The name Diemen is taken from the name of Diego Mendola (DIEgo MENdola) of Elche.
The Diemen badge is based on the Lady of Elche – Dama de Elche, in Spanish and Dama d’Elx in Valencian. This is a limestone bust that was discovered in 1897 on an archaeological site in La Alcudia and is on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid. It is believed to be an Iberian artifact from 4th Century BC.
Diemen initially built velomotors using Cucciolo four-stroke engines in the late 1950s – a rare example is on display in the Col’leccion Vehiculos Historicos “Vall de Guadalest”.
In the 1960s they went on to build light motorcycles under license from Elig, also of Elche. These motorcycles had 14″ wheels and were powered by the Hispano Villiers 125cc 2 stroke engine, with an Albion 4-speed gearbox. Production figures suggest that 29 machines were manufactured in 1960 and a further 18 in 1961.
The motorcycle in the photographs was part of the Manual Balboa Morillas collection, that was displayed at the Museo Balboa in Alicante. The museum has closed and the bike was for sale with Yclasicos (www.yclasicos.com). I am grateful to Josep Garcia, the CEO of Yclasicos, who kindly allowed me to use their photographs here. This motorcycle is, to the best of my knowledge, the only surviving Diemen 125cc.
Navarro y Maestre
Navarro y Maestre SL were a diverse company with premises in Alicante and Elche. Their range of interests were mainly agricultural, as an agency for fertilisers and cereals but they also supplied motorcycles, motocarros and microcars. The N y M brand mentioned on their adverts relate to a brand badging exercise, using their own name.
The reason for including them here with Diemen is because I am told that Diego Mendola was almost certainly behind this venture. Certainly the dates of production align and there are many design similarities in the frames etc.
This Navarro y Maestre 200cc bike dates from 1960 and was on display with the Sala Santy Collection in 2024.
This 1960 advert is taken from the program for the Festa d’Elx 1960 and was downloaded from the Biblioteca Virtual de Prensa Histórica (BVPH)**.
**BVPH works are offered under CC-BY 4.0 license (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Spanish Motorcycles 