Report From Italy
REPORT FROM ITALY
CARLO PERELLI
DETOMASO BUYS MOTO GUZZI!
Exactly one week after the introduction of the Benelli 750 “Six,” Alejandro DeTomaso is again making sensational news. He has purchased Moto Guzzi!
The news came as a shocking surprise not only to the Italian motorcycle world, but even to the Moto Guzzi people! In fact, the arrangement was carried on secretly between the dynamic Italo-Argentine and the IMI (Istituto Mobiliare Italiano), which had come to the rescue of Moto Guzzi at the end of 1968 through its SEIMM branch (Societa Esercizio Industrie Moto Meccaniche).
At the moment, the price paid for Moto Guzzi is not known but surely it is a substantial figure, since the Mandello del Lario factory, founded in 1921 and top name for motorcycles in Italy, is much bigger than the Pesaro factory which DeTomaso bought in the summer of 1971. Benelli now employs 700 people, Moto Guzzi has 1000.
Why purchase Moto Guzzi? “We must stop the Japanese while we still can,” explains DeTomaso. “I’m sure that within seven or eight years it’ll be impossible to drive cars not only in towns but also outside. Push bicycles are too fatiguing and so traffic conditions of around 1980 will take us unavoidably toward the motorcycle. Besides that, we’ll have much more free time then. The motorcycle will finally give us back the freedom and the youthful spirit we are longing for. The motorcycle will become our best friend.”
Surely DeTomaso has great plans in mind. He is an Ex-Formula One driver and builder, is proprietor of the famous Ford-backed sports car factory in Modena as well as the Ghia and Vignale car body factories in Turin. His activity is meteoric. He owns hotels and fashion boutiques (for which he designs silk scarves), he breeds fighting bulls in the home “pampa,” he deals with antiques and, of course, professes the highest enthusiasm for two and four-wheeled styling and technique. It is said he sleeps only five hours per night, is married to a rich American, and is one of the very few in Italy to own a jet plane for quick business and pleasure trips.
Stating that the new 350 and 500 four-cylinder GP racers developed at Benelli are 15 percent more powerful than the corresponding MVs (and in fact Saarinen took them to the victory at Pesaro against Ago), DeTomaso says that he’ll not let them be photographed without enclosures. “If you show me a picture of a naked racing bike, I can understand every detail of the engine, and so I think that others can too. Therefore, why help them, now that we are ahead?”
Getting back to Moto Guzzi, Alejandro has stated, “I will re-launch Moto Guzzi through competition. We have already done something in this field for Benelli. The Italian industry needs a great comeback, to again take over leadership in the world. Sports successes are helping very much in this action.” And what about the riders? “As soon as I need them, this is no problem for me, even with Ago or Saarinen.”
END OF SEASON IN ITALY
Two big events were scheduled for the end of the Italian season; one at Imola and the other one at SanremoOspedaletti. On the afternoon of race day, Imola was hit by a terrific thunderstorm which flooded the track and forced the organizers to suspend the races and refund ticket money to the angry and wet spectators.
Sanremo-Ospedaletti was also about to be suspended, but not because of weather, which is always excellent on the Ligure Riviera. This time the threat came from the authorities. The Sanremo-Ospedaletti course is hillish, tricky and stonewall sided. Because of this, organizers just managed to get approval.
Just back from Ontario, Pasolini on the Aermacchi-H-D Twin easily won the 250 and had great scraps with Ago in the 350 and 500. In the 350, Ago straddled the MV Four and only in the ^losing laps built up a small lead to win at record speeds from Paso.
In the 500, Ago had the Three and Paso the new 420cc. With only one lap to go and when still tailing the rival, Paso was stopped by a holed piston, so leaving 2nd place to Walter Villa (Kawasaki) ahead of MV second stringer Pagani.
Jan de Vries (Van Veen Kreidler) and Charles Mortimer (Yamaha) won the 50 and 125 classes at record speeds.
Italian Senior Championship titles fell to Alberto leva (Malanc 50), Adriano Cocchi (Yamaha 125), Renzo Pasolini (Aermacchi-H-D 250) and Giacomo Agostini (MV 350 and 500).
ITALIAN DESIGNER SONCINI
William Soncini is one of very few op Italian designers. Still, he is littleknown in his homeland because he has iways operated in the shadow of im portant factories, he has never designed fabulous mounts and he is naturally reserved.
Since 1969 he has been technical director of Aermacchi-H-D and he deserves most of the merit for the racing two-stroke Twins and the new models which will follow.
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Born in 1912 at Reggio Emilia, Northern Italy (a town where the motoring industry had good traditions), he fell in love with motorcycles but had to wait until post war years before getting involved with them. He first taught engine technique at school, and then during the war he took care of the engine section of the most famous Italian fighter plane squadron.
Finally, after the war, he started tuning bikes for racing. His small workshop in Reggio Emilia was frequented by famous riders and was busy day and night. He was most successful with Taurus ohc engines, which were similar to the Norton International.
“I was tempted several times to ride myself,” he recalls. “I was not doing badly with bikes but I did not have the right temperament for actual racing.”
Then, he was requested by a certain Mr. Rossi to design a touring 125 two-stroke. It wasn’t a super-thrilling proposal but Soncini made the best out of it by not copying .the DKW (as everybody seemed to do those days) but produced an interesting, split piston model. In the miriad of lightweights produced in Italy those days, the Rossi 125 was a success. Unfortunately, after some 300 units had been built, Mr. Rossi went bankrupt. It was 1952 and from them on, Soncini started his migrations.
He first went to Parilia in Milan, where he designed a successful 175cc production racer with high camshaft and the first Italian 250-350 four-stroke Twin of post war days.
In 1955 he went to Mondial in Bologna to look after the fabulous 1 25-175-250 single-cylinder dohc of Provini & Co. “What fights with Ducati and MV!” he remembers.
In 1956 his services were requested by Devil, near Bergamo, and there he again produced unorthodox designs. He engineered a 175cc with crossed pushrods and a racing dohc of similar capacity. “I just managed to hear the noise of these engines when Devil went bankrupt, ” recalls Soncini.
And so he went over to AgratiGarelli, the largest Italian moped factory, where he stayed no less than 10 years. Most of this period was a depressive one for the motorcycle, not only in Italy but also abroad. So, Soncini was “kept at bay” from exploiting his innovative designs. But in some AgratiGarelli shelf there still must be a fantastie Twin (2 discs-2 carbs) rotating disc 50cc racer which probably could still challenge today’s Van Veen Kreidler and Derbi.
In 1963 Soncini personally prepared a production 50cc Garelli which broke the 24-hour world record and still holds it. A couple of years later (at a time when the Italian motorcycle industry seemed interested in the nautical field) he built a four-cylinder, rotating disc outboard engine of 500cc for Garelli, which produced no less than 65 bhp, and which broke world records. Again, it would prove competitive today.
Although he’s frequently referred to as “the two-stroke wizard,” William Soncini is equally at ease with the four-stroke power unit. And when he arrived at Aermacchi in 1969 he proved it, squeezing quite some power from the already high-performance 250-350-410 “Golden Wing” pushrod Single, as well as from the 1 25 “Golden Wing” stroker.
What about the future? William Soncini says, “In racing the two-strokes will always be more successful, but in touring the four-stroke will predominate because we are entering the antipollution era where injection will also play an important role. Water cooling is now a must for racing two-strokes (our own also will get it) while the touring four-strokes are marching toward more complicated yet fascinating designs.”
Sculpture and painting are Soneini’s greatest hobbies. “1 use the classic style because I don’t understand the modern one.” He learned the art under one of the most famous Italian maestros shortly before the war and there was a time when he seriously thought about becoming a professional, but then his evergreen motorcycle enthusiasm won.
Soncini also nourishes a special liking for snowmobile racing (which he first watched in the USA) and speedway. “Perhaps because I like speedway, I like Saarinen’s riding style. I rate the Flying Finn as today’s best racer.”
