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/128220
Roberto Zi'etti STORY AND PHOTOS BY ALAN CATHCART efore acquiring the rights to the historic Mondial brand from the son of its founder Count Giuseppe Boselli, 42-year-old Italian tycoon Roberto Ziletti had long harbored a dream to own his own motorcycle company - and preferably one with a glorious heritage. A Brescia-based newspress magnate whose privately-owned Lastra Group is Europe's largest printing plate manufacturer (and the fourth largest in the world), with seven factories in Europe, India and the USA and an annual turnover in excess of roughly $360 million, Ziletti's business expertise is self-evident. As a potent illustration of the financial resources behind Mondial - and now the VOR dirt bike brand, which he also acquired earlier this year Lastra recently purchased the graphics arts division of Mitsubishi Corporation to further cement his company's position as a world leader in the sector. A passionate motorcycle fan who raced motocross in his youth before devoting himself to a business career, Ziletti relaxes by attending half a dozen track days each year, riding his Aprilia RS250 streetbike or the ex-Boscoscuro 250cc TSR-Honda GP racer he bought for just that purpose three or four years ago. His own ·Mondial Piega (#00001) is the first four-stroke bike he's ever owned. Since launching Mondial on the world stage at Intermot 2000 with the prototype Piega sportbike powered by Honda's World Superbike title-winning V-twin engine, Ziletti has been working hard at building a motorcycle business. The Honda connection represents the first time the Japanese giant has ever agreed to sell engines to another manufacturer, however small, for installation in its own sportbikes, and it comes about - confirms Honda Europe chief Silvio Manicardi - as repayment of a debt of honor dating back to 1957, when Soichiro Honda was cheeky enough to ask Mondial's Count Boselli to sell him one of the DOHC singles with which Mondial had just clinched both the 125 and 250cc World Championships to enable him to study the benchmark European technology Honda would be competing against when the Japanese company made its own GP debut in 1959. The Italian nobleman agreed to do so - the Mondial is now the first bike you see when you walk into Honda's Motegi Collection Hall - so when Mondial asked for the favor to be repaid with the supply of RC51 motors for the Piega, Honda felt the only decent thing was to agree. This explains the stock of 300 Honda V-twin engines lining the Mondial assembly line in the firm's newly-established factory at Arcore! That's where the chance came to talk to Roberto Ziletti about his born-again bike business, just a few weeks before the latest of the several Mondial demo rides for potential and confirmed customers at Italy's Adria Raceway took place under the supervision of former Honda factory Superbike rider Aaron Slight. B l:L!.[Lli-[LLL~ L ~ MOTORCY(LE BUSINESS Roberto Ziletti has big plans for Mondial and Vor 46 JUNE 25. 2003· cUe I ... n e 'IV S Let's have a quick summary of the story so far for you and Mondial. I acquired the Mondial trademark at the end of 1999, and nine months later I made the agreement with Honda for the supply of engines. The Piega was designed internally, within our organization, though there have been different sets of hands involved in creating it, so it's not the work of just one "progettista." But we did it all ourselves in-house, rather than buying in a project designed outside Mondial. You did us the honor of riding it for the very first time yourself, when you made those demo laps at the World Superbike round at Valencia in March, 2001, and one year later we had the customer prod- Q A