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$1,000.00 (1 Bid)
End Date: Friday Nov-28-2014 4:37:31 PST
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Moto Guzzi was founded by Carlo Guzzi and Giorgio Parodi. A third man and founding partner, Giovanni Ravelli, was killed in a plane crash only days after WWI. The three met and discussed plans to build a new motorcycle company while serving in the newly formed Italian Air Force. The flying eagle in the company’s logo is in memory of Ravelli.
The greatest of all Moto Guzzi models are based on only two engines. The first engine produced was a 500cc four stroke engine that had the cylinder parallel to the ground and the other engine was a 90º transverse V-twin.
The single was in production since the initial prototype in 1920 and stayed in production until 1976 in various forms. The transverse V-twin came about as a contract requirement in the late 1950’s with the Italian army.
That engine only gave way in later years due in part to military and police demands for more power after many years of using Moto Guzzi’s single cylinder powered bikes.
Stanley Woods won the 1935 Senior T.T. on a Guzzi 500 – by just four seconds – scoring the first foreign victory since the 1911 race.
The 500 c.c. model was virtually identical to the wildly successful 250 version. A wide-angle, 1200 Vee-twin with the front “pot” horizontal and the magneto between the cylinders, it was claimed to produce 51 b.h.p. at 7,500 r.p.m., and in 1935, the maximum speed of 112 m.p.h. represented a staggering level of performance. Weighing in at just 375 lb., this first spring frame model used by Moto Guzzi was the first to win the Senior TT. The system used a pivoting-fork controlled by coil springs under the engine-gear. It featured friction dampers on each side which could be tuned by the rider in motion using a large lever on the left of the tank.