MONARK Crescent 500 GP, 1973, when there was still room for creative freedom!

In 1972/3, at a time when the Japanese brands were already dedicating a great financial effort to the development of competition motorcycles, there still remained some artisans with their own ideas that fought against the tide and that, to a large extent, were the core the charm of the 'Continental Circus'.

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MONARK was a Swedish brand that produced some offroad motorcycles that became famous and also made efforts in the field of motorcycle road racing. In the early 70's, they agreed with Rudi Kurth to develop a revolutionary motorcycle. Rudi Kurth became famous as a rider and great technical innovator in road racing sidecars. As a curiosity, Dane Rowe was his wife and, simultaneously, a passenger in his sidecar at the races. At the GPs, Rudi showed up with a Citroen DS van transformed by himself into a workshop and transport for the team... Using his knowledge of aerodynamics from his 'streamline' sidecar projects, Rudi Kurth designed a very low motorcycle, a 500cc with the height of a 50cc, equipped with a CRESCENT engine (2T, 3 cylinders, 75CV) of origin nautical. The dry weight was only 100 kg, which for a motorcycle of this cylinder capacity, in itself, reveals the ingenuity applied to this project.

As with other interesting ideas from this era, the lack of 'budget' never allowed a proper development and the lack of results ended up prematurely killing the idea.

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Swedish GP program cover, Anderstorp, 1973 with an image of MONARK