Bultaco is resurrected, but with motorcycles designed and manufactured in China

The motorcycle market once again features a motorcycle with the Bultaco logo and name, thanks to the impetus of the Leonart Motors brand, based in Mataró. This small Maresme-based brand has created a subsidiary called Bultaco Next SL which is responsible for the commercial rights of the brand created by Paco Bultó in 1953 in Sant Adrià de Besòs, and which operated until its disappearance in 1983. In 2014, there was already a first attempt to revive the brand name, with a newly created company called Bultaco Motors, specializing in electric motorcycles. Despite creating some models with a certain success, such as the Brinco, the venture was not successful and Bultaco Motors ended up closing in 2019.A bet with a Chinese accent

The new roadmap of the promoters of this Bultaco revival includes a business model not very different from that of Ebro, Santana or Galloper. The plan of the new Bultaco involves marketing an already existing motorcycle, the Chinese Chongqing Andes UT 3.5 Rally, which is already sold in our market under the name 300 Rally thanks to the agreement with Leonart from Mataró. This is a trail motorcycle with a power of 28 HP and only 150 kilos of weight, with a price of 3,999 euros, and which can be ridden with the A2 license. It includes as standard a 5-inch TFT digital screen, a front dashcam to record journeys and LED headlights that guarantee good illumination.

Bultaco's new motorcycle will be called the Bultaco Rally GT 300, and it only differs from the original Chinese motorcycle in the Bultaco logos and stickers. It will be available for purchase starting this September and will initially be available in the colors black, black and red (inspired by the racing team), or black and orange.This new Bultaco Rally GT 300 is not, therefore, a new and differentiated product, but a model designed and manufactured in China, with Asian manufacturers who have been collaborating with Leonart Motors for years. This industrial formula allows the Bultaco brand to be relaunched without having to assume the initial development and production costs, taking advantage of the base of an existing motorcycle and applying some adaptations and specifications developed with the Bultaco Racing competition team.

However, the business plan of the new Bultaco (very similar to that of Ebro or Santana) clashes head-on with the innovative and sporting spirit of the original Bultaco. Founder Paco Bultó understood that the company's foundation should be to accumulate experience and expertise in the world of competition to then apply the knowledge and innovations developed in its street bikes. In fact, the model that made Bultaco popular was the trial motorcycle Sherpa T, a much lighter and more maneuverable bike than its British and French rivals of its time. Nowadays, however, the return of a hypothetical Sherpa is little less than a chimera, as the market for manufacturers and buyers of trial motorcycles is smaller (and less profitable) than in the seventies and eighties of the last century, and for the moment no Chinese manufacturer has specialized in generating trial motorcycles that could serve as a basis for the return of the mythical Sherpa.