John (jtb) and Larry (okie) have been so kind as to take some pictures of the Sanglas bike at the Barber museum
The fact that this bike got into the museum, and how it made it to it, is something that amazes me. You have probably heard about some other spanish bikes, such as Montesa, Bultaco or Ossa. They had great success with off-road bikes and many of them were sold worldwide in the seventies.
Sanglas was founded in the mid-forties by brothers Javier and Martin Sanglas. In a country that was recovering from a civil war and was isolated from internationtal trade, they needed all their ingenuity to build bikes. They bought surplust cutlery from the army, and would read the newspapers waiting for news of a plane crash in order to get there and buy the remains. The crankcases were so porous that they had to be coated from the inside to keep the oil from seeping!!!
They always built four-strokes, as opposed to the other spanish brands. In the fifties they founded a sibling brand (Rovena) to sell two-stroke bikes with Villiers engine. They were comparatively high-priced compared to the two-strokes, but they survived thanks to the contracts with police and state patrols. As a result of the political situation, only spanish brands would be eligible to win the contract, and the four-strokes Sanglas were more reliable and needed less maintenance than the other spanish bikes. With no competition from abroad, they were slow when it came to development -as were the other spanish brands- so when the dictator died in 1976 and the import ban was removed, the technological delay was unsurpassable.
So, as Sanglas had the big sales in the police forces, they were never into exports. So how did this bike made into the US? The number "3" sticker in the frame downtube is the equivalent to the "road tax disc", so this bike has either been so perfectly restored, or is it in original condition!!!! Nevertheless, the kickstarter rubber is missing, as well as the battery and covers.
I found this picture in a photo display in Palencia, near Madrid. There are quite a few like this. It represent the state troopers taking delivery of their new batch of Sanglas bikes. The time is probably late 50's, early 60's
I have a Sanglas bike in restoration now, and a runner with a Yamaha XS400 engine -Sanglas tried to survive reaching an agreement with Sanglas to provide engines in the early 80's but it was too late-. This picture below was taken a couple of weeks ago. Me, my Sanglas S400Y, under the stret sign of the only "Sanglas street" in Spain. It lays in a industrial complex in the outskirts of Madrid, where all the streets have names of spanish motorcycle brands: Montesa, Bultaco, Ossa, Sanglas, Lube, Soriano, etc.
Larry, John, thanks again for the pictures!!
