If you are wondering what to do with an old Motobecane Mobilette 41V, here’s a nice idea for you.
Motobecane is a French manufacturer founded in 1923 that changed its name into MBK in 1984, and the Mobylette is a moped that has been produced (in several different version) from 1949 to 1997.
This one in particular, a ‘41V’, was produced in the 80s and was lying into some forgotten barn before the nice guys from FrenchMonkeys put their hands on it and turned it into this lightweight chopper motorcycle.
The new model has been dubbed Tobec 41C Hood Ride: ‘Tobec’ is the French word for ‘moped’, 41C is a reference to the original model it derives from (where C stands for ‘Chopper’), and ‘Hood Ride’ is an expression coming from the custom lingo that would mean an old bike that has been ‘lowered’ and uses a “rusty” paint job.
The frame has been modified in order to give the bike the classic ‘chopper’ look and host a Malaguti-branded engine made by Franco Morini in the 70s, with a 3-speed gearbox.
The model uses Girder-type forks (which were quite fashionable in the 30s) and handlebars that are pretty reminiscent of a Boardtracker, the bikes that used to race on wooden oval tracks in the same period.
Also pretty interesting is the ’spade-shaped’ saddle, which is another well-known symbol of the custom world.
The resulting bike was so good that the FrenchMonkeys just had to make another one straight away, so they got ahold of a Mobylette 50 V, modified the frame, gave it a ‘Whitewall’ set of tyres and made a sort of lowride racer out of it.
You can see that one in our photo gallery too.
View the full Tobec 41C Hood Ride by the FrenchMonkeys photo gallery