Montesa Honda

Montesa Honda is the Spanish subsidiary of Honda, which assembles several models of motorcycles, bicycles and parts at its Barcelona plant. The company exports 75 percent of its production to Europe.

Permanyer and Bultó

Montesa was formed in 1944 by Pedro Permanyer and Francisco Xavier "Paco" Bultó. Their first Montesa prototype was based upon the French Motobécane models of that time. Permanyer began to produce his own gas engines, which allowed for a new area in motorcycles to be explored and expanded into. Permanyer and Bultó teamed up in Barcelona and created a light-weight motorcycle. This led to the creation of a bike powered by a 95cc two-stroke engine with no rear suspension. Despite some setbacks, they sold 22 of these units in the first year of production. The next year, the partnership focused on production improvements and meeting the growing demand for their bike. As a successor to the previous model, Bultó designed a new 125cc roadster, which was tested in many of the trail-type rallies and semi-enduros that were popular in Spain at the time.