The future of Spanish trials bike manufacturer Gas Gas may be headed in the right direction following the announcement of a plan by Barcelona-based eBike and hybrid vehicle manufacturer Torrot to acquire the brand with ambitious plans to restore Gas Gas to trials bike production, develop a new Enduro model for 2017, and take the brand into the electric bike market.
 |
| Gas Gas factory team in happier days, 2010 |
Once the takeover has been finalised, production of existing models is slated to re-start at the Gas Gas factory at Salt near Girona in the first quarter of 2016 with an ambitious aim of shipping 6,000 motorcycles (4,000 of them trials bikes) by 2018.
The 55 former employees, who gained international profile when they vociferously endeavoured to dissuade KTM from trying to acquire the brand and assets from the liquidator, will get their jobs back and reports suggest that Torrot sees the required workforce growing to around 80 three years from now.
Reports suggest that other offers were tendered for the Gas Gas assets from French manufacturer Sherco (€2.66 million) and IRG - an investment fund (€ 7.02 million), but that the former employees had petitioned the Commercial Court of Girona to accept the Torrot bid as quickly as possible.
At the time of going to press it was unclear as to whether the Torrot bid had indeed been given final acceptance and that Gas Gas had therefore now emerged from administration, or whether the court would re-open the tender process to allow Sherco or IRG to re-bid. However, most reports appeared to suggest that Torrot had succeeded in their take-over plan though, again, the actual money involved also appears to be subject to interpretation.
Reports suggest that their winning bid was in the order of € 9.66 million, with € 6.83 million of that going to creditor banks and the Catalan Institute of Finance, with € 1.65 million being allocated to acquisition of the machinery and factory building. Gas Gas is said to have gone into administration with total debts of € 44.3 million and that Torrot would be taking on some of that debt and putting up a further € 13 million over the next three years to cash-flow their plans.Torrot are no stranger to the motorcycle market. Founder Don Luis Iriondo started making bicycles and mopeds in the late 1940s. In the 1950s he had a partnership with French brand Terrot (producing the Terrot-Dijon 100 among others). In 1958 Peugeot bought Terrot, but closed it two years later. In order to rebuild his business, Don Luis Iriondo changed the brand’s spelling from “Terrot” to “Torrot” and went back to carving out his own place in the market.
These days the Barcelona-based Torrot Group makes electric bicycles, trial bikes and kid’s minis. Torrot's plan to rescue the brand has been made somewhat easier by the fact that Gas Gas has kept a small workforce at the Girona factory during the court hearings, keeping the parts department operating. The Gas Gas purchase is a chance for Torrot to become a player in the world of off-road motorcycles.
