SUBARU 2wd Dual Power

An all-wheel drive

Any component that supplies perfect traction to a car could also be applied to a bike. So Günter Kappacher must have thought, when he set about assembling mountain bikes in the late 1980s. He worked for a furniture company along with running a bicycle repair shop, and over the years the ideas of this handyman took shape. Kappacher created an all-wheel drive to be used for bicycles, and in 1993 the car-tuning company Oettinger made the idea a reality. The sculptor and racing cyclist Paul Pollanka then paved the way to series production. His knack for technical tinkering solved the last few problems and simultaneously initiated series manufacture in Taiwan. The front wheel was driven by a connectible toothed belt.
This allwheel drive technology was patented and the name Progear appeared on the bikes. Other bikes were added to the programme, but in the time it took to move the development on virtually every mountain bike on the market had been fitted with a suspension fork. The full-suspension prototype conceived by Paul Pollanka with Horst Leitner’s AM P fork, was put on hold. Years passed until in the mid-1990s a few car manufacturers grew interested in widening their market and having bicycle spin-offs (see the BM W Super-Tech on page 44). There could have been no better partner for the Subaru than the Progear, and in 1996–97 around 180 all-wheel drive mountain bikes were sold to Subaru Germany. Th bicycle featured is number ZW30014, and it rides just as exquisitely as Subaru’s team of inventors promised.


1996, TPE
Frame: Steel clear coated
Bicycle gearing: 3x7
Brakes: Rim Cantilever / Rim Cantilever
Tyres: 26“ Wired Tyre / 26“ Wired Tyre
Weight: 33,95 lbs