Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

After th at - well , th at's as far as it goes righ t now: non e of the parties will spec u late any furt her into th e future, especially as regard sthe family of new water-cooled DOHC nlUlti-valve engi nes - a crossways 750cc tri p le sports bike, a lengt hways 750cc trip le sports tourer, a V-twi n and a 1200cc V-6, all der ived from the original V6 prototype but filled with E.FI and ot herwise u pdated - which Ange lo Ferrari dreams of develop in g. If he had the cash. Which he doesn' t. Yet. What will a lmost certa inly be built later this . year is another batch of R GSIOO O j otas, filled with the origina l air· cooled three-cylinder engine but with oil-cooled cyli n der head. Ferrari claims that in this form, the bike will pass EEC noise and emission controls, though for mal hom ologa tion has not yet taken place even in Italy. Under the new joint venture, Laverda plans to produce 25 replicas of the Laverda V-6 which will sell for $65,000. (Left to ' ri ght) Fuj io Yoshimura, Takao Chinoi and Masatoshi Tanaka exam ine La verda V-6 engine parts. venture in Japan known by the catchy name of Kabushiki . Kaisha Laverda Japan. H ail Readin g verbatim from the press release, which the ine vitably an odyn e speeches of mutual selfcongratulation at the signing ceremony failed to elaborate on, th e new KKL] com pany was capita lized with 400,000,000 yen, a handy sum not un adja cent to $2.6 million (though in whatproport ion the two partners put up this sum was no t revealed), and has as its aim " the commercialization of whatever high quality products which, bearing a recognized Italian brand name, may be of particular interest to all ma rkets in the Far East, " In other words, we were witnessing the launch of an Italo-Japan ese tra di ng company who ap peared on th e face of it to have borrowed Laverda 's name and offices in order to get themselves off the ground. T he statement added that "The first business of the new company wi ll obviously be directed towards the relaunch of the Laverda mar que whic h, especially in the Far East, is still very much alive and app reciated. Not on ly motorcycles will be distributed under th is name, but also the new, prestigious Su percar." The rest of the press release (10 pa ges out of 12) was then devoted to deta iled drawings and description of the vehi cle we then all trooped into th e o ld Laverda race shop to in spect - a V6 turbo Nissan-engine Group C raci ng car (with British-built March chassis, unless I miss the mark) which Shinken plans to put into production in street form under the Laverda name for sale in Japan, 'comp lete with rear-facing video cameras instead of wing mirrors and such other Bondian gizmos as I kid you not - a portable fax machine. In a Group C racing car . . . I In case the assembled band of motorcycle journalists were miffed to discover that KKLJ, and therefore by definition Sh inken, were more in terested in developing a street-legal racing car that would be homologated in Italy for sale to seriously rich T okyo yuppies, there was news of a twowheeled project as well: the construetion of 25 exact rep licas of th e V-6 Laverda endurance racing prot otype, which was then wheeled out so that a fortunate handful of luck y rider s including, I must admit, yours truly - could ha ve .the honor of sampling it from the hot seat . Co nstru ction of these faithful copies of th e 13·year-old bik e, rather th an any updated, streetlegal version that cou ld .be ridden on the road, will app aren tly be available in du e course via KKLJ for the nice round sum of 10,000,000 yen ($65,000), though who would be expected to part with this sort of money for a cop y of the priceless, origi na l V-6 - especially on e th at can 't be used on the roa d, isn't exactly clear. After all, the whole poin t of your F40 Ferrari or 959 Porsch e (or future Cagiva-Ferrari bike) is that it can be ridden down th e ChampsElysees or Via Veneto or Park Lane if you feel like sho wi ng it and your . bank bal an ce (or borrow in g po wer) off. You don 't have to do thi s, bu t you do have to kn ow tha t you could - a fact Sh inken th em selves im p lici tly acknowledge by endeavoring to mak e the Laverda/March-Nissan stree tlega l: " We have always dream ed of manufactu ring Group C cars wh ich can be ru n on public roads in J apan," says the press release. More realistically, Shi nken is also seeking to serve Laverda's tra ditional market by reviving the 600 H arrisLaverda sports bik e in updated form w i th u psi de-down fo rks, 17-i nch wheels, revised steeri ng geometry, and fuel-injected lon g-stroke 66Scc version of the ISO-degree DOHC Montjui c-type parallel twi n. Laverda's current chief engineer, Angelo Ferrari - formerly in charge of La mborghini's off-road division until he joined the com pa ny th ree years ago - has had suc h an engine under development for some time, for fin ing in th e hop efu ll y stillborn EI Cid . Steve Harris has p u lled his drawings off th e floo r and the jig ou t of the cellar, a n d is exami ning ways of u p dati ng th e chassis, with the aim of gelling a pro tot ype to J apan in time for the big race meeting at Tsuku ba on May 23, whic h Shinken will sponsor under the 'Laverda Cup' banner, and will see the Japanese launch of th e Supercar, as well as almost certainly the prototype V-6 and the Harris-framed 700. , The one thing that is evident after witnessing the form al tie-up between Shin ken and Zanini to utilize the Lave rda name and market some of its produc ts in J apan , is that we don ' t know the fu ll story : all you see is not all the re is. One can only specu late on wha t has reall y taken place under the table, in the form of unp ubl icized subsidiary. agreements, one or more of which may have indeed give n Sh in ken overa ll control of Laverda or, eq ua lly likely , given the J apanese the option to acq u ire a controlling interest at a future date. In th at connection, the survey of the surrounding circumstan ces wh ich follows will allow the reader to make his deductions as to what has rea lly take n place. What seems certain is that, once again , Laverda has been pulled back from the brink, saved th is ti me by an intervention from th e Orient. If, as seems quite possible, the result will be to build the son of bikes in Brega nze once again tha t they should have been building all along, that's all that reall y counts. 27

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