BMX Bikes / H / Healing Industries / 1980 Healing Industries HMX 500

1980 Healing Industries HMX 500

20" HMX500 - The 1st BMX I ever got for my 5th birthday, this one sparked the craze for restoring the old school rides again, great memories

HMX500

NZ made frame

Stripped and powdercoated traditional colour, very nicely done - credit to that, its awesome grim

Original 80's decals, look outstanding

Original Healing HMX bars (restored)

21.1 tange forks (NOS)

Super Maxy Silver 3 piece Cranks (restored) with sigino bolt cover caps

SR chainring (restored)

SR pedals (NOS)

Slanted seatpost (NOS)

Nitto MX-2 Stem (polished and restored)

Yellow and black MX Seat (restored)

Silver Dia-compe rear Brake (restored)

Funny old grips (NOS)

Old series 1 Pantha Mag rims (restored)

Kenda Comp 3 style tyres (NOS)

Not completely the way I was going to go on this build but will see whats happens when other parts come up

Colour of the wheels/mags are outrageously a perfect match to the frame colour so I had to put them on for now

They are old pantha mags, series 1 (I think) few cracks and re-welds but the powdercoat paint is new and looks good

New Kenda Comp 3 style tyres and tubes on them

Serial number - 31277113

Some history I found on Healing HMX:

HMX 500. There were three models from 1978-79 to 1985....1st model had No gusset, 2nd model had one gusset, 3rd model had the twin gusset....HMX500, 505, 600 are

all the same frame of the type 3 model....all tubes were the same size....HMX 600, was sold with Skyway Tuffs and most were back pedal brake.

The pit bike 16" was called a Mini-Max..Same frame story with Supermax ..all Supermax 2's were pretty much spec as a Redline MX3..Most redlines sold in NZ were made

in Japan.

HMX the first model with No gusset were all recalled and replaced and frames were all dumped by Healings....as they broke within a week....Just like the First pantha

Stud....Remember the undercoat grey Pantha's? 1979 ish....

The HMX series was a low priced bike for average kids circa 80 - 85, they were produced locally by Healing (Hence "H"MX).

The HMX 500 was notorious for cracking up around the head tube, the single gusset wasn't enough for the regular steel frame,

and it's pretty rare to see a 500 anymore simply because of that - most went to the dump, and was replaced by the superior HMX600!

haha, not much changed between the two except the 600 got slightly larger diameter main tubes (not 100% on that) and Skyway Tuffs.

Though they can still be seen at garage sales now and then.

They served nearly every kid in New Zealand pretty well, the thing is we're a small nation, so the market for bikes was a lot smaller,

hence when they get thrown away - they're gone. It's not really in our culture to horde stuff.

In saying that, BMX in New Zealand in the decade from the mid 70's, to the mid 80's was HUGE, and there certainly was never had a shortage of the "exotic bikes"

I grew up in a middle class type suburb, and my mates had Kuwahara's, Skyways, Rippers, Hutches, Redlines etc etc etc, they were a pretty common sight really,

BMX sent Skateboarding into the "dark years" here, and followed 6 - 7 years later or so.

You still see the NOS label sets for HMX series bikes popping up on the local auction sites now and then, as well as period correct brakes, cranks, and the other bits n pieces.

Submitted by sperlingaz