When the Montesa King Scorpion 250 was introduced in 1970 it inverted the usual method of making a ‘scrambler’ by putting a high-level exhaust and other off-road features onto a road bike. The King Scorpion instead took the 250 Scorpion motocross model and added lights etc.
Montesa 250 Rapida Automix King Scorpion
The subject of this shoot completed its journey to a fully road going model. Launched in 1975 the 250 Rapida Automix was basically a King Scorpion fitted with an automatic oil lubrication system (rather than pre-mix). It also featured a low level exhaust, larger rims and a lower rear guard.
Montesa 250 Rapida Automix King Scorpion
The metallic purple and orange paint scheme is pure ‘70s and power was increased by 2 hp to 24 hp at 6,800 rpm, while only 600 were constructed.
One of the only two such bikes ever built, this 250cc two-stroke twin was developed in conjunction with the Villa brothers in 1967. Francesco sold his 125 and 250 designs (which he had originally conceived for FB Mondial) to Montesa in return for becoming the company’s exclusive importer for Italy.
While extremely fast it proved too fragile to be a success – its best result was a second place behind Mike Hailwood on the Honda 250/6 at the Italian Riccione circuit in April 1967, with Walter Villa riding.
Montesa 250GP two-stroke racer
However with Montesa’s efforts becoming increasingly focused on off road bikes the road racing team was disbanded at the end of the year. The Villas went on to producing bikes under their own Moto Villa name.
An interesting technical feature was the part water cooling system. The rotary disc valves were water cooled while the heads were air cooled. An eight-speed gearbox was used, and power output was claimed as 35hp at 9800rpm.
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