Ducati DesertX Fantic Motor Caballero

[Joe]

Very entertaining FortNine....

 

 

[LowRyter]

The F9 kid loves the X.  

Any of our European folks know about this one?  it's powered by the Yamaha 700 twin

[Speedfrog]

27 minutes ago, LowRyter said:

Any of our European folks know about this one?

All I know about this one is from an article I read about Cabellero making a come back as a brand.

When I was a kid, Caballero made small displacement bikes (50cc) in scrambler type that we all lusted after. They were Italian, sexy, rare and out of reach for most of us.

Along with “Fantic Motor” they filled many a dream of my adolescent years...

[Speedfrog]

[Speedfrog]

This article by Marco Panella describes the mood of kids growing up during that period just as I remember it.

 

Caballero! The name is enough

 

Between 1968 and 1971 everything happens: the battle of Valle Giulia, the student protest, the moon landing, the Cagliari championship dragged by Gigi Riva, the Azzurri defeat against Brazil in the final of the World Cup in Mexico City, the hot autumn, Renzo Arbore and Gianni Boncompagni's High Appreciation , Raffaella Carrà's Tuca Tuca , Easy Rider showing us the other side of America, Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart competing for the Formula 1 titles, Giacomo Agostini who wins everything possible in the world championship and the austerity that sends Italians on bicycles. But for a fourteen year old, in those years something happens that will change his dreams and desires.

In 1968 the Brianza-based Mario Agrati and the Dutch Henry Keppel Hesselink leave Garelli, the family business of the former and of which the latter was the director for sales abroad, and founded a company with an imaginative and psychedelic name that is all a promise: Fantic Motor .

A promise that will be kept.

Well the following year, at the Milan Cycle and Motorcycle Show, Fantic Motor presents the Caballero, a 50cc off-road motorcycle, but which for all of us kids of the seventies was simply the motocross bike. Try to imagine a 50cc you can ride without a license and that not only looked like it was a grown-up bike, with its telescopic forks, the high fender, the unmistakable sound, the tires that looked like the carrarmato Perugina put on the road and that name, Caballero, which echoed the gringos, suerte, vamos, sangre y muerte that we read on Tex and that deluded us that we could speak Spanish.

Try to imagine it and put it in the Italy of the early seventies and its leaden climate, but at the same time so erratic as to make you believe everything is possible.

The fact is that behind the Caballero an entire generation goes crazy, guarantees it an uninterrupted production until 1981 and gives it an aura of legend that time has not tarnished in the least.
Perhaps this is why even today each of us, when it happens to come across one of the current versions of the Caballero put on the market by a renewed Fantic Motor , looks at the little boy who drives and smiles.

Marco Panella

[Speedfrog]

 

https://petrolicious.com/articles/this-restored-fantic-caballero-50-is-a-1970s-dream-realized-in-2020

[LowRyter]

If I wanted a dual-sport or Adv bike, I'd rather it look like this than something with beak on it.  

[Speedfrog]

7 minutes ago, LowRyter said:

If I wanted a dual-sport or Adv bike, I'd rather it look like this than something with beak on it.  

I can't stand the BEAK!!

[Joe]

5 minutes ago, Speedfrog said:

I can't stand the BEAK!!

[guzzler]

35 minutes ago, Speedfrog said:

This article by Marco Panella describes the mood of kids growing up during that period just as I remember it.

 

Caballero! The name is enough

 

Between 1968 and 1971 everything happens: the battle of Valle Giulia, the student protest, the moon landing, the Cagliari championship dragged by Gigi Riva, the Azzurri defeat against Brazil in the final of the World Cup in Mexico City, the hot autumn, Renzo Arbore and Gianni Boncompagni's High Appreciation , Raffaella Carrà's Tuca Tuca , Easy Rider showing us the other side of America, Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart competing for the Formula 1 titles, Giacomo Agostini who wins everything possible in the world championship and the austerity that sends Italians on bicycles. But for a fourteen year old, in those years something happens that will change his dreams and desires.

In 1968 the Brianza-based Mario Agrati and the Dutch Henry Keppel Hesselink leave Garelli, the family business of the former and of which the latter was the director for sales abroad, and founded a company with an imaginative and psychedelic name that is all a promise: Fantic Motor .

A promise that will be kept.

Well the following year, at the Milan Cycle and Motorcycle Show, Fantic Motor presents the Caballero, a 50cc off-road motorcycle, but which for all of us kids of the seventies was simply the motocross bike. Try to imagine a 50cc you can ride without a license and that not only looked like it was a grown-up bike, with its telescopic forks, the high fender, the unmistakable sound, the tires that looked like the carrarmato Perugina put on the road and that name, Caballero, which echoed the gringos, suerte, vamos, sangre y muerte that we read on Tex and that deluded us that we could speak Spanish.

Try to imagine it and put it in the Italy of the early seventies and its leaden climate, but at the same time so erratic as to make you believe everything is possible.

The fact is that behind the Caballero an entire generation goes crazy, guarantees it an uninterrupted production until 1981 and gives it an aura of legend that time has not tarnished in the least.
Perhaps this is why even today each of us, when it happens to come across one of the current versions of the Caballero put on the market by a renewed Fantic Motor , looks at the little boy who drives and smiles.

Marco Panella

Thanks mate

That article really put it into perspective...

As a kid in NZ in the seventies it was a Suzuki RV 75 that did it for me and set me upon my way!

Cheers Guzzler

[p6x]

3 hours ago, Speedfrog said:

All I know about this one is from an article I read about Cabellero making a come back as a brand.

When I was a kid, Caballero made small displacement bikes (50cc) in scrambler type that we all lusted after. They were Italian, sexy, rare and out of reach for most of us.

Along with “Fantic Motor” they filled many a dream of my adolescent years...

Fantic used to have a 50cc model named Caballero. I was closing on 14 years old, and I was looking for my first mopped. I ended purchasing a Gitane Testi Champion Super; orange. Powered by a Motori Minarelli, six speeds.

I kept it exactly 14 days before it was stolen. It was too good looking I guess. Insurance reimbursed the full price, but I went for something less shiny. Fantic had been one brand I looked at before settling on the Testi.

 

[LowRyter]

@Joe

 

Sorry, I am guilty of thread theft.  Wasn't my intention but guilty.  

[Speedfrog]

12 minutes ago, p6x said:

Fantic used to have a 50cc model named Caballero

You're right! Fantic Motor was the brand and Caballero was one of their models.

Memory fade...!

[Speedfrog]

11 minutes ago, LowRyter said:

@Joe

 

Sorry, I am guilty of thread theft.  Wasn't my intention but guilty.  

My apologies as well for hijacking @Joe's thread...   to my defense, @LowRyter started it...

@docc you could migrate the "Fantic Motor / Caballero" content to a new thread if you'd like.

[docc]

I'm not sure a "Banter" thread can be drifted. They are like a conversation at a party....

Drifting a "How to" thread, on the other hand . . .