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/127378
em~~~~m~j~~_m_ft_m_m_e ~Back from the brinkt O"l . ,.....; By Alan Cathcart Photos by Phil Masters ith th e exception of Harley. Davidson, and the possible exception of Ducati, no .other curren t motorcycle marque inspires quite such fana tical devotion among its adheren ts as Laverda. Owners of the meaty, m ighty Italian muscle-bikes, whether twins or triples, seem to regard their mounts with a special admiration th at even a Guzzi or BMW fan can 't ma tch. But the 'Iaverdisti' have been having a hard time of it since the com pany's fin an cial woes forced it into statecont ro lled bankruptcy back in 1985, for the go vernment-financed workers cooperative that sprung from the ash es of th e o ld family-owned fir m has W investment capital to develop new four-stroke engines to power su ch born-again street racers, and a lack of imagination, or expert ise, or both, to do the best they cou ld with what th ey had, namely the Alpino/Montjuicderived 500cc twin in its evolved 600ccplus form. A potent little Du catibeat ing engine capable of hi gh revs and dazzling performance, Laverda made the mistake of trying to grab a slice of the Italian enduro market with th e twin - and failing - instead of capitalizing on the persp icacit y of their German importer Uwe Witt, who like others outside th e factory, knew wh at th e market wanted . At th e 1986 Cologne Show , Witt displ ayed a bike _ wear fashion but also including motorcycles, in j apan, where Italian Iood . . style, clo thes and cars, not to mention bikes, are pres ently all the rag e. Further investiga tio n even yielded the name of the company, a huge con glomera te named Shinken Corporation, itself the retail subsidiary of the giant Yamazaki Mazac Co., a manufacturer of engineering machinery of vario us kinds. According to impeccable sources, Shinken was reported to 'have acq uired at the very least 51% of Laverda in a deal concluded secretly before the Cologne Show, but together with Laverda executives had decided to keep the deal secret for various reasons, running the company in . conj unctio n with existing managemenrthrough a third company wholly owned by Shinken and set up expressly for the purpose, named Global Interface In c. Assuming this to be true, if the reason the japanese were reluctant to reveal the extent of their investment in Lave rda was for fear of a backlash against an Ori ental takeover of one of Italy's most famous marques, the y must h ave been surprised by th e reaction from around the world to this news , which was almost universally favorable. At last, reasoned the 'Iaverdisti', someone had come along who realized the power of the Laverda name and appreciated the potential wrapped up in the factory, whim needed a cash injection and sympathetic marketing to unlock. The news that Shinken was considering making a batch of pseudoSFCs fitted with 400 and 750cc GSXR Yoshimura Suzuki engines to generate some cash flow and make the marque better known in japan to the youth market, many of whom have never heard of Laverda, was bearable since they also were understood to have firm plans to market a street version of the fabulous V-6, as well as develop a future range of new engines and models. Salvation was at hand! Having been invited to attend the press conference announcing. .Shinken's involvement in Laverda together with a group of japanese fellow-journalists, who were to be brought over to Italy to be shown the Laverda factory and witness the signing of the agreement, I was mildly concerned when this was twice postponed before Christmas: surely no lastminute hitch in the deal? But then cam e the final summons to Breganze, where on january 19, 1991 , an agreement was form ally penned between Takao Ch in oi, President of Sh inken Corporation, and - not Nu ova Moto La verda, as the workers co-o p is formally kn own, but with Domenico Zan ini, President o f th e Gruppo Zan ini, a Vicenza-based me rc hant bank active throughout northeast Italy and abroad - espec ially Switzerland, where much 'of its funds are rumored to come from - which owns a 25% shareholding in Laverda, the maximum possible private investment in a state-financed coo perative presently permitted under Ital ian Statute No. 49, known as the ' Legge Marcora '. In other words, wh at we had been ga th ered to witness was no t an agreement of any kind betw een Sh inken and La verda, but an 'accordo de collaborazio ne' between Sh i n ke n a n d th e Zanini Group, as a result of whi ch the two companies agreed to for m a joint (Left to right) Banker Domenico Zanini. Laverda worker co-op leader Nicola Lievore, and Takao Chinoi of Shinken. 26 lacked su fficient capital to develop the mu ch .talked-of ran ge of new models mooted for the best part of a decade - or indeed to do mu m else ot her than revamp the existing, ou tda ted range powered by Cagiva single-cyl inder 125cc two-s tro ke engines an d Lave rda 's ow n more worthy l Sfl-degree 8valve DOHC twin wi th ou tlandish styling by a French North African artist , an d i n flic t p seudo -I beri an names on them, like H idalgo and Gaucho and suc hlike. What -is this Flamenco for Foreigners? Could even the most dedicated 'Iaverdis ta ' honestly be expected to part wit h good doll ars or po unds or yen fora trail bike called the EI Cid, when wh at he an d the thousa nds o f o th ers like him who kept the company buoyant for so ma ny years before an ill-advised diversification into the cut -throat Italian 125 market brought fin ancial catastrop he upon it, reall y want is a 1990s versio n of the SFC and its lu sty fou r-stroke roa d-burning kin? Ducari' s revival since th e Cagi va takeover has provided a blueprint for Laverda to follow , albei t on a sma ller scale; bu t the problem ha s latterl y been th e .sa rne as it ever was in the years leading up to 1985 - the lack of he'd commiss ioned hims elf, a 600 twin sports bik e wit h single-seat mo no shoc k H arris chass is; reception was so favora ble that he tried to interest the factory in taking it over, but by then Laverda was in the hands of the bean cou nte rs, an d there was no int erest. At th at poi nt, reaso ned the 'Iaverdi sti', the com pa ny was doo med; they seemed to be right, when the Laverda stand a t th e 1990 IFM A Show at Cologne last Sep tem ber was can cell ed at sh o r t no tice (thus incurring a stiff fin ancial pe na lty ), amidst rumors that it had finally bi tten the dust. One more famo us Euro pean marqu e in th e dustbin of mo torcyling hi stor y. .. Well- maybe no t. For while Ital ian bike freaks around the world were mourning Laverd a's demise, rumo rs started to filt er through from japan to the effect ·tha t a j apanese co mpany - but not one of the Big Four ~ was in the process of acquiring a majority interest in La verda , intending to use the name to market a wid e ran ge of Italian product~, especially ready-toMassimo Laverda and Takao Chinoi, president of Shinken Corporation of J apa n , discuss the joint vent ure .