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/127807
TIME REMEMBERED Racer Test: Giacomo Agostini's 1976 350cc Quattro Cilindri than 3,028 races all told. End of an era? End of a dynasty. The single bike that Ago had brought to Brands was the 350cc four on which he had won the Dutch GP at Assen earlier in the year, a solitary four-stroke awash in a sea of Yamaha twins. But you'd have thought the MV was the only bike out there on the 2.61-mile Brands GP circuit the way the wonderful exhaust note drowned out all the rest at the start as silence reigned, the flag fell, the riders pushed, and the motors chimed into life. Yamahas? What Yamahas, asked the blind man? In a crowd-pleasing move, Ago had removed the hated silencers newly compulsory for GP racing, and standing by the fence on the entrance to Paddock Bend, I can still recall hearing every engine revolution, every gear change, every twist of the wrist all around the circuit as the MV pulled through the field after a slow start to finish fifth. We all winced when we clearly heard him miss a gear on the far side of the track, out of sight of the grandstands, .then feasted on the melody of the four megaphones' music as he swept past Takazumi Katayama's Yamaha down the Pit Straight in front of us. At the end, you'd have thought Ago had won the race, rather than Christian Sarron's ubiquitous TZ350, judging by the reception we gave him. One final blast down to Bottom Bend on the slowdown lap, a quick blip of the throttle to send the reys soaring one last time. Then silence. It was allover. MV Agusta had retired from racing. The End. Except, for every end there's often another beginning, and exactly 20 years after that farewell race and the final GP victory in Assen which preceded it, the last MV Agusta ever to be raced is now back on the tracks courtesy of Robert Iannucci~ owner of New York-based (Billow) Timepiece: Despite being 20 years old, the tiny 350CC MV has a surprisingly modem leel and turns amazingly well. By Alan Cathcart Photos by Kyolchl Nakamura obody who was there will ever forget the day the music died, the last time one of the legendary multi-cylinder MV Agusta fire engines that dominated Grand Prix racing for a quarter of a century raced in anger. But it was not at a classic Grand Prix circuit, not in the blazing heat of an Italian summer, not with championship points at stake and world titles to be won. Instead, the MV's last race was at Brands Hatch in England, in the gathering twilight of the first day of ·winter on October 29, 1976, at the final non-championship international race meeting of the team's last-ever season. Even as the dusk gathered, none of the 30,000 spectators was leaving early. There was still ·one special treat in store that many of us had traveled hundreds of miles from all over Europe to witness. Then the bikes came out for the 350cc race, and suddenly everyone sat closer to the edge of their seats, or pressed up nearer to the fencing for a better look. We knew we were present at a milest0'1e moment in motorcycle history the MV's last race, curtain call for a quarter century of racing supremacy on the world stage, by the team which had won 275 World Championship GPs and 75 world titles since 1950, and no fewer