Yamaguchi, one of Japan’s oldest motorcycle companies, with roots back to 1941, was one such company.
At the same time, Pacific Basin Trading Company (PABATCO), then a subsidiary of Farm Chemicals of Oregon, was looking to trade Oregon farm products for goods from other countries. PABATCO was headquartered in Athena, a little town in northeastern Oregon just north of Pendleton,PABATCO was owned by the Shell Oil Company from 1965 to 1978.
Starting about 1961, PABATCO began importing Yamaguchi motorcycles, first in 49cc and later in 80cc versions, and these proved quite profitable for the Oregon-based company. But the fierce competition between Japanese motorcycle companies in the early Sixties hit the smaller companies hard, and Yamaguchi went under in 1963. The last engine used by Yamaguchi was an 80cc three-speed made by Hodaka, a Japanese builder of two-stroke engines.
With their most profitable item no longer available, yet with dealers in place and strong demand for small motorcycles, Harry “Hank” Koepke, Adolph Schwartz and other PABATCO employees decided to collaborate in designing a motorcycle for the U.S. market. And with Hodaka already in place to supply engines, they looked to Hodaka to build their new bike. Rumor has it that much of the initial sketching was done at the local Green Lantern Tavern, with the help of a few cocktails.
Styling cues for the planned bike were taken from the Cotton, a British-made offroad competition machine with a record of success in offroad racing. The Cotton made heavy use of triangulation to stiffen the frame, and the PABATCO prototype adopted this idea. The all aluminum alloy engine would be based on the two-stroke, piston-port single used in the last Yamaguchi, but with a little more cubic capacity and one more gear, giving it four speeds instead of three.
The crew built and tested a prototype on the trails surrounding Athena. Blueprints in hand and satisfied they had something to work with, Hank went to Japan and hammered out contracts with suppliers, Hodaka chief among them, as the company would not only supply the engine for the new bike but assemble it as well. Hodaka agreed to grant PABATCO an exclusive distributorship for the new bike,and production began, opening its doors in 1964 with their first Hodaka, the Ace 90.Although it only had a shade over 8hp, the finished machine’s light weight (about 170lb) and good handling gave good performance, and thanks to the Hodaka engine it was easy to start and reliable. A contemporary ad celebrated two Hodaka Ace 90 riders making a run down the Baja Peninsula with no problems besides flat tires,and with a list of price of $379, the new Hodakas were an instant hit. “There was a feeling that these bikes were designed by people who actually rode them,” says Stewart Ingram, who races a Hodaka Super Combat in the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA) motocross series and has a collection of Hodakas.
The Hodaka Ace 90 set the tone for the new brand,the Hodaka Ace was fully street legal, but it was more than capable in the dirt. It had a light tubular steel frame, the exhaust was placed high and out of the way, and there was plenty of room under the fenders to shed mud.
Hodaka is credited by some with starting the trail bike craze in the United States. Hodaka models included these models
Hodaka Ace 90
Hodaka Ace 100A
Hodaka Ace 100B
Hodaka Ace 100B+
Hodaka Ace 125
Hodaka 100 Dirt Squirt
Hodaka 100 Road Toad
Hodaka 100 Super Rat
Hodaka 125 Super Combat
Hodaka 125 Combat Wombat
Hodaka 125 Wombat
Hodaka 175SL
Hodaka 250SL
Hodaka 250ED
Hodaka 80 Dirt Squirt
Hodaka Zen 50
In the late 1970s, a combination of events led to the demise of Hodaka. Falling US dollar exchange rates against the Japanese yen, a shift in demand from dirt bikes to larger road bikes, and general economic weakness fatally wounded the company. Hodaka attempted a purchase of Fuji Heavy Industries —the Japanese company which manufactured most Hodaka engines—but were rebuffed. Around 1980, Hodaka ceased all operations. Its tooling was later sold to the Korean company Daelim.
