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KENT, CT – There weren’t many motorcycles at the 30th annual Connecticut Antique Machine Association‘s Fall Festival on Saturday, and the few that were parked amidst the vendor tables, the vintage tractors, and the old, wheezing single-cylinder engines were easy to notice – including a 125cc Penton off-road bike belonging to Tom Linley of Easton, CT.
The Penton Six-Day model looks dirt-worthy but it doesn’t run. “”It’s supposed to but I’m told it has a gas leak; some of the wires are disconnected,” said Lindley, who picked it up several years ago out of Arkansas or Oklahoma (he can’t remember which). He’s not sure of the bike’s year, either. It’s either a 1970 or ’71.
Pentons such as Lindley’s were built by KTM in Austria between 1968 and 1978. They were the idea of Ohioan John Penton, who raced motorcycles in the late 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, and who was indicted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1998.
He was racing Husqvarnas in the mid-1960s when, according to the AMA website, he pitched Husqvarna on building a lighter-weight bike than the one he was riding. The Swedish manufacturer declined, but he later convinced KTM to build off-road bikes. The company was making bicycles and mopeds at the time.
“As an incentive, Penton offered to put up $6,000 of his own money if KTM would build prototypes to his specifications. KTM agreed and in early 1968 Penton took delivery of six Penton 100cc prototypes. He promptly entered races and put some of the other top riders on the other bikes. There was an immediate demand for the lightweight and inexpensive Penton (which initially sold for $700). In the first year, more than 400 Pentons were sold. By the time Penton sold the distributorship to KTM, some 10 years later, more than 25,000 Penton motorcycles had been sold in America,” the AMA website reports.
Lindley would like to have his Penton in running condition. “I’d like to find a place where I can tool around through the woods,” said Lindley, who also owns a running 1994 Harley-Davidson Dyna Wide Glide.
Having never seen a Penton before, the CAMA’s Fall Festival were certainly an appropriate place to see one.
– By Bud Wilkinson
Pentons – I remember them well. Excellent bikes and my buddy Bruce Batley (RIP) had one that he rode with me in the woods during the mid-’70s. I have a nice photo of Bruce airborn on his Penton that I should scan and post.