MTV (Mototrans Virgili)

MTV, short for Mototrans Virgili, was the name under which the Barcelona motorcycle firm MotoTrans tried to relaunch itself after 1978. MotoTrans had built Ducati motorcycles under licence in Spain since the late 1950s, and when Yamaha and the Banesto banking group, owners of both Sanglas and MotoTrans, moved a hundred MotoTrans workers across to Sanglas, the founder Virgili returned and the company created its own marque so that it no longer depended on Italian designs. Its first project was the Yack 410, a 400 cc single-cylinder trail bike with a toothed belt and desmodromic valve gear that was never put into production because the banks would not finance it. In 1981 the marque presented two mopeds with four-speed Zündapp engines, one for cross-country and one for the road, with cantilever rear suspension. The company was placed under judicial administration in 1982 and closed for good in 1984.