1978 Road Bikes of Italy Buyer's Guide - 4-Page Vintage Motorcycle Article

Description

1978 Road Bikes of Italy Buyer's Guide - 4-Page Vintage Motorcycle Article
Original, vintage magazine article
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
After the Japanese, the Italians
• contribute most to the diver-
sity Of the street hardware available
to the American rider. Although the
actual number of Italian bikes sold is
low, their visibility is high, and their
effect out of all proportion to their
sales figures. Hosts of Hondas and
squadrons of Suzukis can pass people
on Main Street USA with nary a
double-take, but a lone Ducati Dar-
mah jerks heads around like the
klaxon of the free-money wagon.
There’s a reason for that, as you'll
know if you’ve ever owned an Italian
road bike or even read the test of the
Laverda Jota America in this issue.
Conceived in a climate of fiery pas-
sions and twisty roads, most big-bore
Italian machinery is deliberately
evocative of the racetrack.
This is true even of inotorcy- i ,
cles without a hint of cafe-racer
styling, for the fact is that in design—;
ing for their home markets
Italian manufacturers drsC^MiK^
. sign and build bikes of extraordinary
capacities and personalities.
This Is of ,importance to you be-c
,‘causd the resulting machinery is un-
.; obtainable from any other source, A
..>J^ise'';in point is the 'similarity be-:
J'tSwjben the tionda CX5Q6 ati^ the.;
. 'Moto Guzzi V50; both are
/driven Vee-twins of approximately,
the same displacement and dimenyt.i
■ sioris, but the Italian bike is much't
lighter and much simpler than its
■Japanese counterpart. Thus, the two
machines are radically different in
everything from style to feel, despite
their apparent design similarities..
The winner of that head-to-head
juxtaposition is therefore not Honda
or Moto Guzzi, but you, since their
. divergent philosophies give you a real
choice in rides.
The same goes for all six of the
major brands imported at this time
into America frdm Italy. Benelli,
Ducati, Laverda, Moto Guzzi, Moto
Morini and MV Agusta motorcycles
are all available to you as counter-
points to the vast array of Japanese
bikes, the Harley-Davidson Vee-
twins and the small numbers of Tri-
umphs and BMWs. And you could
consider their simply being here as
an amazing act of survival, given the
onslaught of federal regulations, the
turmoil of Italy’s government and
the world’s wildly fluctuating market
preferences. Indeed, the Italian—and
European, for that matter—motor-
cycle scene grows more and more
biased towards small-displacement
bikes, whose low purchase, running
and insurance costs are increasingly
important to the financially-pressed
young riders who make up a great
portion of Italy’s domestic buying
public. Thus, according to one ana-
lyst, “America’s interest in 900cc
Ducatis exceeds Italy’s—and that's
good, since hardly anyone in
Italy could afford to buy or
run one."
All of this market-speak is by way
of explaining why you
shouldn't take any of the
i hikes On the following three pages for
granted. The importers who bring
f^phRto y&tdealers do so at consid-
■ -iefable risk find effort, with little ex-
y bectaiioabegetting rich quick. Like
you. many pf the people involved in
putting these bikes in your show,
I rooms are more interested in motoh^
I cycles than anything else.
Kf^'SVhat follows is a compendium of'"
fy^^ritid photographs about tile;
liaisons with their^j'
^^^^r^feictbries io Italy. The idea
.to provide detail®?
analyses of the motorcycles, but jfejj:
a catalog of alternating.
that you might well have not
ay.imagined existed.
A final word of caution: Italian
motorcycles are hot for everyone..
; ITHeyeatj behigh-effort, high-mainte-.
nance machines whose internal logic
; can easily eScape anyone brought up
f on less demanding devices.
But one thing of overwhelming
importance remains: There is noth-
ing in all the world like an Italian
motorcycle. Nothing...
13385-AL-7812-09