Response to THEDEN: "How does that Sachs motor hold up? I have a spitfire 48cc on a cruiser bike, does about 20-25 mph, and climbs most hills real well"

The Sachs motors we have are German built but I think they are now made in Taiwan. When we first arrived in the LA in 1996 with these bikes my first job was to find local US sellers. There weren't any. I rang most of the big bike shops in LA but only one had every dealt with them, and luckily for me he had a brand new motor that he was keen to get rid of because it was his last one. $300 he sold it to me for.

These motor are exceptionally reliable. We have done about 3000 hours on them. I had one major problem when we broke down on a Navajo reservation in northern Arizona and were stuck there for a few days. Had to get permission from the boss to stay there. One of the two interior oil seals popped off. So, that meant a full strip of the motor, and gasket-seal the oil seal back in. I can strip the motor down to the piston level in about an hour from being on the bike. I carry about a kilo of tools to do that, and another kilo of spares.

My guess is, a brand new motor would give you about 1000 hours of use before things possibly started to play up. Reliability: We left ours in SC for two years in the late 1990s, drained of petrol. Came back, pedalled them down to the local gas station, fill em up, and mine started second pull. I still don't believe that happened.

Superb German engineering.