Moto Guzzi
MOTO GUZZI
Italy's favorite big bike
FEW FACTORIES ARE FOUND IN locations like this. Far across the lake, tile-roofed villas crouch on a hillside butted against granite cliffs. On this side, trees and villas stretch out between the water and gray rock walls. Calmness, order, continuity, all can be felt here in Mandello.
Appropriately, Moto Guzzi makes this its home, this place too beautilul for most factories. Moto Guzzi has long produced motorcycles, and the masonry of its buildings and this unchangeable landscape seem to say that Guzzi will be producing them a long time more.
Moto Guzzi is to Italy what Harlev-Davidson is to the Ü.S.: the bigbike motorcycle company, the company with history, the company that makes police bikes. In three weeks of traveling about Italy, we saw only a handful of Ducati Tw ins on the street and even fewer Laverda Triples. No. large motorcycles in Italy are either Japanese or Guzzis.
Guzzi began the manufacture of motorcycles in 1921, producing 17 bikes that first year. But the company
grew rapidly, eventually becoming a cornerstone of the Italian industry. As production grew, so did the company’s involvement in racing, and Guzzi 250s and 500s won more than their share in the 1930s. After the war, that success continued, and Guzzi fielded an incredible variety of racebikes: horizontal Singles, 120degree V-Twins, inline longitudinal Fours, and the ultimate, a 500cc VEight. Production motorcycles were more prosaic: small, four-stroke sport and utility bikes, and the police favorite, the 500cc Falcone thumper.
In the late 1960s. Guzzi was the first Italian company to enter the emerging large-bike market with the V7 touring bike, initially with a 700cc version, then later with full 750s. then 850s and finally 1000s. Performance wasn't ignored, either; the V7 Sport w as one of the first caféstyle sportbikes available, and its follow-up. the 850 Le Mans, was an early winner of U.S. Superbike races.
In the early 1970s, Italian industrialist Alessandro De Tomaso added Benelli and Moto Guzzi to his collec-
tion of Italian vehicle companies. Guzzi was left alone to pursue its VTwin fortunes, while Benelli set off with Honda technology to build Fours and Sixes. Guzzi's path led to moderate success, w hile Benelli’s led ultimately to failure.
As a result, Guzzi has consumed Benelli. The last of the Benelli multis are being assembled from existing parts, and when they are finished, the Benelli name will be used only on 125s and mopeds. The Benelli factory in Pesaro now makes small, newgeneration Guzzi V-Twins, while the Guzzi Mandello plant produces big Twins.
Guzzi's immediate future is wrapped in those smaller twins. The four-valve 650 Lario will be followed by a 750cc version this fall, and there are hints of another project as well. What if two small Tw ins w ere combined for one V-Four . . . ? It’s an idea that Guzzi has entertained for years, and perhaps it wall emerge some day. In the meanwhile, Guzzi V-Twins improve—and endure.
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MOTO GUZZI V65 LARIO
EW" FROM MOTO Guzzi IS A DIFFERENT KIND OF new than most motorcycle manufacturers give us. Case in point: Guzzi's new V65 Lario sportbike. The Lario's styling, all curves and kick-ups, certainly is new. In fact, some of the more conserva tive types at Moto Guzzi feared that the Lario looked "too Japanese" and would offend loyal Guzzi buyers. Those fears seem unwarranted, because in Italy, at least, the Lario is selling well. Besides, there's still a lot of old in this new Moto Guzzi. The configuration of the air-cooled, transverse V-Twin engine, for exam ple, has been a Guzzi hallmark for almost 20 yearsan eternity, really, for a company that in its aggressive years showered the racing world with all manner of engine layouts.
Not that Guzzi’s engineers haven’t tried to pump some life into the Lario’s engine. Four-valve heads are the bike’s most significant refinement, allowing the 643cc Twin to pump out 60 horsepower at 7800 rpm and have a claimed top speed of 122 mph. Its quartermile times aren’t especially impressive, but this shouldn’t bother most Guzzi fans, who will undoubtedly understand that the bike’s tall gearing is aimed more at autostrada loafing than doing smoky burnouts at the local drive-in.
What will bother Lario riders who do like to push hard, however, are the bike’s brakes. The V65 uses Guzzi’s integral braking system that links the foot pedal to the rear brake and one of the front discs, with
the handlebar lever controlling the other front disc. This system works fine on the larger, less-sporting Guzzis, and it helps the Lario make impressively short stops; but the brakes lack even the slightest hint of feedback, and squeezing the front-brake lever alone hardly slows the bike at all.
That’s a shame, because otherwise, the Lario is a delight to fling down a country road. With 16-inch wheels at both ends, it is the quickest-handling Guzzi yet, even if it does twitch slightly in fast sweepers. The engine’s strong midrange lets the rider concentrate on the road instead of on gear ratios, and engine vibration that can be annoying during normal riding is all but forgotten in corner-to-corner rushes.
Without doubt, the V65 Lario is the best Guzzi ever, an interesting blend of old and new. Still, only time will tell if that combination can succeed in the American market, which more and more worships the entirely new.
Moto Guzzi Lario
.$3470
