The History Behind a Legend
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The Solex motor bicycle was built as the result of two French engineers endeavoring to create a better bicycle. Maurice Goudard and Marcel Mennesson graduates of the State School of Engineering in France formed a company named Solex in 1905 to produce small engine parts. Their interest in building bicycles with emergency engines, began to grow, and in 1916 Mennesson received a patent for an auxiliary engine to be placed in the center of the rear wheel of a bicycle. By 1940 Mennesson had unveiled his prototype 49cc engine, this time to be located above the front tire.



After World War II the first VeloSolex cyclomoteurs were sold to a receptive public. Production of the Solex continued for 40 years, with constant product improvement and the introduction of derivative products such as the Micron motorscooter, the three-wheeled cyclomoteur and the Veloto, a mini-car. Over those 40 years many companies owned and produced the Solex motor bicycle with varying degrees of success. Among these were Renault, Motobicane, Yamaha and Cyklon. But in 1996, a French import company headed by Hungarian entrepreneur Georges Safar bought 60% of the company and moved all administrative and production operations of the Solex to Hungary, with a headquarters in Budapest and a factory in Berettyoujfalu. Once the factory was up and producing bicycles, Safar began setting up successful distributorships all over Europe, Australia and South Africa . But while the motor-assisted bicycle had been a consistent seller in Europe and South Africa, Safar took his time to find the right company to re-introduce the Solex to the the lucrative U.S. market.

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