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/128620
pretty remarkable 244- pou n d s ( ha lf dry on the bathroom sc ale s) wi t h a 50/5 0% distribution . F o r a fou r-c y lin d e r bik e th is is som e g o ing - a 250 Aermacchi p ushrod si ng le is hardly any li gh ter , in s tock p er i od f or m rea dy to race - and helps explain why t he B e n e ll i was so good at t ight t ra cks, as w ell as sta ble and assured on faster o nes. The weight is ar ranged very well in th e new t win -loop f ra me t h a t was c o nco c t ed for Provini's te n ure in th e team , no t o nly in terms of d istribution f ro nt to rea r , but also the low c en ter of gravi ty _ Th e beautifully p ro por(Abovel The original Lucas magneto was replaced In 1964 with one from a Mercury four-eyllnder outboard tioned B en elli is long and low, a ided by t he di st inctiv e low-set ' a nat o m ic al' engine. fuel t ank that invites t he ri der to wrap (Left) The four m e g a p h one s produce a thunderous sound, especially when the b ike Is revved clo se t o Its 14,0 0 0. rpm po w er peak. you're as Lat in -s iz ed and d oubl e j ointed a s Provin i w as in his heyday! - (and wh ich was one of th e B en elli's b ehind t he a lum inum bodywork 's lesser , t h o u g h even more quix oti c , quite broad sc re en . Th is w orks okay h i m self a ro u nd it - we ll, it w ould if in pursu it o f a wind- cheating stance rivals) . With the same chassis geom- in a stra ight li ne, but less so a ro u nd etry a nd sa m e suspension , includi ng turns , b ec ause the sha pe o f the ta nk th e 3 5 mm Ceriani forks which were m eans it's im p o ssibl e to gri p it w ith standard issue for all 1960 s Itali an comes aro und. For a company that would go on to set several landmarks in the evo lution of motorcycle design (th e first production roadster with gear cam shaft drive, the first Italian road bike with swinging arm rear suspension, th e first four -cylinder 250 cc GP racer, the first six -cy linder street bike, the first fou r-cylinder 250cc street bik e), the Benelli firm had hum ble beginnings . Th e fam ily company was found ed in Pesaro in 191 1 by mother T eresa, who wanted a steady occupati on for her six sons, then ranging in age from 22 to just nine-years-old. She set them up in business running a m echanical re pair work- shop , work in g o n bi k es and cars unt il an earthqu ak e destroyed th eir business in 19 16. Undaunted, th e broth ers rebuilt it fro m scratch and branched out into engi ne manu facture, desig ning and bu ilding thei r own 75 cc two -stro ke engine for use as a cli p -on mo tor for bicycl es. Inevitably, th is led to pr odu ction of a co m plete motor cy cl e, a 98 cc two speed tw o -stroke which fi rst appeared in 192 1, mak in g tod ay 's reborn Benelli co m pany Ita ly 's oldest existing bike m anufa ctu rer, narrowly ahead of Moto Guzzi. Equ all y inevitably, th e Benelli broth ers' int erests turned towards racing, as a means of publicizing thei r produ cts , and thanks to the remarkable riding talents of the youngest brother Tonino, Benelli won ma ny Italian races in the 175cc class throughout the 1920s, with a development of their basic two -stroke design . In J927 this was supplanted by the first Benelli four-stroke, a 175cc single using the then avant garde solution of gear drive to the single overhead camshaft, which in street form underpinned the boom in Benelli bike manufacture. In racing guise it broug ht Ton ino Benelli and team mate Dorino Serafini many Grand Prix vIctories. Scaling up the des ign in roadster form to 25 0cc and 500cc in the 1930s allowed Benelli to become one of the Big Fi ve of pre- WW2 Italian motorcycle ma nufacture, alongside Guzzi, Gilera, Garelli and Bianchi. Meanwhile, their DO HC 250cc GP single debuted in 1933 with a fast tum of speed and many forward-thinking features, including swingarm rear sta y f lat o n th e tank in a bend and pounds more than the B e ne ll i four's Benelli 's place in Italian mo torcycl e culture alm ost exactly para lle ls that of the equally historic Maserati marq ue on four wheels . Each was fou nded by a family of broth ers; each won Grand Prix races and World Championships, but played second fiddle in the public eye and on the rac etrack to th e more illustrious prod ucts of singl e-m inded aut ocrats (MV Agusta and Ferrari ) ; and each tasted succ ess in the marketplace, before falli ng prey to commercial hardship and , doubly ironi cally , ending up in the hands of the very sam e financial entre preneur: Alessandro de Tomaso. De To maso's efforts to milk their prestig e only succeeded in de va luing their appea l - bu t now after two decades of declin e, both brands are back in the hands of peop le with the fina ncial muscle and th e m ark et awareness to mak e them great agai n. Maserati has j oined Ferrari in the Fiat empire, and A ndrea Merloni now owns Benelli. Wha t goes around your kn ees - thus, you h ave to eith er race rs , this actually weigh ed 20 sq ueeze it w ith y o u r arms , as Provini suspensio n, which soon found its way onto the street range. By the end of the 1930s the Benelli 250 had been refined into a race-winning GP racer, defeating th e more powerf ul supercharged DKW and Moto Guzzi teams to blitz th e fir st th ree places in the Italia n GP at Monza in 1938, and - in th e hands of Eng lishma n Ted Mello rs - to wi n the 1939 Isle of Man lightw eight TT. Benelli's plans to leapfrog thei r riv als te chn ically with a supercharged four-c ylind er 250 were aborted by the outbreak of war . Th e Benelli factory was bombed into destruction during WW2 , but the enthusiasm and passion of the six brothers ensured it was rebuilt and production started again in 1947 with the 125cc Leoncino two -stroke single, Benelli's most famous and longest·li ved model whic h stay ed in producti on for the next 12 years . Later , bikes like the 250c four- stroke Leonessa twin and a 175cc sing le also appeared , with sales fueled by Dario Ambrosini's World Champ ionship victory in the 250cc class in 1950 aboard an upd ated version of th e pre-war Benelli sing le. But, tragically, Am brosini was killed in practice for the French GP the following year, arid Bertelli's racing effort folded , tho ugh str eetb ik e production continu ed to boom. How ever, after an abortive attempt at making a desmo version of the singl e, Benelli again demonstrated their capacity for radical thought in 1960, by developing the world 's first four- cylinder 250cc GP bike to actu ally go raci ng . Though the small Italian team was no match on a season-long basis for the Honda/Y amaha/ Suzuki steam rolle r, ride rs T arquinio Pro vini and Renzo Pasolini freq ue ntly tasted GP success throughout the 1960s, before Aussie Kel Carruthers finally won Benelli its second world titl e in 1969 , It was ju st in tim e as a y ear la ter bik es with more than two cylinder s were banned from the 250 cc class, leading to a quarter century of domination by two -strok e twins. After a fam il y disagreement th at had seen eldest broth er Giu sepp e br eak away to sta rt the rival Motob i m arque in 1950 (the quarrel was patched up and th e two brands reunit· ed in 1961 ), Benelli expa nded their range thro ugh the 1960s to incl ude a 250 cc two -stroke parallel twin, the 2C, and the 650c c Tornado parallel- twin pushrod four-stroke - the Itali an idea of what a British twin should have becom e, but never did - co mplete with short-stroke engin e and gea r prima ry dr ive . Th is allowed them to attack the growing Americ an market, with importers Cosmopolitan Motors at one time retailing the model through the Montgomery Ward chain of stores that briefly badged the Tornad o as their own . In racing, moving up to the 350 and 500cc GP classes with a revised version of the four -cylinder rac er allowed Pasolini and guest riders like Mike Hailwood and Jamo Saari nen to briefly challenge the might of MV Agusta and Yamaha, but not for long . Walter Villa' s 1973 GP season was Benelli's last - espec ially as the company had now been bought in 197 1 by De To maso , who had other pl ans for it . Sadly , though, Benelll was always destined to play sec ond fiddle even within the mo torcycle sector of the De Toma- out the 1970s and '80s was a complimentary range of m ulti cyli nder four -stro kes, headed by the imposing Sei - the wor ld's fir st six-cylinder produ cti on bike , first launched as a 750 in 1972 , then upsized to 900 cc in the '80 s. A modular four -cyli nder 500 Quattro spin -off (like th e Sei , heavily dep endent internally on Hond a multi-cylinder engineering ) was also laun ch ed, but undoubtedly more noteworthy was the jewel-like 250cc Quattro, th e world's first four-cylinder lightweight stre etbike, whose impact was sadly blunted by th e banana-like styli ng inflicted on it by luminary car design . er Giug iaro . Two decades later, Benelli's Pesaro neighbor Morbidelli wou ld make a sim ilar mistake by asking another car design house, Pininfarina, to styl e his V-eight motorcycle - with sim ila r unfortunate results for another world-first design. De To ma so's lack of a clear ind ustrial policy , and his fail ure to understan d the needs of the bike ma rket, led Benelli into term inal decli ne, even aft er the opening of a brand- new factory in Pesaro, buil t largely with regiona l aid, in 1981. But by then Benelli were buil ding far more Moto Guzzis than anything with the brothers' nam e on the tank, and by the time De Tomaso sold the com pany in 1989 to local woodworking ma chinery magnate Glancarlo Selci - who ironicall y began his working life sweeping-up the floor in the Benelli factory! th e brand had effectively ceased to exist Th e last Benelli motorcycle, th e Jamo 125 two -stroke launched in 1987 , was only produced in very small quan titi es before Benell i' s decline was made abso lut e, and Sel ci whose m ain interest in buyi ng Benelli had been to acq uire the m odern pl ant , to promote expans ion of his machine too l em pire - had no plans to reviv e it The handful of 50c c bik es built in a comer of th e factory under his own ership served only two purposes: for tax reasons, and to k eep the Benelli na me ali ve for a ta keover . When this happened, and A ndrea Merloni and his partners acquired th e Benelli name in 1997, it bro ught hope for a new fut ure to enthusia sts of Ita ly ' s oldest existi ng motorc ycl e brand - a future which , after two years of successful scooter pr odu cti on , now sees the Benelli name once again adom a new moto rcy cle mod el - the Torn ado 900. so empire. where its companion Mota Guzzi ma rque received most of the attention . But alongside the mopeds, scooters and smell -capacity two -strokes Benelli focused on through - cue I e n e _ S • J U LY 5 . 2000 41