50 years of the Cota

As has been well documented in both Trial Magazine and Classic Trial Magazine, this year Montesa celebrates 50 years of its iconic Cota model range. Having started out with the two-stroke Cota 247 model in 1968, we arrive in 2018 with the four-stroke Cota 4RT. Along this ‘golden’ adventure, world championship success first came with the late Ulf Karlson from Sweden in 1980 competing on the Cota 349. Riding a new generation machine after collaboration with Honda from Japan the Cota 315R was born after a development programme introducing new technologies, and Spain’s Marc Colomer was crowned World Champion in 1996. Great Britain’s Dougie Lampkin won three consecutive crowns from the year 2000 to 2003 as Japan’s Takahisa Fujinami took the Cota’s final twostroke crown in 2004.

Addressing the world’s emission problems, the new single cylinder four-stroke Cota 4RT was introduced in late 2004 and was an immediate success. When Spain’s new young trials superstar Toni Bou joined the Montesa Cota team in 2007, he became the most successful rider in the history of the championship, taking consecutive championships until the present day. With victory number 98 now taken, his goal in 2018 is to take this to a recordbreaking 100 wins, and who would like to bet against this not happening; we certainly would not!