Laverda Gsx-R: Italy's Orient Express

Laverda GSX-R: Italy’s Orient Express

ROUNDUP

YES, ITALY AND JAPAN ARE

still miles apart in terms of simple geography, and yes, pasta, pesto and pizza remain no more easy to handle with chopsticks than ever. Still, there come reports of an interesting, if unlikely, union between Italy and the Orient, a union from which the motorcycling world soon may benefit.

This comes in the form of a deal between a high-bucks Japanese industrial giant named Shinken Technica Co. and Laverda, familiar to us as the high-style but lowvisibility Italian motorcycle company. Shinken is reported to have acquired 5 1 percent of Laverda shares in a secret deal concluded shortly before the Cologne Show in mid-September—which explains Laverda’s last-minute cancellation of its Cologne-show display stand. Apparently, Shinken plans to operate Laverda, with existing management, through Global Interface Co., an aptly named third company set up for this express purpose.

One primary Global goal is to employ the Laverda label as a marketing tool for fashion wear and

accessories sold mainly in the Far East, using the company’s distinctive tricolor motif. In order to increase the level of awareness of the Laverda name among very fashionconscious Japanese consumers. Global will sponsor a Nissanpowered sports-prototype racing car in Japanese events next season.

Plans call for the car, which reportedly will have Laverda’s stamp on its chassis plate, to be painted in Laverda livery.

But never mind fashion wear or racecars. Of much greater significance is the company’s apparent intent to build and sell motorcycles under the Laverda name. Immediate plans call, first, for a very few (two or three) new 750SFC twins to be assembled from parts on hand at the Breganze, Italy, factory. Second, a new version of this distinctive, orange-painted café racer will be developed, fitted with a Yoshimuramodified Suzuki GSX-R750 engine, and, presumably, with the stylish half-fairing of its classic predecessor.

Lastly, and perhaps best of all, is word that Global Interface plans to develop and sell a V-Six Laverda streetbike. This apparently will be based around the race motor fitted to a machine which appeared in the 1978 Bol D’Or endurance event. Global’s management insists the plan is perfectly feasible even though the 24-valve, four-cam, lOOOcc, liquid-cooled engine was designed almost a decade and a half ago and has seen little action since.

—Alan Cathcart