Ossa 125 Palillos 1956

OSSA was a Catalan company dedicated to the production of motorcycles between 1924 and 1982 . Founded by industrial barcelona Joan Giró , the factory was located in the Zona Franca of Barcelona and its name is the acronym for Orpheo Sincronic Sociedad Anónima. The logo was a four-leaf clover. Even today it retains the popularity that reached all over the world, especially in the US , among the fans of motorcycle racing.

In 2010 , after nearly three decades of closure, the brand has been reborn in the hands of few entrepreneurs of girona , which will manufacture motorcycles from the new enterprise Ossa Factory SL

History

The original company began in 1924 by manufacturing projectors for the cinema industry in the Spanish market. Your first reason social, Orpheo Sincronic Sociedad Anónima (OSSA), was subsequently changed to Machinery, Film, SA During the 1920s stood out as a manufacturer of a device designed to bring sound to the movies, then silent , all connecting to the projectors.

The son of its founder, Manuel Giró , was an ex-officer of the merchant navy and a passionate racing of speed skiing, where he came to get some records.

When your attraction for the swimming competitions loosened, was devoted to road races, buying then a Norton 500 that ran races for Europe . In those days that bike was not easy to control, so that there were many races in which he had just ground. That's why the changed it for a BMW , but its engine was not so powerful and decided to replace it with one four-cylinder and 1000 cc created by him, derived from the boats. Its creation became portentous in a straight line, but very unreliable in curves, to the point that the first time I tried to catch one you almost killed. After this he devoted himself to the racing sidecar , coming to win the state Championship during the decade of 1940 , with Jaume Pahissa passenger.

Start of the motorcycle production

The company survived the Spanish Civil War and, once finished, the 1940 Orpheo Sincronic presented a prototype of a motorcycle that had been developed before the war at the initiative of Manuel Giró, ^[4] but the idea was not sustained and would have to wait another eleven years before the company does not begin to manufacture this type of vehicles under the brand OSSA.

The decision to devote himself seriously to the manufacture of motorcycles was taken shortly after the end of the Second World War , when the company decided to create a popular to meet the demand of the time of a means of economical transport. So, taking advantage of the improved technology of manufacturing of two-stroke engines purchased from the German company DKW allies , OSSA began to make there motorcycles as they did in those moments, BSA , Harley-Davidson, and Yamaha among others .

The first model manufactured in series was introduced 1949 and went on sale the 1951 . It was a 125 cc 3 speeds that reached 75 miles per hour. In a few years they sold about 14,000 units. This model was followed by others, as for example a moped of 50 cc that could go 80 miles on a gallon of gasoline.

From 1964 he entered the management of the company Eduard Giró , the son of Manuel, who was a genius of mechanics: it Is said that he designed his first engine at the age of 12, already 15 in vain to build a able to reach out to 15,000 rpm . The young Edward suddenly realized that, to survive, the small family business had to look beyond the Spanish market.

The peak years

OSSA reached its ceiling of production during the "boom" of the market rider in the 60's , achieving a significant volume of exports to the european market and especially the american. In the US and Canada motorcycles out of asphalt , especially the motocross (sport introduced in those countries at the time) obtained a large share of the market, and the OSSA were highly valued for their lightness and power. The model Stiletto 250 particularly was one of the most common in those countries in the motocross racing of the late 60's and early 70's .

At the beginning of the decade of the seventies, Fernando Batlló made several prototypes with multiple-cylinder 2-stroke, an OSSA of 525 cc and then a 977 cc, the OSSA BYRA 1000 four-cylinder. The BYRA 1000 participated in the 24 hours Motorcycle of Montjuïc in 1972, although he had an accident. At that time, however, the highest popularity gained the brand of their successes in trial , thanks to the development of successful SEA in collaboration with the champion English Mick Andrews , who achieved numerous triumphs around the world with this bike.

Motorcycles OSSA soon earned a reputation for reliability on and off road, in addition to its suitability for racing due to the optimal relationship weight / power. Despite the enthusiastic welcome by the delicate design and robustness of its models, the company suffered a network of distributors disorganized and dispersed in the important u.s. market. Ironically, the rise of the motorcycle that made it flourish in a new market and led to large benefits for the european manufacturers, was also the seed of the disappearance of many small companies such as OSSA. With so many options to choose from (both buyers and sellers) networks sales and maintenance were not sustainable, and the attempts to improve production by investing in new factories led to OSSA and many other european companies in a very delicate situation .

Decline and end

The fall was very quick and strong. From the year 1975 , with the death of General Franco and the Spanish transition to democracy opened up an era of great labor unrest, so that in a short time the company was forced to adapt to the demands of the 460 strikers (practically the whole of the work force of OSSA) to continue production. This problematic labor coincided with rising costs and the disappearance of the protectionist barriers of the Spanish economy that had benefited the company. Within the new framework of free market OSSA could not compete with the japanese brands that were flooding the iberian market. The growing crisis of the market of motorcycles also affected, among other manufacturers, Bultaco and Montesa .

The company sank the year 1977 . So, a few years after its sales success, innovation, and victories, was relegated to a marginal position. At the beginning of 1978 , OSSA presented suspension of payments and the family Turned left the company, while laying off 190 of the 460 workers. The company became a Sociedad anónima laboral worker-owned and managed by themselves, getting at the beginning of 1979 an important official credit of the Fund of Protection of the Work in Spanish, with which they were able to resume the activities and renew the range of models of the brand. In spite of everything, lack of liquidity and a policy of new models inappropriate (taken from the successful TR 80 trial), although attempts to make viable the company with a kind of merger with Bultaco in 1979 and its re-christening as OSSAmoto, we could not solve the serious economic problems. Finally, in the year 1982 the factory closed its doors definitely, although some models of trial continued selling well into the 1985 ( 1986 according to other sources ), but assembled almost by hand by ex-workers of the company.