Bimota-Guzzi: High-Tech Chassis Meets Low-Tech Motor
Bimota-Guzzi: High-tech Chassis Meets Low-tech Motor
ROUNDUP
BIMOTA, ONE OF EUROPE'S PREmier builders of high-quality, limited-production motorcycles, will produce a new shaft-drive sportbike powered by Guzzi's eight-valve, 1000cc Daytona engine, thanks to an agreement signed recently by Bimota's Giuseppe Morri and Moto Guzzi's Alejandro de Tomaso.
Unlike a similar deal between Bimota and Ducati, no limit to the number of engines to be supplied has been stipulated, but one element the two Italian-engined Bimotas will have in common is that both will be based on the Tesi hub-center frame.
It originally was intended that the Bimota-Guzzi would be a conventional machine with a telescopic fork, and would represent a kind of basic Bimota, underpinning the Tesi-Ducati and Yamaha-powered YB range of Bimotas.
Explained Morri, when asked about his company’s change of plans, “Our early tests with the Ducati-engined Tesi ID have been so successful that we can now seriously envisage the day when the entire Bimota range will be designed around this philosophy. The Guzzi engine is very strong, and its architecture is ideally suited to acting as a fully load-bearing member for the Tesi chassis.”
Bimota designer Federico Martini is unlikely to begin work on the Guzzi-powered Tesi 1G, as it’s being called, until next winter, in preparation for a launch at the 1991 Milan Show. Before then, hopes at Bimota are that Guzzi engineers will find a means to space out the gearbox on the Daytona (better known as the Dr. John Replica) engine so its driveshaft can be repositioned to permit use of a wider rear tire than now is possible. Other mechanical improvements requested by Bimota are likely to include a smoother gearchange and an altered crankcase design, both of which Guzzi en-
gineers already are working on. Bimota’s experience in setting-up Weber/Marelli electronic fuel-injection systems is considerable, and it’s likely Bimota will include an EFI system on the machine, and that it will produce its own speed-tuning package for the venerable Guzzi engine. And though the bike was conceived as a sportbike in the classic Bimota fashion, there is the possibility of a sport-touring model, a first for Bimota.
When the initial Guzzi-Bimota does roll out of the factory doors at Rimini, it will have a buyer waiting. American roadracing great Mike Baldwin already has his name on it, according to Morri. “Mike raced a Moto Guzzi very successfully in the USA 1 5 years ago. In fact, he won the ’76 Daytona Superbike race on the Reno Leoni-tuned Le Mans, and he told me he always had a soft spot for the Guzzi marque. Lie wants the first Tesi 1G built so he can race it in Battle of the Twins events,”
Morri said.
Bimota’s total 1990 production has been fixed at 650 units, including 50 of the ultra-exclusive, ultrafast fuel-injected, FZR1000powered Tuatara YB8 sportbikes. All but a handful of machines have been pre-sold to the company's distributors around the world, with Japan and Gei^ many once again taking the lion’s share.
Alan Cathcart
