1968 Benelli 764854318 on 2040-motos

Benelli Other description

1968 BENELLI 764854318, Hey man, where d ya get your Bike? Monkey Wards. Yes, boys and girls, back in the good old days you could walk in to a Montgomery Wards store and walk out with a refrigerator, a new couch, a new toilet and a new motorcycle. In the 60 s Wards partnered up with Benelli to sell small displacement motorcycles here in the US and for a while it was a fairly lucrative project for both. The most popular were the small 2 strokes but the larger 250 and 350 models started doing well in the later part of the decade. Today these Wards Riverside models have developed quite a cult following. Internet forums, rallies, parts businesses specializing in these bikes it s amazing. Of all Wards/Riverside bikes, the Mojave 360 is the most interesting.The Mojave 360 is exceedingly rare with only 50 ever making it to production. These 1968s were supposedly a pilot for a planned regular production run that never materialized. Moto Benelli was also building 250cc and 350cc road bikes for Montgomery Ward at the time. These 50 Mojave 360s were intended to satisfy the AMA so that the bikes could compete in enduro competition in the United States. The frame and body work is a copy of the Rickman Matisse racing products from England, except unlike Rickman, the Benelli body parts are steel rather than fiberglass. Our Mojave's in excellent condition