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/127947
EUROFILE BYALAN CATHCART More ItaIan opera . Moto Guzzi to buy Bimota? Even a year ago that possibility might have had you checking the calendar for April 1, but the dramatic revival of the historic Italian marque currently being masterminded by new Guzzi boss Oscar Cecchinato - the man who turned Aprilia around - makes this unlikely marriage a short-odds bet for the near future. Bimota's roller-eoaster fortunes for the past five years have been controlled by its Rimini neighbor and majority shareholder, the giant SCM woodworking machinery combine, which bailed Bimota out of near-bankruptcy back in 1993, then underwrote the boom in the bike company's fortunes fueled by the success of the SB6 and YB9. But SCM has had to dip into its pockets once again in the past year to keep Bimota afloat in the wake of the cash-flow crisis caused by performance problems with the production Vdue two-stroke, and SCM finance director Camillo Martinotti has in fact been running the company since the start of the year. Meanwhile, changes in SCM's upper management have made bailing out of a distraction like Bimota a high priority, with Aprilia originally touted as the likely candidates to help them do so. But negotiations with the Italian market leaders have now come to an end. Apparently Aprilia boss Ivano Beggio now reckons he's already got all the four-stroke R&D expertise he needs after hiring Bimota's former chief engineer, Pierluigi Marconi, and setting him up in Aprilia's equivalent of the Cagiva CRC design shop - all at a fraction of the cost of buying the whole Bimota operation and turning it around. This leaves three groups reportedly negotiating with SCM to Is this legal? One company known to have already taken a look at acquiring not only Bimota but also Moto Guzzi itself is American leverage buy-out specialist Texas Pacific Group, currently gaining handson experience of the Italian way of doing business in the process of turning Ducati around after buying 51 percent of the company from Cagiva 18 months ago. Though TPG's Abel Halpern, the man who masterminded the Ducali takeover, declines to comment on the possibility of adding Moto Guzzi to his investment portfolio, other sources confirm that TPG has indeed explored the possibility of matching Guzzi up with Ducati - the two manufacturers' product ranges complement each other perfectly and would appear to be well-suited to each other, .especially with the inherent value of the historic Moto Guzzi name. But negotiations have apparently foundered for various reasons - with the time needed to complete the".ttirnaround and the amount of investment·needed to do so the chief factors for being TPG opting to walk away from the deal. However, TPG is reportedly examining another Italian acquisition right now, this time on foul' wheels: Lamborghini. The prestige Italian car maker is currently 60-percent owned by Tommy Suharto, son of the Indonesian ex-dictator and a major partner in World Superbike's controlling Flammini Group, as well as a possible purchaser of Ducati, prior to the TPG takeover. As take over Bimota as the specialist manufacturer clocks up its 25th birthday. These include a group of Italian venture capitalists, a consortium led by U.S. Bimot importer Bob Smith - and Moto Guzzi. With the financial backing of the American Tamarix investment bank which, in a much less high-profile but equally decisive move as its TPG compatriots took with Ducati, took over control of Moto Guzzi last year, Italy's oldest motorcycle manufacturer is wellplaced to absorb Bimota, as Oscar Cecchinato himself confirms. '1t's true we are negotiating to acquire Bimota," he says, Mota Guzzi boss Oscar "although so far we haven't been Cecchinato has confirmed able to conclude a deal. But Birna- that his company is indeed ta would fit very well into our in hard negotiation to buy strategy for the development of dream-bike maker Bimota. Moto Guzzi: We know how to build engines here in Moto Guzzi, but have less expertise in chassis technology, which Bimota could obviously address." At this stage the two companies are reported to be apart only on price - so watch this space. Guzzi gears up Moto Guzzi's attempts at buying Bimota are part of a master game plan aimed at relaunching the Guzzi marque over the next five years, with a range of entirely new products spearheaded by the all-new liquid-eooled, fuel-injected, 75-degree transverse V-twin attn valvole superbike, with chain-driven DOHC cylinder heads and chain final drive, being developed by chief engineer Angelo Ferrari for launch at the 1999 Milan Show. This engine is almost ready to run on the dyno in prototype form (projected to do so in late June or early July), and will form the oosis of a whole new family of B00-1200cc fuel-injected V-twins that will be introduced over the next five years. In addition, Guzzi head Oscar Cecchinato has inked a deal with scooter giant Piaggio not only to purchase a supply of Piaggio's new 125 and 250cc four-stroke engines to power the new Galletto maxi-scooter range that Guzzi will also launch at Milan next year, but also to acquire the designs and tooling of the old Gilera DOHC singlecylinder four-stroke motor that began life in the 350cc Dakota in the mid-'80s and was progressively uprated into 500 and 600cc versions - in which guise it powered the Saturno sports single and Piuma Supermono racer, as well as the RC600 trail bike before Piaggio shut down Gilera motorcycle production in 1993. .iliings. have turned out, the fact he failed ·to· do so was some mercy, but the Indonesian economic meltdown means that a distress sale of Lamborghini is now in the cards - and that's the kind of deal a smart financial operator such as TPG appreciates. The Americans have been negotiating with Suharto for more than a year, and had approached Arrows Formula One boss Tom Walkinshaw's Banbury, England-based TWR Group to run Lamborghini, should their bid be successful. TWR is better known in the bike world 4 Laverda-Lambo connection Lamborghini used to have its own Formula One race-engine division, back in ti;le days when it was owned by Chrysler (before Chrysler - now merging with VW/ Aucli's great rivals Mercedes-Benz, sold it to Suharto). At that point, the nonrevenue-producing Formula One operation was shut down - leaving the core of engineers responsible for the V-12 race Mota Guzzi is reviving an old Gllera singlecylinder powerplant shown here in the Saturno model - for use in its own range of street and enduro models. Guzzi plans to comprehensively redevelop the engine into 635cc form in order to power a range of street and enduro models - perhaps including a born-again Falcone sportbike similar to the Gilera Saturno. Ironically, Bimota was the last company to use this engine when they borrowed the 635cc prototype Paris-Dakar motor from Gilera to power their prototype GBI Supermono racer in 1994, which eventually saw production for the street with the BMW F650 engine instead. as the company that Kenny Roberts chose to develop the 500cc Modenas GP triple for him - a relationship which didn't produce the desired results, and which KR broke off after just one season - though the two companies are still based opposi.te each other in the Leafield suburb of Banbury. Heading the TWR Group's marketing operation is former Lamborghini execu live Daniele Audetto - who previously worked indirectly for Suharto when for two seasons he headed the Flammini Group's World Superbike operation, More Guzzi move You heard it here first. As revealed here back in January, Moto Guzzi has now confirmed that it will shif! its manufacturing base from the historic lakeside factory at Mandello to a modern 1.4 million-square-foot site near Monza, which it has acquired from Dutch electronics giant Philips. The move is part of Cecchinato's plan to increase Moto Guzzi production from the current 6500 bikes a year to 20,000 by the year 2002, fueled by the launch of the Galetto and the new liquid-cooled V-twin range next year. In addition, Guzzi has at last also confirmed the decision (revealed in Euro File last year) to delay the launch of the Ippogrifo 750cc roadster, which debuted at the 1996 Cologne Show, until the 1999 model year. The bike is being completely redesigned - still around the same 750cc bigfin motor derived from Guzzi's aviation engine used in pilotless drones, but with an all-new chassis and styling, compared to the show prototype. Expect deliveries of the new bike which will also have a new, more rational name - to begin in Spring'99. until he left to return to the car world, Incestuous world, this - isn't it?! Anyway, even TPG is thought to be balking at the huge amount of investment - measured in hundreds rather than tens of millions of dollars - needed ta turn Lamborghini around. The sheer volume of cash needed makes Germany's VW/ Audi combine a more likely candidate to take over Lamborgini, which, if its recent bid for Rolls-Royce is any indication, seems to be on the prowl for prestigious marques. Ultimately what this means is that the projected technical synergy between Lamborghini and Ducati who are located only 20 miles apart - is unlikely to ever happen under the TPG umbrella. Pity. Big ·commute: These Guzzi factory workers are going to have to travel to Monza - site of Mota· Guzzi's new 1.4 million-square-foot factory - to build a hoped-for 20,000 bikes per year, the target the company has set for 2002. The old factory at Mandella doesn't have the capacity. motor to move en masse into the bike world. They ended up at Laverda. There they've produced the fuel-injected 750cc parallel-twin which, in its present form with lBO-degree crank throws, powers the 80-bhp 7505 and 92-bhp 750 Formula models now in1'roduction. These models are expected to be joined at the Munich Show opening on September 15 by Laverda's lang-awaited Supersport contender, the 105 bhp 750SFC. However, that isn't the only new model Laverda is planning to launch at Munich. Alongsilie the in-line threecylinder 900cc Jota Superbike project now under development and aiming for a September 1999 launch at the Milan Show, Laverda's ex-Lamborghini R&D staff has been working hard on a different engine - a 360-degree version of th~ 750cc twin, with both pistons rising and falling together, as on a traditional British parallel twin. The new motor has completely different characteristics to the buzzy l80-degree version used in the company's current sportbikes, say company insiders. Not only does it sound completely different, with a much deeper exhaust note, it also delivers significantly greater low-end and midrange power, as well as increased torque. This makes the 360-degree eight-valve engine ideal for the bike that Laverda will launch it in at Munich, a street end oro like the Cagiva Grand Canyon and Yamaha TDM850.