The Bultaco Lookbook
The Style of 60's and 70's Spanish Trial Racing, Captured by Juan Luis Gaillard
In 1964, the Barcelonian Juan Luis Gaillard was hired as an industrial technical engineer by the Spanish motorcycle manufacturer Bultaco, famous for its off-road bikes and trial competition wins across Europe and the British Isles. The same year he was hired, Bultaco found itself in need of a photographer for their advertisement and catalogue images. Thus did Gaillard, an amateur photography enthusiast, accidentally fall into his role as the Head of Communications and Press Department, a position he held for 19 years. Until the company shut down in 1983, he produced some 90,000 action-filled images of Spanish motorcycle racing culture that he dubbed the “Bultaco Archive,” a collection he devoted the rest of his life to managing until his death in 2005.
This selection of his work — a very small bit of the archive — showcases some of the wonderful style of Spanish trial racing in the 60’s and 70’s, before synthetic jumpsuits became ubiquitous. Instead, competitors relied heavily on everyday knitwear, hiking outerwear, repurposed equestrian gear, waxed trial jackets, and tight-fitting jeans or corduroys. He captured several other kinds of racing events and scenes for Bultaco — track, land speed, and so on — but his trial photographs are spectacular for their off-road drama and interesting clothing. I’m also including some other images from the Bultaco Archive — a few from their Himalayan expedition (where they reached the highest altitude ever gained by a motorcycle on the Sherpa T as a marketing stunt,) others from promotional events and product shoots. You can find Gaillard’s digitized collection here, which I highly recommend browsing.
