Why Maico Was The MOST EVIL Motorcycle Brand That Ever Existed

it has been said that egotism and greed is the anesthetic that nature gives us to deaden the pain of being a fool and there's truth to that spoken in every tongue in every corner of the globe and documented at every period in human history our greed and ego has caused Wars to be waged civilizations have crumbled families and relationships have been torn to shreds and greatness has been stopped cold in its tracks all because of one simple concept that we as a species continually seem to struggle with and that is why can't we seem to get along with one another in the world of Motorsports there may not be another egotistical greedy manipulative despicable backstabbing story than that of two German brothers who would Rise From the Ashes of a post-war Germany and create the most dominant off-road motorcycle brand in existence and in 1981 they would create a Master P of engineering that was so sophisticated and advanced at the time that the geometry that they created for off-road use is still used today in the motorcycles that you buy a machine that would be so Flawless in every way the Japanese manufacturers like Honda Yamaha Kawasaki and Suzuki would be so discomposed over its dominance they couldn't help themselves from buying one just for the sole purpose of dismantling it to figure out how in the hell could somebody build a bike so good but in spite of being the most prestigious off-road brand on Earth and selling more than 60 percent of all off-road machines an eternal feud between the two brothers would erupt with the violence of Mount Tambora and the feud would become so dark it would turn family against family and brother against brother this is the story of how Otto and Wilhelm Mish created the most iconic European motorcycle brand of its time Mako only to allow their ego in greed to crumble their empire like the walls of Jericho transforming them from Legends to lepers overnight it's a sad tale of how the two brothers could somehow survive the most vile political regime in history but couldn't survive each other this is the bizarre story of how Otto and Wilhelm Mish internally sabotage the Mako brand and the greatest dirt bike that has ever been built the 1981 Mako 490 Mega 2. in 1946 two German Brothers Otto in Wilhelm Mish sit in a huge Warehouse 50 kilometers south of Stuttgart Germany in a town called fathigan they've spent the last decade of their lives under the control of the most horrendous and vile regime known to mankind and just like the other German manufacturers at the time BMW Porsche and Mercedes they've been forced over the last several years to Hemorrhage all of their resources to support the war effort and now the World War II has ended they're left with a country that's in shambles the economy is broken the cities have been reduced to rubble and left uninhabitable and millions of people have been left homeless wandering aimlessly around the country with nothing more than the clothes on their back and they're all asking themselves the same question what in the hell do we do now and for the maish brothers they would go with what they know you see prior to the war or they worked for their father Ulrich in his automobile business that was called maishen company they provided 24-hour automobile service and sold bicycle and motorcycle parts and in 1935 the maish brothers actually did build their very first complete motorcycle now at that time it was nothing more than just a bicycle frame powered by a small engine but that was their first motorcycle now after tinkering with many ideas post-war the two brothers decide that the path of least resistance would be to fulfill the dire basic Transportation needs of a country that's trying to rebuild itself so they refocused all of their attention back to the development and production of motorcycles and somewhere along the line here they decided to shorten the name of myshin company to Mako so in 1949 they would release the Mako m150 it was a durable and affordable mule of a machine and it was just what Deutschland needed at the time now as the 1950s roll around the European economy starts to pick up and Mako begins to thrive they added an m175 and m250 to the popular m-150 motorcycle they produced a scooter that was called the Mako mobile and they even took a shot at building a car with a heinkel engine that looked a lot like a Volkswagen Beetle soon they would find themselves again crossing paths with the German government albeit this time under better circumstances as they would be commissioned to produce 10 000 dual sport motorcycles for the German Army this invariably shifted the company's Focus towards off-road and competition motorcycles that would pay huge dividends for Mako in the future now by the mid-1950s Mako is a highly profitable and dominant European brand and everything from the outside looks perfect but it's not because behind the scenes the two brothers Otto and Wilhelm are locked in a soap opera style conflict Now history remains skewed on the exact origins of the conflict but it's deep it's dark and it's very dirty now in an attempt to throw some darts toward a conclusion for the sake of this video one could speculate that maybe it was political as Wilhelm had been a member of the National Socialist Party and Otto was not however this might have just been something they did intentionally to hedge the company's future by playing both sides of an unknown outcome or maybe it was just greed bitterness and control because due to wilhelm's party involvement he was not eligible to be a majority owner of Mako so this gave Otto's 60 percent control of the company and 40 percent went to Wilhelm nonetheless this conflict would escalate in 1957 when Wilhelm would be struck by a motorcycle and become paralyzed now it's unclear if he was hit by a Mako but after this accident he became nothing more than a figurehead for the company this left a hundred percent of the day-to-day operation in the hands of Otto so Wilhelm decides to bring on his three sons Hans Peter and Wilhelm Jr to work for the company but also to act as his eyes and ears on the day-to-day operations of Mako now his son Hans was a Motocross writer so he was put in charge of developing the machines for Mako Peter would be placed in administration and was also in charge of media and press and Wilhelm Jr who had some engineering skills was put in charge of all technical development and production of Mako motorcycles now even though there is some serious Bad Blood going on behind the scenes and some very deep wounds that will be burst open in the future somehow throughout the 1960s they're able to set aside their differences and continue to grow and Thrive and soon Mako would find themselves smack dab in the middle of a gold mine because as we move into the 1960s America is experiencing a period of sustained economic growth and the fruits of prosperity are everywhere dirt bikes are now becoming wildly popular motorcycles are no longer seen as Transportation vessels but luxury items however back then there weren't many purpose-built motorcycles for off-road use so what what Riders would do is take street bikes throw on some knobby tires and start going off-road this is what gave birth to what we know as scramblers at this point in history the Japanese manufacturers like Honda Kawasaki Yamaha and Suzuki are behind the curve when it comes to off-road development so the only ones that were specializing in purpose-built off-road machines were European companies like CZ Husqvarna and Mako and this is where Mako had an extreme advantage that no one else would be able to match for the next 15 years and that was in chassis and geometry technology whether they learned this from building war machines for the Germans or by luck nothing came close to the handling off-road like a Mako this Perfection obviously translated into sales and dealers couldn't keep these motorcycles in stock and Mako couldn't build them fast enough now on a side note these were the good old days where like a 400 cc maker sold for about 1100 Bucks new that's like fifty five hundred dollars today I mean could you imagine buying a new dirt bike today for five grand anyway this would culminate in 1981 when Mako would produce what many people feel today was the greatest dirt bike not only of its era but the greatest dirt bike that has ever been built and that would be the 1981 Mako 490 Mega 2. so what makes the 1981 Mako 490 so special well in one word everything I don't have to be the one to tell you that a 490 CC two-stroke engine is fast but the Mako 490 was ludicrous fast it pumped out more than 45 horsepower and weighed around 240 pounds and these are some very astonishing numbers by 1980 standards the bike was so potent that magazine testers described the power as a rush of acceleration that curls your socks up and down like a flapping window shade or it has all the subtlety of a safe falling on a cricket or all of the Finesse of a cannon being fired in a handball court but Power itself is nothing without control and while the Mako 490 was a beast in the power Department it was also very manageable no burbles in the engine no ignition timing issue no brutal hits followed by huge power drop-offs the Mako 490s power was crisp and clean and when you take that engine and you put it in an amazing chassis you have an unbeatable motorcycle the handling of the Mako 490 was razor sharp the brakes would stop on a dime and give you nine cents change in fact the magazine testers were so impressed by the motorcycle they swore that Mako was giving the media Works machines to test for reviews so Mako allowed any magazine the right to break down the bike that was given to them and verify if it was stock or works and that's exactly what the magazines did they tore all of the machines down and guess what they were stuck but all the Mystique of the 490 doesn't stop there this bike was so good that Honda Yamaha Suzuki and Kawasaki bought one had their Engineers dissect the machine into pieces to figure out how did they build such a motorcycle and still after tearing the thing down the best engineers in the world couldn't figure out why this bike was so damn good and since that time magazines have constantly used that 1981 Mako 490 as a benchmark to measure other late model dirt bikes and if you cut and paste the geometry of the 81 Mako 490 it's not that far off of a modern day dirt bike so anybody that wanted the best out of the box off-road motorcycle for racing or Leisure you bought a Mako it was that simple and they outsold Honda Yamaha Kawasaki and Suzuki and open class machines combined and in the late 1970s and early 80s the off-road World belonged to Mako but not for long when the 1982 Mako 490 is set to be released the hype is obviously huge I mean everybody is kneeling at the altar of Mako ready to sacrifice their hard-earned dollars for one of them their 1982 models I mean who wouldn't want one right it has to be faster better and more precise than the 81 model right wrong it was worse and I mean perplexing bizarre no way in hell is this possible worse I mean it's not uncommon that every so often a manufacturer takes a step back when they build a new model and while it might not be as good as the prior year at least it's close it's still a good bike but not the 1982 Mako 490 the rear hubs that were installed on the bike suddenly start disintegrating the gear boxes start exploding like popcorn the bike gains more than 20 pounds and the rear shock shaft would break every two to three rides the 1982 by bike wasn't anywhere close to the 1981. it's as if this bike was assembled by a high school vocational class using scrap parts I mean Mako literally went from building the greatest dirt bike ever in 1981 to building the worst dirt bike ever in 1992. how is that even possible well for starters the 1982 model had a single shock concept and rather than use a tried and true rear shock manufacturer they use the Italian Corte and Koso shock now they had a lot of experience with cars but very little experience for motorcycles but Mako said they chose the Corte and Koso shock because it kept the costs lower so that's not such a big deal the big deal was that all of the shocks were the wrong length and where the top mounted to the frame in the bottom mounted to the swing arm those two points didn't line up straight so when you rode the bike the suspension would push to one side or the other and over time it would either Bend or worse it would break it was so bad that company memos state that the shocks had to be hammered into their mounting points with large hammers at the factory also the gearboxes on the 1982 model were not heat treated properly from the factory so they just started blowing to Pieces randomly but the worst issue that they had was the rear hubs on the bike would fail constantly causing significant injuries to Riders In A desperate attempt to salvage their reputation automation directs that new Olean shocks be supplied free of charge under warranty with proper spacers to allow them to work now these only Shocks cost twice as much as the cortecoso units but it's the only thing they can do at this point to salvage this terrible situation he would also warranty the cases and begin to replace the faulty hubs at least he was trying to make good on his warranty claims but at the time no one could understand how such a bizarre thing could happen but hey everybody makes mistakes right and the Motorcycle public was willing to give Mako a second chance so the pressure was on in 1983 to right the wrongs of 1982 and restore the brand to Greatness at 1 once enjoyed with all of mako's 40 plus years of experience in off-road development their Highly Educated Engineers they have to be able to rise to the occasion no way could they survive another disastrous money hemorrhaging year like 1982. even Otto mosh put the pressure on the factory in Wilhelm Jr to make the 1983 Mako an iconic once in a generation model it couldn't just be good it had to be great so for sure they were going to rise to the occasion and knock the 1983 model out of the park right wrong again because the 1983 model had more rear hub failures more gearbox grenading and even though they switched to the Olean shock it didn't help the bike it got so bad that the term Mako braco was coined to describe these motorcycles and with all the malfunctions of the bikes lawsuits start piling in and the final stake would be driven through the heart of Mako when American Racer David Dion Scott would be paralyzed when his rear hub failed his lawsuit would halt further importation of the bikes and U.S dealers were sending back all the motorcycles they received they were doing everything they could to distance themselves from the Pariah of the Motorsports World Mako and before 1983 was over two years after sitting Atop The off-road Empire by building the greatest motorcycle of all time and after obliterating its competition and sales and becoming the most dominant sought-after brand in existence Mako would file for bankruptcy but the question is is how on Earth can you fall from grace so fast how could you repeat the same mistakes in 1983 as you did in 1982 you can't be that stupid I mean you have to work real hard to screw up that much it's like a joke or something like you're doing this on purpose but that's not possible is it that's just a conspiracy theory right well remember that Feud we talked about earlier apparently the food between Otto Wilhelm and his sons has reached an epic boiling point and perhaps all of this engineering disaster was purposely orchestrated to tank the brand this story is about to get wild obviously one of the downfalls of the 1982 model was the rear cortane coso shock while a great shock for cars Corte and Koso had little motorcycling experience and quite frankly made garbage shocks so who approved the court rear shocks well that would be the technical director Wilhelm Jr now at the time Wilhelm Jr blames it on Corte and coso but the engineers over at Olene says no shock would have survived with the system designed the way that it was so this isn't all on courte and coso anyway that's just the rear suspension what about those grenading gearboxes well it turns out that the material that was being used was improperly hardened during production therefore becoming faulty so would you like to take a guess on who is in charge of building those engine cases yes Wilhelm mice Jr in fact in an internal company memo Wilhelm Jr admits that his Department had used the wrong material in the gear boxes so I guess at this point it would be no surprise to wonder who is in charge of developing those faulty rear hubs and the materials that were used to build them yes Wilhelm mice Jr okay well let's not be judgmental here I mean maybe the guy's just terrible at picking out Parts but in 1981 an inebriated Wilhelm mice Jr and his brother Peter were attending a family Christmas party and they bragged to the attendees that soon the two might families would no longer be friends and auto was going to be pissed okay well sometimes people say some dumb stuff when they're intoxicated but again in 1981 Mako needed to borrow money to put more development into the single shock design but Wilhelm Mish and his family refused to co-sign on the loan they refused to put up their company's share of collateral to secure that loan and in a desperate attempt to save the company at the time Otto decides to put up his entire company share and his personal share of wealth and Fortune to secure the loan that's weird but maybe the Wilhelm family just doesn't want to take the risk at the time anyway shortly thereafter a memo is discovered from a tax consultant that was written to the mice Brothers It's a step-by-step blueprint telling them the exact steps they need to take to put Mako into bankruptcy and then how to execute a takeover bid once they went bankrupt okay that's enough something suspicious is going on here now let's go back to Auto he would not only need a loan from the bank to help save Mako but he would call on two Distributors by the name of Brian Gross and Van dijik who agreed to throw a Lifeline to Mako but the terms of these loans as well as the requests from other Distributors worldwide was that if you want want us to continue to do business with you and help you out you've got to get rid of The Wilhelm brothers so obviously everybody in the industry could see what was happening and the only conclusion I can draw at this time is Otto knew this but somehow kept putting his family first he kept putting his fortunes on the line and taking incredible risks even though he knew that his family was out to get him and that's sad anyway at this time Otto has no choice it's Mako or the family so in December of 1982 the mice brothers are dismissed from Mako so what do you think happens next do the maish brothers wander off Into Obscurity and let Otto have the company yeah I didn't think so after their dismissal the maish brothers go after Otto by launching a smear campaign throughout Europe in the press and the most damaging was a malicious article that appeared in English magazine it was so bad that it instantly cratered mako's sales overnight and later a British importer would be quoted as saying that the article was written by a journalist who was very close friends with Peter meisch but now with the poor sales of the 1983 model Otto desperately tried to borrow money and warrantied all the damaged bikes but when the banks saw the stories in the Press they just slammed the door on him and they wouldn't loan him any money and again at this point Otto has no choice if he wants to save the company he now has to use his own money and that's exactly what he would do and soon he would deplete his entire life savings and attempt to save Mako but by this time the damage from internal sabotage had been done the Brand's name is trash and lawsuits continue to Pile in rioter injuries keep stacking up and after several years of pouring his Blood Sweat and personal finances into saving his beloved company Otto has to capitulate and on May 10th of 1983 Mako and ottomish would be forced to declare bankruptcy and like the vultures that they are the mice brothers would Swoon in and take control of Mako and a company that once did 23 million dollars in sales was purchased for The Bargain Basement price of 100 000 United States dollars I'll be damn however in an act of poetic justice or Karma while the maish brothers achieved their goal in acquiring Mako somehow Otto and his daughter owned the U.S headquarters and this was huge because without the United States Market the maish brothers were toast and in spite of their best efforts they could never wrestle away control from Otto and his daughter now the maish brothers would attempt to power through the mid-1980s by importing makos to America under the M Star name but by that time the motorcycling public and the distributorships had banished the Mako brand into the bows of hell and a few years later the maish brothers would relinquish their control of Mako to an outside buyer since then the brand has changed hands many times but in spite of best efforts nobody's been able to restore Mako to the greatness it once was now I didn't mention racing too much because also in spite of having a great bike and great Riders like Danny Magoo Chandler somehow they were never able to translate that into success Under The Works rules in the professional series eventually Otto and Wilhelm would pass away and they would be buried under a pile of animosity and regret now I read somewhere that Wilhelm Jr would end up in a psychiatric facility for a short period of time and the brothers would bounce in and out of the Motorsports industry but they would never be able to create anything close to what Mako was and as the saying goes your true enemy is never a stranger it's always someone you know and nothing could be more truthful when it comes to the maishes now in doing this video there were two things that stood out more than anything else one is as a griev fan I couldn't help but think of what could have been if they could have set aside their differences would Mako be right there today alongside the likes of Honda Yamaha Kawasaki Suzuki and KTM I mean we'll never know but it seems like such a waste and the second would obviously be the level of hatred and sabotage between the families I mean the lengths they would go through for greed and power is just not mind-boggling it's evil they purposely built dangerous motorcycles to tank the brand but those engineering flaws seriously injured innocent Riders who trusted them and that's the worst sin and I somehow can't wrap my head around the fact that these two brothers could survive while the entire world was at War at one of the worst times in world history but yet they couldn't survive each other I once heard that blood doesn't make you family what makes you family is loyalty trust respect and unity and for the maishas guess they never really were family were they they were just related thanks for watching cheers foreign

Channel: Born A Goon

Views: 643,612

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Id: QPIVgXQEq00

Length: 26min 40sec (1600 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 05 2023