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1973 Maico 450K WR - 7-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article
Original, vintage magazine advertisement / articlePage Size: Approx. 8\" x 11\" (21 cm x 28 cm)Condition: Good
• Maico builds motorcycles for two expressreasons: to make money and to win races.They have to race to support the productthey make and they have to win because noone wants to buy an expensive loser. For thepast three years and up through 1973, Maicohas been thick in the hunt for the worldchampionship motocross crown. They’vebeen close but have not as yet been able tocontrol Japanese combines and fate.The dynamometer explains why the 450Maico is the most rideable motocrosser inexistence. Producing a monstrous 37.42horsepower on Webco’s dyno is an accom-plishment more suited to a mid-size, multi-cylinder superbike. Even more staggering isthe fact that the engine produces 30 horse-power over a 2,000-rpm range: from 5,500 to7,500 rpm. At 5,000 rpm it’s producingmore horsepower than the 410 AJS ever willthroughout its entire range. At peak pow-er—6,500 rpm—the 450 Maico is generatinga mere .42 less horsepower than the fantasticYamaha TX 500 dohc twin and 6.32 moreCYCLE ROAD TESTMAICO450K WRponies than the 550 Suzuki triple. Naturallythe weight differences are even more dra-matic with the Maico weighing in at 245pounds, the Yamaha at 456 pounds and theSuzuki at 474 pounds. The relationship inpounds-per-horsepower shows: Maico, 6.5Ib/hp; Yamaha, 12.0 Ib/hp; Suzuki, 14.2 lb/hp. The acceleration factor of the 450 Maicois ungodly.But a winning motocross combinationcan’t rest wholly on engine performance.Some manufacturers have the resources tobuy one or two of those few super-riders tosecure victory. In many instances the ma-chines the super-riders are racing aren’t re-lated to the motorcycle you can buy off theshowroom floor—and they’re so light, pow-erful and snarly that only a top professionalsenior could ride a works-bike to its full po-tential anyway.For reasons unknown to even the distribu-tor, the Maico factory has seldom used exot-ic components in their works motocrossers.Close inspection and testing of the very same400 that Ake Jonsson used to demolish theworld’s best in last year’s Trans-AMA seriesproved embarrassingly stock. Full of gas itweighed 224 pounds—obviously not in thesub 200-pound bracket like many others.The engine internals were absolutely stan-dard Maico shelf parts and no unobtainiumwas used in the chassis, wheels or engine. Itwas fundamentally the same machine as the450 in this test—with the exception of pistonand cylinder-bore size.Invisible technology abounds in Maico’sdesign philosophy. The engine, in both de-sign and construction, is fascinatingly sim-...
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