FIR5TRIDE Laverda7505
.'
Lavercla's 750S
is the Ilrst of
severa l new
model s t o be
produced by
the Italian
compa ny,
Expect a highoutput
superspcrt
mode l,the
750SFC, to be
produced and
hom ologated
lor the 1999
Worl d
Superspo rl
Series .
34
B y Alan Cathcart
Photos by Kyoichi Nakamura
e
ver since its debu t five years ago
in the da r k days of th e Za nini
era, the Laverd a 650 has bee n a
motorcycle in search of an engine - a
long-awaited mod em d esign to compliment the uni ve rsa lly ac cla ime d han d ling of its N ico Bakker-deri ved alu minium twin-spar chassis.
No w, at last, in the form of th e 90
percent -new, fuel-injected , liquid -cooled
750cc power u nit un veiled at last year's
Cologne Show, Laverda has that mu chneeded new motor. This is all the more
amazing w hen considering the fact that
this new powe rp lant is entering production just one year after work first began
on it (and a mere eight months since it
first ran in prototyp e form on the Zane
factory dyno).
The 750cc motore-acqua is the first allnew engine design to come on line after
the takeover of the company by wealth y
industrialist Fran cesco Tognon barely
three years ago, and forms the basis of a
new family of bikes that recall the su C;ces s fu l twin -cyl inder mode ls from
Laverda's glo rious past.
t
Ba ck in th e e arly '70s , La ve rd a ' s
range of 750 twi ns were the most de>iiable and most performance-orientat ed
Eu ropea n motorcycl es mone y cou ld
bu y, selling in significant numbers all
over the world and establishing the family-owned company' s reputation by succe ss on the race track tha t generated
sales in the showroo m. Now, the next
stage in Tognon's game plan to res tore
Laverda to its former ped estal has been
take n wi th th e debut of th e liquid-
