Spanish motorcycle manufacturer Rieju has purchased the rights to the former GasGas designs, says a blog on the company’s website.

With KTM having purchased a controlling interest (a 60 per cent stake) in Gas Gas in 2019, there was a lot of great dirt bike tech just waiting to be picked up. KTM didn’t buy GasGas because it wanted access to that tech, it had other plans for the brand (including running Laia Sanz under the GasGas banner at Dakar). Going forward, GasGas will use KTM-derived engine and chassis designs, so the old plans were up for grabs.

Eneter Rieju! Rieju is hardly a household name in most of the world; many North American riders will have never heard of it. It’s based in Spain, founded in the 1930s, and makes a variety of street-legal and offroad-only motorcycles. Current production is a claimed 12,000 bikes a year from its factory near Barcelona.

Now, it will also be building the old GasGas designs, or at least some of them (the 250 and 300 two-strokes). Along with the designs, Rieju also bought some of the tooling and other plant machinery. It will start distributing the new machines from June 2020 onwards.

If you’re thinking this whole scenario sounds familiar, that’s because we’ve seen it happen before. Back when KTM bought the Husqvarna brand from BMW, the old Husky designs were sold off to SWM, who’s still producing them in Italy. That’s good for fans of those machines, and also for owners of older Husqvarna bikes who need parts. No doubt two-stroke fans are very happy to see Rieju continue building the older GasGas machines for the same reason; it’ll keep two-smokers alive, and help GasGas owners keep those machines rolling for a few more years yet.

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