The Penton Mudlark is one of the rare flops from John Penton and his now defunct manufacturing firm. Originally designed as a trials bike, it was even called the “Penton Trials” when it was released. Almost immediately, it was met with poor reviews.
As the story goes, back in ’73, Penton was buying Sachs engines as part of a contract with KTM. For whatever reason, KTM forced Penton to buy lots of 2nd tier engines before they’d allow him to get the top-tier ones for his race bikes. He decided to throw the “B” engines into a trials bike, the production of which he contracted out to an English fabrication firm called Wassel. It wasn’t very good, and it became the Mudlark. On paper, it doesn’t seem so bad – 123cc Sachs engine, 6-speed transmission, 190 pounds and 12 inches of ground clearance. In the real world, however, it flopped. Thus, finding a Mudlark is now a difficult task, and you may not even want to considering that Rick Sieman of SuperHunky called this the 3rd worst dirt bike of all time.
The seller of this example doesn’t have much to say – just that it “runs excellent” and he’s got “some spares that can be purchased separately”. Knowing that rare does not equal valuable, is this something you’d be interested in? Find this Mudlark for sale in Ulster, Pennsylvania for $3,200 here on Facebook Marketplace.
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