machine shop, the Penton homestead and Farm Market, the location of the Penton R & D building, as well as several other locations that are very important to the Penton legacy.

    In addition to the historic aspect of the weekend, we will be using the state of the art KTM campus as our home base and will be given a tour of their facilities.  More details of the weekend's activities will be forth coming, but this event will most certainly be one not to miss.

   Mid-Ohio will most certainly be a great time as always with the POG tent area being a great place for us POGGERS to get together.

Paul

[454MRW]

Bob,
You have mail. Mike

Michael R. Winter
I enjoy rebuilding and appreciating Pentons!
1974 250 HS Pentons-1980 KTM 175-400'S