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Welcome back to another episode of Mobile Suit Breakdown. I hope you enjoyed last week's motocross research. I am certainly looking forward to hearing the conclusion in just a few minutes. As some of you guessed, last week these research segments were recorded on the road while we were traveling to see family for the holidays using some of our old equipment. So if you thought that Nina sounded a little different, that's why she will be back to normal next week for the first episode of the new season. And for patrons, there will be a watch along track for G Gundam Episode one dropping around the same time recorded on even worse microphones. Before I hand things over to her, let me just remind you that we are revamping our Patreon alongside the new season. Starting in February we will be offering more bonus content, including more bonus episodes, but we will also be phasing out most of our physical rewards. So if you have been coveting one of our stylish Frabo and the Orphans band T shirts, now is the moment. Go to gundampodcast.com patreon and sign up on or before January 31, 2026 to be eligible for the last round of gift boxes. That is also the eligibility date for the Double Pin promotion. If you want to receive our Year six and Year seven commemorative gratitude pins, then you need to be signed up on that date January 31, 2026. Some restrictions apply. The details are all on the Patreon. Now let's all fly off into Biker Valhalla aboard the Motorcycle of Knowledge.

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Welcome to Part two of my research on motocross looking at the history of the sport post World War II. The post war period affected different motorcycle markets in different ways. In many European markets, consumers were starved for personal transport and machinery manufacturers had some excess capacity now that they weren't making war materiel. For example, Husqvarna, a Swedish company that I know for their sewing machines but at the time manufactured weapons too, saw an opportunity. They took some of that now unused capacity and entered the motorcycle market with a focus on small light bikes that met Sweden's legal restrictions for teen riders, incorporating lightweight alloys that greatly reduced overall weight. Though not intended as a racing bike, racers saw the 175cc silver Pilen or Silver Arrows potential and modded a more powerful 250cc engine onto the lightweight frame. Japan's industrial capacity had been obliterated. Total national motorcycle manufacture was a mere 127 units in 1945 and had only increased to 2,633 units by 1950. But the market Forces that eventually spurred rapid expansion of Japan's motorcycle industry were similar to those in Europe. Wartime manufacturers, for example Kawasaki, which started out as an aircraft manufacturer, had know how. And as Japan rebuilt after the war, industrial capacity increased by leaps and bounds. And just like in Europe, the public was in need of convenient personal transportation. The Japanese Wikipedia page for motocross credits tracks built on U.S. army bases during the occupation with introducing the sport of motocross to Japan, but it's an unsourced claim that no other source verified. There were prominent and popular off road races during this time, but these were hill climbs. One, on the slopes of Mount Fuji, was held from 1953 to 1956 and involved a change in altitude of 1,500 meters over just 27 kilometers. Another, held on Mount Asama, began in 1955. The first official motocross race was held in 1959, the inaugural All Japan Motocross in Osaka Prefecture. Although one racing blog mentioned a 1947 World Championship race held in the Netherlands, it wasn't until 1952 that the Federation Internationale de Motociclism FIM organized the first official European championship for motocross. FIM remains the primary governing body for international motorcycle racing, not just for motocross, but for 10 different motorcycle racing disciplines across 60 championships and 123 national motorcycle federations. That first motocross championship was for 500cc four stroke bikes and was won by Belgian Victor Le Loupe on a Belgian made Sarolea motorcycle. Off road racing had already spurred innovations in motorcycle design and engineering, as well as providing a testing ground for new tech. For example, rigid frames had given way to suspensions back in the early 1930s and swinging fork rear suspension was introduced in racing bikes in the early 1950s, but was incorporated into the majority of production street bikes by the end of the decade. In the early days, four stroke engines dominated motocross, but experimental developments were about to change the game. The introduction of the expansion chamber or tuned pipe to two stroke exhaust systems boosted their power by over 25%. Explaining how this works is entirely beyond me, but it has something to do with the harmonics of the exhaust. Rotary disc valves were introduced and cylinder porting improved. Suddenly, two strokes had a better power to weight ratio than four strokes, and since they were cheaper and simpler to mass produce, practically every industrial nation, including Germany, Czechoslovakia, Great Britain, Sweden, Spain and Japan quickly embraced the new technology. In 1963, Vlastimir Valek won the first moto of the Czechoslovakian Motocross grand prix on a 263cc two stroke against a field of top class four stroke motorcycles. This was the first win by a two stroke in the premier division of the Motocross World Championships. And by the mid-1960s, advances in two stroke engine technology meant that the heavier four stroke machines were relegated to niche competitions. This would change again, but not until the mid to late 1990s. By 1963, Husqvarna was taking the new lightweight alloys and two stroke engines to make purpose built motocross racing bikes. Meanwhile, remember how I said Japan produced just 2,633 motorcycles in 1950? Well, in 1960 Japan produced 1,349,090 motorcycles. A more than 51,000% increase in just 10 years. The Motorcycle Federation of Japan, or MFJ was established in 1961 and the first motocross Japan Grand Prix was held in 1964. The first motocross race held on a purpose built track inside a stadium was in 1948 at Buffalo Stadium just outside of Paris. This was the forerunner of supercross, a portmanteau of super bowl and motocross. A racing format that was especially popular in the United States from the late 1960s through the 70s. I won't go into deep detail on supercross because it doesn't seem to have been as popular in Japan. According to the mfj, the first stadium supercross event in Japan wasn't held until 1982. But it's a strong example of how post war economic expansion and globalization was intimately involved in the expansion of motocross. While there was a national governing body for the sport in the United States, the American Motorcyclist association and officially sanctioned races had been held as early as 1959. A man named Mario Edison Dye is often credited with bringing motocross to America. An aeronautical engineer by training and a lifelong hot rod and motorcycle enthusiastic in the 1960s dye set up a travel business specializing in taking Americans on motorcycle tours of Europe. This is when he got hooked on motocross and impressed with Husqvarna's purpose built bikes, negotiated a deal to become their US distributor. Dye went on to organize exhibition racing events all over the United States as a means to show off Husqvarna's lightweight two stroke bikes. In 1966 he brought over then champion Thorsten Hallmann, who in the words of Red Bull racing, destroyed the competition. Spectators loved it. This became a trend with high profile riders traveling to other markets, especially North America and Australia, to promote motocross and widen the audience for the sport. Japanese motorcycle manufacturers saw participation in overseas races as essential to increasing exports, first in Brazil, then in the United States and Europe. And it worked. Japanese motorcycles were gaining prominence by the late 1960s and came to dominate the sport in the 70s and 80s. Exports went from 13,142 machines in 1959 to more than half a million exported machines by 1964. 1964 also saw Kubo Kazuo and Suzuki Sea Seiichi became the first Japanese riders to compete in the world GP of motocross. And in 1968 the Belgian Grand Prix was won by O. Petersen riding a Suzuki RH68. According to the MFJ's website, motocross became a huge hit in Japan in the late 1960s, enough so that many races were broadcast live on TV. Then in 1975, Watanabe Akira became the first non European competitor to win a motocross world championship when he won the 125cc Spanish Grand Prix on a Suzuki. Maybe it took that long because all the best Japanese motorcyclists got isekai'd to Biston. Well, the 1970s into the early 1990s is described as another boom period in motocross technology, one presided over by Japanese manufacturers. But it wasn't all about technical innovations like water cooled engines or improved suspensions. The Motocross Vault blog credits the 1973 Honda Elsinore with changing people's expectations for performance and durability in a stock production machine, calling it perhaps the most significant machine in motocross history. In describing the state of the specialty motocross bike market at the time, Motocross Vault goes on to say, unfortunately for consumers, the majority of the machines available were marginal at best. At the lower end, most were little more than street bikes stripped of lights and shod with knobby tires. Even at the more premium end of the scale, the European thoroughbreds were temperamental, fragile and finicky. In the early 70s, it was up to consumers to fix their bikes many shortcomings and do their best to keep them running. Basically, if you were going to race motocross in 1972, you had better be good with a set of wrenches. Other Japanese makers had competitive racing machines, but these were highly tuned specialty machines for the racing team, also called works bikes, not commercial run bikes. The simplicity and reliability out of the box of Hondas made motocross more accessible to amateurs and hobbyists. Other Japanese companies, especially Yamaha and Kawasaki, saw Honda's overseas success and moved to emulate it, building bikes that were according to fuel motorcycles lighter, more reliable, less expensive, cleaner and easier to ride than the traditional big bikes from England and America, appealing to a new and broader base of customers. Just two years after the Honda Elsinore, Yamaha released the YZ250B monoshock, described as the kind of paradigm shifting machines that change a sport utterly overnight. For its part, Suzuki had the most impressive run by a single brand in the sport sport's history when they dominated the 125cc class from 1975 to 1984, taking 10 titles in a row. During the bubble economy, Japanese racing teams had huge budgets to spend on both bikes and top riders. Just like Suzuki dominated the 125cc class, Honda dominated the 500cc class, winning nine titles in a row from 1984 to 1992. Then the bubble burst and the recession that followed pushed many manufacturers to make changes. I mentioned before that most professional motocross riders up to this point raced what are called WORX bikes. These are custom built, custom tuned, one of a kind bikes and so are, unsurprisingly, very expensive. Yamaha had been a leader in works bikes designed, but suddenly had to scale back their racing program in order to cut costs. By 1984, they shut down their works bike program entirely and were racing only production machines. This put them at a disadvantage against rivals Honda, who were still churning out workspikes with the latest cutting edge tech and costs to match. So Yamaha went to the American Motorcyclists association and made the case that the outrageous budgets for works bikes were bad for the sport from a populist perspective, in that it meant independent riders who weren't affiliated with a manufacturer's team were effectively shut out of competition. Apparently the AMA found this a compelling argument and in 1986 rolled out the production rule, which required that all racing machines at least begin as production machines, and that while there were allowances for certain upgrades or modification, the basic motor and frame designs had to remain largely unchanged. The rule only applied to races sanctioned by the ama, so works bikes were still raced in Europe and Japan, but it still pushed manufacturers to design production bikes that could be competitive on the track. As I half remembered, in the 90s, motocross became part of the extreme sports boom and so was associated with surf and skate culture and punk rock music. Riders kits started to look like billboards covered in the names of brands that sponsored them. According to Red Bull Racing, it was an era of big personalities. And it is this extreme sports, youth culture, big personalities era that births Victory Gundam's battle bikes. I wondered whether the motocross culture of Japan was different than in other places, but the only source I found on that was a fairly recent interview with Spanish biker Victor Alonso, who asked about racing in Japan in an interview describe the tracks and organization as more or less the same as those in Europe and I wish I could have found more information about the consumer side of things, viewership of live and televised events, prominence of motorcycles in other children's media, sales of motorcycle poise, things like that. But I ought to wrap this up and the technology industry and pro racing history still tell us a lot about the cultural currents that influenced Victory Gundam's motorcycle inspired Mobile suits and battleships Motorcycles had cool factor. There was an edginess to the extreme sports era. It was more sporty and adventurous than it was rebellious or criminal. And for Japan, the motorcycle industry was internationally dominant, an arena for showing off the superiority of Japanese engineering and manufacturing as well as garnering fame and prestige. If only they'd saved the motorcycle battleships for a different show.

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Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded and produced by us, Tom and Nina in scenic New York City within the ancestral and unceded land of the Lenape people and made possible by listeners like you. The opening track is WASP by Misha Dioxin. The closing music is Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio. You can find links to the sources for our research, the music used in the episode, additional information about the Lenape people and and more in the show Notes on our website gundampodcast.com if you'd like to get in touch with us, you can email hostsundampodcast.com or look for links to our social media accounts on our website. And if you would like to support the show, please share us with your friends. Leave a nice review wherever you listen to podcasts or support us financially@gundumpodcast.com Patreon you can find links and more ways to help out@gundampodcast.com support thank you for listening.