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/128343
Bimota SBBK Gobert Replica imota's roller-coaster ride B between boom and bust would strain the credibility of the script for a TV soap opera, because you 'd surely reckon that the small but significant specialist Italian manufacturer - which has spent the last three decades alternately flirting with fail ure in between scaling the summits of sportbike success, both in the showroom and on the racetrack - must surely have used up all of its nine lives by now. But if the traditional happy ending that the Italian industry's scriptwriters always ...... ~ seem to concoct gets written in again this time around, it seems that Bimota will be back in business once again, four years after finally making friends with the bankruptcy courts. What's more, this time it could all be for real, courtesy of one of 3 Italy's most successful and well-connected businessmen: wealthy entrepreneur Roberto Comini, whose companies are world leaders in a host of industries, from pharmaceutical manufacturing to automotive component supply, and who since February 2004 personally owns 100 percent of the reborn Bimota. Comini is the man who originally bankrolled Bimota's most rece nt abortive comeback via the company's former commercial director, Giuseppe Della Pietra, and his partner Lorenzo Ducati (yes - as in, son of). Dissatisfied at the pace of progress in relaunching the company, Co mini has since decided to take over the reins of relaunching Bimota himself. "I'm afraid my former colleagues were dreamers, livinga fantasy that had no basis in reality, which jeopardized the future of SEPTEMBER 29, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS Birnota.' he declared. ''At a certain point, between June and August last year, I realized that the progress they w ere making was essentially nil, so I decided to take over the direction of the company personally. I'm not a motorcyclist myself, but I share a passion for the sport with others who value the high-tech engineering of prestigious sportbikes like Bimota, and the magnificent skill of those who ride them. And I especially admire the glorious heritage of the Bimota marque, so significant in the evolut ion of the current range of sportbikes made by others. I regard this as part of our Italian national heritage and therefore feel it' s a duty, as well as a commercial opportunity, to recreate the envi- ronment in which Birncta's craftsmen worked w ith such passion to create these twowheeled masterpieces in the past , and now will do so again in the future ." To back up that commitment, Co mini has not only stepped up out of his own pocket the Euro 235 million (abo ut $286 million) in cash it originallytook to acquire the Bimota name from the liquidator in December 2002 - as well as the contents of the defunct marque's Rimini factory but he is also in the process of investing several millions more in restructuring the company and restarting production. The plans that Dalla Pietra and Ducati had hatched to shift Birnota's operation to