Motobécane

Motobécane was a French bicycle and engine manufacturer that existed from 1923 to 1984. Motobécane means " motor bike ".

Description

Motobécane made ​​motorcycles, mopeds ( Mobylette / Moby since 1949), the Velosolex license and not least bikes there, and was next to a Peugeot the most famous French bicycle manufacturer. After the bankruptcy of 1984, the company was purchased by Yamaha, it is under the name MBK Industrial continued.

As one of the first vehicle manufacturer Motobecane began in the late 1940s with the development of transmissions with continuously variable transmission, which showed in the 1950s the type Mobymatic.

Items from Motobécane are stamped with a big M, of which the median stripes to the baseline. Sometimes this M is wearing a three -pointed crown. So many items can be assigned to at least the manufacturer. Other parts come from external suppliers, such as most of the gasifier, the motorized vehicles of Gurtner. Especially are rare, as with many vintage cars, parts of rubber and elastomers, as they harden and crack.

Like many other French car manufacturers are also Motobécane in his workshop books on a variety of special tools. Many of them are comfortable but not absolutely necessary if you bring a little skill with standard tools.

Some of mopeds Motobécane were designed for higher performance, but in Germany received only an operating up to 25 km / h in order to qualify as mopeds and be driven from 15 years to be allowed (for example, type N 150). These vehicles were delivered throttled for the German market, which is the life of the motors zugutekam, if they were not doctored arbitrary.

Engines of Motobécane were also used in light vehicles such as the Arola.

A community of collectors has not yet come together for vehicles of Motobécane. Copies currently offered are mostly located in a non- operational state.

Automotive prototype

In 1958 the prototype of a small car. The four-wheeled vehicle was designed as a beach car. It had neither a roof nor doors. It offered depending on the source space for two or four people. For the drive was provided by a fan -cooled single-cylinder engine with 125 cc displacement and 9 hp, which was mounted in the rear and the rear wheels drive.

1960 attempts have been made with a closed small cars. The vehicle had sliding doors. A four-cylinder engine with 300 cc displacement or a single-cylinder two -stroke engine powered the vehicle.