Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126538
lAbove' Two-stroke wIZIIrd Jorg Moller designed the 250 Mobidelilin 1978. Since then It hea become the Ad Meloni lebove r1ghtlend Moller upgreded the machine to meke It competitlve.fRlghtl Compect rotery wive twin produces e cIelmed horupower et 12.,000 rpm. rn Ad Maiora 'On to greater things' By Alan Cathcart . You wouldn't think that the exotic Ferrari .sports cars and a racing motorcycle workshop tucked away in a back street of the small Italian town of Lugo, near Ravenna, had much in common with each other would you? Well they do _ th~ blood • . red Formula 1 cars of Scudena Ferrari, and the white and blue 24 250cc Ad Maiora racing bikes both carry the symbol of a black prancing horse on the side. The emblem is in fact the crest of Lugo's most famous son, the WWI fighter pilot ace Baracca, whose statue stands today in the town square. bear· ing his family's Latin motto "Ad Maiora" - literally, "on to greater things." Lugo is also the home of one of Italy's keenest bike racing sponsors. Primo Melandri. whose Diemme firm has sponsored many top Italian riders. including Franco Uncini, Otello Buscherini, Johnny Cecotto (Venezuelan son of Italian parents). and 1977 250cc World Road Racing Champion, local telephone engineer Mario Lega. Nigh on 100 miles away in Pesaro is the Morbidelli factory. and when team patron Giancarlo Morbidelli decided to concentrate on producing an Italian world-beater in the 500cc class. he offered the complete 250cc Morbidelli team to his friend Melandri. whose rider Lega had been mounted on one of .the.lIW:hino )Vl!&ll. )leo )Von. the world title. Thus at the end of 1979 when Diemme moved the entire set-up lock. stock and barrel to Lugo. and renamed the bikes after the highly apt motto of the town's local hero: the prancing horse came tool The 250cc Morbidelli alias Ad Maiora was designed by German two· stroke wizard Jorg Moller hot on the heels of his all-conquering 125cc machine, now the basis of the MBA pro· duction racers. Debuting in 1976 in the hands of Paulo Pileri, the bike ended the three·year reign of Walter Villa's Harley-Davidson in 1977 when Lega, without actually winning more than one GP (Yugoslavia), won the world title clearly thanks to greater reliability and consistency: only one retirement in 12 races. A !l50cc version was also made. but though raced occasionally was not developed fully. as it was thought thaI the !l50cc class was in for imminent chop - so far. wrongly, as it turns outl Moller left the team at the end of '77 to move to Minarelli, where he designed the all-conquering 125s which brought Angel Nieto two world titles. His absence was keenly felt at Morbidelli, 'as Lega struggled to defend his title . • against.~!lr~ .B'!lIing!/?l!'S 15-'!~!ll~",ki. eventually winding up only seventh at the end of the season. and retiring from racing in disappointment. But in 1979 the team staged a comeback, with new rider Graziano Rossi, a local primary school teacher who'd known Giancarlo Morbidelli for many years. Unfortunately. Rossi's brilliance was exceeded only by his erraticism: though he won three GPs and neve}' finished out of the top three places. he also fell off a lot, and British racegoers will recall his dumping it on the last lap of the Silverstone GP when leading the Kawasakis by a mile. Nevertheless. third place in the title chase was a reasonable reward for the small, single· rider team. Morbidelli then decided to concentrate on producing a 500cc, and the deal with Diemme boss Melandri was struck. The bikes were renamed Ad Maioras. and Swiss rider Roland Freymond recruited: he brought valuable sponsorship from the Elf petroleum company with him. It took time for the new set·up to find its feet, but by virtue of scoring in all the last five races, Freymond wound up fifth in the 1980 250cc title. But for 1981. Melandri decided on a serious attack on the World Championship. By now. Moller's contract with Minarelli had expired, and he was freelancing as a design engineer. Rejoining the team just before last Christmas on a consultaney basis. the "Dancing Master" as he's known round the paddocks (thanlts to the spring in his step as he sniffs around a competitor's new designl) brought instant success: Freymond was fourth in Argentina, third in Germany, and in the controversial Italian GP, Ad Maiora's new Italian recruit Maurizio Massimiani beat World Champion Anton Mang into third place, and was promoted to the winner's rostrum when Eric Saul was disqualified for a pre-race rumpus. That whole situation has still to be resolved by the FIM, but whatever. it was a superb display that showed the Ad Maiora. alias Morbidelli 250. to still be a leading challenger for quarter-litre honors. When I visited the team's rather decrepit workshop in Lugo - in Italy it seems the crummier the premises, the faster the bike goes - Moller had just been rejoined by the chief mechanic from his Morbidelli days, Franco Dionigi. making a total of four mechanics looking after the three bikes (plus one spare with a cracked frame). Now that the Kawasaki and Rotax engines make tandem-twin 250s seem commonplace, the Ad Maiora stands out in the class, being an across the frame disc-valve twin with side-mounted carburetors. Given a clean sheet of paper, wouldn't MoUer like to produce an in-line engine, given the advantage of that layout? "Not a bit of it: I can build an engine to beat the Kawasaki without copying it like Rotax did. I already have a new 250cc motor designed with the same layout as the present one, but 20 lbs. lighter, non·battery ignition! bigger carbs and no vibration;