Here we go again with yet another exercise in creative writing. It's disgraceful to think that someone out there might just believe this bullshit.
THIS 1980 440MC MAICO IS ONE OF ONLY A HANDFUL OF RACE BIKES THAT WERE MADE BY WHEELSMITH RACING BACK IN THE DAY
Cutaway fins, an alloy swingarm and a couple of stickers doesn't make it a genuine Wheelsmith. I'd want to see some solid proof that the bike is a genuine bike instead of an over blinged Bill Eyler replica. Why is it that every second Maico that comes up seems to have been through the hallowed Orange County Wheelsmith shop. I have a string of genuine Wheelsmith parts on both of my Maicos, personally bought by me at the shop from Greg Smith himself back in the day but there's no way I'd ever, ever describe them as Wheelsmith Maicos.
MAICO WON A WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ON THE 440 IN 1980 AND THIS BIKE IS AS CLOSE AS IT GETS TO A FACTORY WORKS BIKE
Lets get something straight....
Maico never won a World Championship in 1980 or any other year. The closest they came was a couple of second places in the early seventies and in 1957 when Fritz Betzelbacher won the European 250 Championship, the year before the 250 class got World title status. As far as the bike being "
as close as it gets to a factory works bike", The factory team used almost stock bikes in Europe, no alloy swingarms, no cutaway fins, no billet nonsense, no Works Performance shocks....they used Corte-Cossos, Ohlins and Bilstiens in 1980...in short the bikes were, with the exception of some individual porting and tuning, stock as a flucking rock.
What we have here is a nicely, if overdone 1980 440 Maico, a model as Johnny O rightly described as "
not that desirable and don't sell for near as much as the 81 490". A thousand dollars worth of billet bling does
not maketh a 'factory works bike'.
