With Villa the focus was mostly on the development of offroad bikes of 50cc and 125cc even though Casal also worked with the Italian company on the manufacture of parts for one of Villa's 250cc racing engines. With Huvo the partnership focused in the development of 50cc racing engines both for road and offroad racing and it proved so successful that they were extensively used in races in the mid 1970s mostly in Portugal but also, to a lesser extent, in Holland and other European countries. Further to this, Casal set up at least two other quite important partnerships, both also in the 70s, first with Huvo of Holland and shortly afterwards with Villa of Italy. Both in 19 Casal was the undisputed leader in local motocross championship which at that time attracted crowds almost as large as those of big football matches. The engine was ready just before the start of the Portuguese 1972 motocross championship and it became an instant hit.
The first one was set up in 1971-72 with a Dutch company prior to Huvo and involved the development of Casal's M154 engine (50cc, 5 speed) for its use as a motocross engine. In connection with this, unfortunately, parts of the company's archives were destroyed.Įspecially in the 1970s and 1980s, Casal set up various partnerships whose aim was to improve its racing capabilities.
As the increased purchasing power in their home country Portugal, their most important market, slowed the sales of mopeds, bankruptcy was a fact in February 2000. Car production was also planned, but not realised. It also had a promising joint venture with Solo of Germany under which some models were sold in the German market under the Solo brand. Its range included some 30 or more models, with automatic engines, 2 speed, 4 speed, 5 speed and 6 speed engines Even though its main market was, by far, the domestic market, it also exported some 10% of its production, mostly to the UK, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. Although most of its production were mopeds, it also produced 125cc bikes, namely the K260, K270 and K276 all, and it had an advanced plan for a 250cc, the K280.
Shortly after it rolled out its first mopeds, the K160, K161, K162 and K163 with two speeds, and the K181 with four speeds. By 1967 it was producing complete motorcycles, the first one being a scooter, the S170 Carina - a copy of the Zundapp R50 - with a 50cc and 4 speed engine.
Its first products included agricultural machinery and two strokes' moped engines based on Zundapp ones. It was founded in 1964 with João Casal as the managing director and Robert Zipprich and other ex-Zundapp engineers as the technical managers. Metalurgia Casal was the largest Portuguese motorcycle manufacturer, based in Aveiro.
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