Manufactured by Jan Boonen and Jaak Vanvelthoven of Lommel, 1972-1974
Using a modified Husqvarna 405cc engine and built by Sprite in Britain, the off-road motorcycles were considerably cheaper than the better known marques. Production ceased in 1974 when American Eagle, the US importers of Sprite machines, collapsed owing Sprite a considerable amount of money.
Around 200 examples of the BVM were built.
Sources: A-Z der Belgische Motoren, Wikipedia NL
Images courtesy Jean-Louis Dumont and Dirk van Haren Noman.
26-Jan-24
dirkvhn at hotmaildotcom
Maybe I have some new information and pictures for your site concerning BVM from Lommel, Belgium.
I live in Lommel since 1966, just in time to see the 15 years old Jaak van Velthoven first outing on a Husqvarna motocross bike.
Later he and his brother in law Jan Boonen started to import Husqvarna motocross bikes in Belgium.
Jaak became a very good international motocrosser. First he rode for Husqvarna than he switched to KTM and became also importer for Belgium. Of course Husqvarna took away his importership of their motorcycles.
In the mean time Jaak was a sub-top world motocrosser and became factory rider for Yamaha. Of course that did cost him his importership from KTM.
In 1972 Jaak and Jan Boonen launched their own brand motocross bike, the BVM. Besides little modifications they didn't build the bikes themselves. They bought the frames and the modified Husqvarna engines from Sprite in Great Britain.
The bike was cheap but had no succes by the riders. So they 'produced' only 60, or maximum 200 bikes.
Some years ago they build, or restored, an example of their BVM for display (pictures).
Hopefully you can use this information!
Kind regards, Dirk
