History Of United Motors (UM)

What makes UM who it is today wouldn’t be possible without knowing where UM has been.  Their colorful history reaches back more than 55 years to 1951.  That’s three generations of experience in the automotive and motorcycle manufacturing/transportation industries. 

This experience is strongly enhanced by a tight family unit, the Villegas family, who has remained involved in all aspects of the business starting with the grandfather, his son, and now the grandsons, Juan, Ana, Jose and Diego. 

Throughout the years, the Villegas family has experienced many milestones: They acquired sole distribution in some Latin American countries as well as the American territories for Toyota, Nissan, John Deere and the General Motors’ line of diesel trucks. They also established assembly plants for Fruehauf trailers in 1966 and became the largest trailer manufacturer in South America.

In 1992, Juan Villegas, the oldest grandson, began traveling to Asia (Taiwan & China) searching for powersports products to introduce to America. The motorcycle market worldwide had been in constant growth for decades and the Villegas family saw a great opportunity to complement the market with more affordable products.  At that time, there were few motorcycles from China being sold in the American Continent. The traditional Japanese and European brands had been controlling the market for decades and the opportunity to complement them was immense. Cooperation and manufacturing agreements were signed with the biggest motorcycle manufacturers in China and Taiwan and the products were first introduced in Latin America in 1994.

In 1997, the Villegas family took advantage of the opportunities they saw in North America and began to penetrate the US market with a completely new line of powersports products under the UM trademark.  They decided to change the name from United Motors to UM because it is shorter and more consumer friendly.  They quickly established themselves as a North American brand with all the design, support and services based in the U.S. (Miami) and with manufacturing facilities in Asia.  Working with these manufacturers, UM designs, engineers and specs the products for each market.  UM selects components and tests the products intensely before introduction: All of the off-road products undergo 250 hours of rigorous trials and all on-road products are driven for more than 20,000 miles.

In 2005, UM signed an agreement with one of Korea’s largest powersports manufacturer and completed its product line with the addition of a line of street bikes with larger displacement engines (650 cc) thus expanding UM’s lineup of engine choices for street bikes from 250 to 650cc and upcoming products with a 450cc liquid cooled engine. The result was that UM became the first full line manufacturer in the powersports industry in almost 30 years and are now celebrating their 10th anniversary. Today, UM offers Street, Dual Sport & Off Road Motorcycles, Scooters and ATV’s in displacements from 49cc to 650cc, combining a variety of models for every industry market segment and powersports enthusiast.

For more information visit United Motors Website: http://www.umamerica.com/