25 Years Ago March, 1972
25 YEARS AGO MARCH, 1972
ROUNDUP
The motorcycle industry has changed a great deal in the past 25 years, and Cycle World along with it. For evidence, check out the March, 1972, issue. Dirtbikes sold in the hundreds of thousands then, and as such, a pair of 360cc dual-purpose bikes from Bultaco and Yamaha adorned the cover. But hidden on page 34 was a test of the new Kawasaki Mach IV, a three-cylinder, 750cc two-stroke streetbike that at the time turned a 12.72-second quarter-mile pass, making it “the quickest road machine Cycle World has ever tested.” Apparently not grasping the significance of this model, the editors gave the test just four pages, with six black-and-white photos that didn’t even show the bike in action. Wanna bet it would have wheelied its way onto the cover today?
• Further satisfying the public’s appetite for dirtbike coverage were tests of a Husqvarna 125 Baja Special desert racer and a Suzuki 185 dual-purpose bike, plus a how-to feature in which famed TT racer Skip Van Leeuwen showed readers the fast way up a twisty fireroad.
• Venue for that article, as well as the Trans-AMA Motocross Championship finale covered on page 56, was Southern California’s Saddleback Park, the former off-road mecca that shut its gates in the early 1980s. And though the land has remained more or less unused since then, we are sorry to report that it was recently bladed for yet another SoCal freeway. Ah, progress...
-Brian Catterson
