Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Tognon 1 0buy Simola? Another Italian bike company set to change hands is Bimota, which (as was reported a couple of months ago in th is space) has now been put up for sale by woodworking-machinery giants SCM , whose controlling sharehold ers, the Aureli famil y, have kept the troubled specia list firm afloat in the wake of the disaster that production of the Vdue two-stroke sportbike has undoubtedly represented. ~ Though Moto Guzzi, Aprilia and BMW (for whom Bimota designed the chassis package of the K1200RS) have all taken a look at buying the company befo re eventua lly declining, the man spearheading the grou p of investors now likely to enter into a partnershi p with the Aurelis to completely restructure Bimota an d se t it on th e s traigh t an d na rrow again can now be na me d : Veneto-based textile mill ionaire Francesco Tog non . Yes, that's right: the same man who rescu ed Laverda and se t it on the pa th to its present comeback to profi tability. A t Bim ot a's 25th birthd ay celebrations at the Misano circu it in Ju ly, Tognon was "conspicuous by his p resen ce" fo r the w hole two d ays of activities, much of Francesco Tognon (above ) • the Italian milliona ire who rescued which he spent in discussions with SCM boss Adriano Laverda from the scra p heap, then sol d mo st of his interest in Au reli about a possibl e joint venture in a re vitali zed the company · appea rs to be court ing Bim ola for a buyout, If the Bimot a. deal goes t hrough, there is a distinct possib ility that the . H avin g d e vot ed a hu ge in vestment o f time a n d . Morb idelli 850cc V-eig ht (rig ht) co uld end up in a Bimo ta. Of money to br ingin g Laverda ba ck from the dead since he course, there have also been indicati ons that the Britt en V-twin took ove r the bankrupt com pa ny in 1994, the forme r Ital- (below) might fin d its way into a Bimota chassis as well. We can ian internat ion al ru gby pla yer has now all but sold ou t . on ly hope for p oth. to the Spezzap ria co usins, retainin g jus t a 10-p ercen t minority stake in the revitalized compa ny. N ow , preferri ng th e hands- on ma nag em en t s ty le required by a sma ller-vol u me , specialist manufacturer, Togn on is set to try to pull off the same rescue act with Bimota. _ "It is tru e that I' m negotiating to beco me involved in so me way wi th Birnota," he sai d, "b u t until I've come to a mutually satisfactory arra nge me nt with my partners in Laverda, I can' t make anv forma l stateme nt." In the event that he can secu re cont ro l of the com pany w it ho u t its cu rren t d eb t load, Togn on ha s very clear ideas of how to ge t Bimo ta back on the rails again. "Th is co mpany achieved wo rldwide respect for its p ro d uc ts by d e vel oping Gra n d Prix-winn in g chassis design on the race trac k, then bringing this to the stree t in limited qu antities to high manufacturing toleran ces, but u s ing prop rietary engines," he says . " I w ant to return to those firs t principl es, and the SB8R, w ith its com posite chass is d esign using carbo n-fiber eleme nts, shows the clear way we must proceed. Bimota mu st once again set the ben chmark in handli ng and chass is design for others to ai m at - it' s the on ly rati onale for the company' s future exis tence." As a pr elim inary s tep befor e taki ng overall con tro l, Tog non has already appointed a new chief eng inee r for the Rimini facto ry to repl ace Luigi Mar zocchi, the nowdeparted successor to Pierluigi Ma rco ni. His na me is Francisco Med ici, and he is cu rrently engaged in a n overall analysis of Bimota 's p rodu ct range, which includes the question of how - or even if - to reva mp the Vdue two-stroke for conti nued production. The op tio n of scrappi ng the fuel injectio n and replacing it with carbu re tors has been d iscard ed , b ut no d ecis ion has ye t been made regard ing whether or n o t to co n tinue research a nd d evelopment on the troublesome project. Ins tead , a tten tio n is focused on bringing th e Suzuki Morbid elli has been seeking to revive the project by injected 60-degree V-twi n desig n was neither feasible TLl000R-po wered SBBR launched a t the Milan Show a interesting an existi ng man ufactu rer in adopting it, bu t, no r, given tha t Laverda had nev er prod uced a V-tw in yea r ago to ma rke t, encou raged by the mod el's victory in with a revita lized Bim ota in search of a prestige four- mot orcycle before, appro pria te - but Bimota might well the prototype class of the Spa 24-hour race in Jul y, after a stroke engine to power a li mited -edition, hand-built now be a di fferent matter, especially given the Britten's trouble-free rid e by a trio of German rid ers und er the spo rtbike, the sol ution may be closer to home. lead ing-edge carbo n-fiber chassis construction, as well as aegis of Bimota Deutschland . Giancarlo Morbidelli has already go ne on record as its race-p roven engine pa ckage. , With- Britten's Wayne Alexander alrea dy on recor d in With Tog non's insistence that Bimota mus t return to wishi ng to develop what was ini tially designed as a n its co m pe tition roots by fielding a two-b ike SB8 R- 850cc shaft-drive 120-b hp spo rt tourer in to a 1000cc the New Zea land press as confirmi ng tha t Britten is disi equ ip ped fac tory team in th e 1999 World Su pe rbike chain-drive supersports model \... th considerably more cuss ing prod ucing a stree t version of the Vl 000 wi th an Championship, this looks set to be just the start of the V- horsepow er, and with the boom ing ultrabike market outside com pa ny, a lin k with Bim ota is very m u ch on tw in model's compe titio n caree r. fueling the d e ve lop ment of models such as the MV the tabl e. Iro nica lly, the Britten -Bimota connec tion was Thou gh at thi s stage he' s keeping his cards close to Ag usta F4 and forthcoming new superbikes from Benel- al ready cons idered bac k in 1990, w hen Pierl uigi Mar coni his ches t about pos sible new Bimota eng ines , if he does li, Lave rda an d Mot o Guzzi, a Morbidelli-Bimo ta link (who was then Bimota's chief engi neer) and John Britten com plete his takeover of the Rimini com pany, Fran cesco could be one op tion - especially as the engine.is produc- di scussed the possibility of the Itali an firm usin g a reTognon is believed to have tw o po ssibiliti es und er con- tion-read y in 850cc shaft-d rive guise. engi nee red s treet version of the Kiwi motor with th e H owev er , th e Morbi d elli rou te is no t Fr a n cesco Bimota nam e on the cra nkcases to build the first BBI sideration for ex is ting en gine d esigns which Bim ot a could take over and bring to production with their nam e Tognon ' s on ly possibl e aven ue s ho u ld h e take o ve r sig nifying not only the Britten-Bimota link , but also the on the crankcases. The first of these is the Morbid elli V- Bimot a - for back in December of 1995, his then pa rtn er fir s t Bimot a m ot o rcycle bearin g th e co m pa ny's own eight, rights to whi ch are ironically held by SCM and the in Lave rd a, Ger man im por ter Ronald Marz, spen t 12 engine. In th e end, Bim ot a boss Gius eppe Morri decid ed to Aureli famil y, who completed their takeover of Gian car- da ys in Ne w Zealand, exa mi ning in detail the possible 10 Morbidelli's woodworking-machinery comp any last ac quisit ion by La verda of th e Britten VI0 00 project , opt for th e two-strok e Vdue being con sidered a lo ngyear, thus acqu iring so le rig h ts to the DOH C 32-val ve which, in the wake of John Britten's tragic dea th earli er side it, on the grou nds of reduced costs of manufacture 90-degree V-eight 850cc e n g ine - a n d th e Bimota- tha t year, was av ailabl e for purchase. Togn on conclud ed of a tw o-strok e engine agains t·a high-tech fou r-stro ke th at a turnkey opera tio n using th e ava n t-ga rd e fu el- one. d esigned cha ssis in which it's fitted! .

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