TOP
And finally.....
Here are a few stories and tales about Morinis that I have found on my travels and which brought a smile to my face.
From the book "V-Twin the classic motorcycle" by Roger W Hicks
"The word that is most often used of Moto Morini, the other classic Italian V-Twin, is different, and different it certainly is.."
"There is no doubt that the Morini rider marches (or at least rides) to a different drum, and that it is not a drum that all can hear, let alone follow, but for a supremely sporting motorcycle which is ridden purely for its own sake, rather than as a means of getting from A to B or even as a means of going at particularly high speeds, the Morini has few equals."
From 'Bendswinging' by Dave Minton, CBG Dec 2000
"... The point is that modern motorcycle manufacturers no longer care much for economy. This is quite recent because barely 20 years ago I was purring south through north British Columbia along the Alaska Highway, then a road of rocks, mud and gravel, on a 500 Morini. The petrol station I was aiming for had been razed by fire and left deserted. Between it and the the next one was 90 miles of wilderness, the evening was far advanced and my torch revealed barely a half gallon in the tank. On minimal throttle that lovely, lovely Moto Morini carried me all the way to the next pumps and, on filling up, I calculated from the past mileage that the luggage-laden V-Twin had achieved an astonishing 180mpg.
(...If you love British singles but need superior speed and reliability, get one; I guarantee it will please you)"
By Hugo Wilson, Bike magazine, in ATG 252
"I've been a Morini owner for 19 years but I never made it to the factory. As a belated personal pilgrimage I thought I'd try to visit the shrine when I was in Bologna to visit the Ducati factory and ride the new MH900e for what I laughingly call work.
OK so I rode the Ducati and we took the pictures and we got a guy at Ducati to tell us where to find the Morini factory. Apparently it's still standing but no-one knows what it is being used for. Then I rang up Pierre Terreblanche, the Ducati designer responsible for the MH900e, and arranged to go to dinner with him. Sorry about the name dropping but it's an important part of the story.
Back to the hotel and I fell asleep, Chip (our photographer) woke me up and then we set off in the hire car (a particularly nasty Opel Corsa) to go to dinner via a visit to the old factory. Could we find it? could we bollocks. So we had to give up because we were already late. Then we got lost again trying to to find Vito's restaurant which was up by St Luca's church on a hill overlooking the city. You wouldn't have thought it could be that hard. You just aim for the the illuminated church in the sky.
So we arrived late and had a great meal, a few beers and a really entertaining and varied conversation during which I explained the personal mission which I had to undertake while in Bologna. 'I'll take you there after dinner' says Terreblanche. Great.
Then he talks about the Cogaro that he bought from the factory when he first came to Bologna and how he fitted it with an 18 inch front wheel and lower bars. 'It was like a prototype Supermoto' he said. He also talked about Morini's big V-Twin prototype, since sold by Ducati, and how impressed he was by the elegance of the design and how it was politics that killed the development of a really promising project. Shame.
After dinner we set off to see the factory. Me and Chip in the nasty Corsa. Terreblanche in some kind of equally rattly, but slightly larger Opel. It was like the Italian Job but with less grip. Overtaking in improbable situations, squealing tyres round the backstreets of Bologna, dragging away from the lights. Comedy.
Mr T was diving into bars to ask for directions ('I'm sure it's around here somewhere, but I haven't been here for years') until we found it set in a residential area surrounded by blocks of flats.
The beautiful Art Deco lettering that you see in photographs has gone and the whole place looks badly neglected. It seems like it's being used for storage by the gas board or something. It's sad when you think about all those wonderful bikes which came out of the building.
So Chip took a photograph of me and Pierre Terreblanche and Terreblanche's dog (whose name I've forgotten) outside the railings outside the factory. I still want to ride down there on my three and a half and take it to see where it came from."
Chairman Marlow's piston
The scoring on the skirt is the result of the engine partially seizing. The cylinder head was untouched, the marks on the top of the piston look to have been there for some time.
From: danno
To: <euro-moto@micapeak.com>
Subject: RE: morini a go go... Reminiscence
Alright now, I guess I have to chime in, what with all the Morini references.
I bought my first '78 3.5 Sport from an enthusiast in Madison, TN, about 14 years ago. Got to watch V-Four Victory and received a free lunch with the sale. Up until that point, I'd only heard about the things. I rode it around the block and fell in love with the left-hand mirror, cafe-racer looks, impeccable handling, and classic chuff-chuff of the K&N's. Upon riding it back through traffic, I naturally stalled it at a light (Morinis have almost no flywheel effect to speak of) and couldn't find neutral (vague around-the-engine linkage to convert to left-side shift) and had to put it up on the centerstand because the kickstart is on the left side. Oh, and sometimes Morinis are hard to start when warm...
A memorable moment with the Sport was while coming down the southern side of the Foothills Parkway in the Smokies. Before things got squidly, I used to ride up the back way to the mountains, cross over the Foothills Parkway (which is, I think, about 15-20 miles of beautifully gently arcing turns punctuated by blind corners and such) and then head up 129 to Deal's Gap, then return home.
On the occasion in concern, I was coming onto a wide, sweeping left-hand turn with mountain on the right and a bit of a drop-off to the left. I was going about 120mph -- no, wait, maybe it was more like 80mph, or if one takes into account Italian speedometer accuracy, 50mph... I was going into the turn with some steam, let's leave it at that. I had already experienced the Morini's ability to flick and go with supreme ease and stability, so I felt confident with what I was doing. Just before the apex of the turn, I ran over some errant concrete blobs leaked out from a concrete mixer in the past. No big deal. Well, at the speed I was going and given the fact that my bike weighed about 350lbs. and I added only 125lbs. more, well, the front wheel got launched. Not much, but enough for me to think, "I am going to run into the mountain and they'll have to peel me off."
I died. Oh wait, that was a different occasion. Hmm. Oh yes, what happened was the front wheel came down about four feet from the edge of the road, and since I was already leaned over, the bike completed the turn with aplomb. As I slowed down on the subsequent strait, you could have heard me shouting, "This bike rocks!" It was amazing. especially considering that I was running with the old-style ribbed Pirelli Strada up front and a Phantom on the back. Since I was God at the moment, I ripped through the rest of the parkway and half of 129. The pope was at the lookout where I stopped and, upon hearing my tale, sprinkled holy water on the bike and I was cannonized.
We talked a bit about Laverdas and Ducatis, then he got on his MV triple and I went back home, where my student loans were deferred for eternity.
Morinis. The stuff of legends.
d
From: Dean Klein
To: euro-moto@micapeak.com
Subject: RE: morini a go go... Reminiscence
Great tale Danno...
I've never ridden a Morini. Wanted to, but never had the chance.
When I was a punk college kid and Cycle Specialties in Athens was my mecca, I asked John Hoffman what his favorite bike was. He thought for a moment or two, then said "...Moto Morini 3.5 Sport...they handle great and go".
ciao ya'll,
Dean aka bmwloco
Hi all,
Hope you manage to sort out the Dart and make it to Italy Arthur.
Sorry but this is going to be long.
We have just come back from a fantastic week in Tuscany. We stayed in a farmhouse and had a hire car. As usual I had reasons other than the scenery to visit Italy
Looking at the map on the first day, Firenze to Bologna did not look too far, the Autostrada looked nice and twisty with plenty of tunnels. We went to Bologna a couple of years ago to visit the Ducati factory but did not have time to go into the centre. This time the plan was to look for a Tourist Info office in the centre and ask if they knew the location of the old Morini factory.
Even on a Sunday the traffic was horrific. We made it to the centre but could not find anywhere to park, there are endless narrow one way streets, everytime I wanted to turn in a certain direction the roads had a no entry sign. We went round in circles for hours. We ended up stopping wherever we found a gap at the side of the road for just a few minutes and walking round.
There are two very old and tall towers in the centre next to each other, one of them leans more than the one in Pisa, very spectacular, it will make a very big mess when it falls over.
We could not find a tourist office nor could I remember the name of the road to ask for directions to the factory. After several hours we gave up and tried to find a way out of the city. I had heard that the factory was hard to find and now having been there I know why.
As we went down the slip road onto the motorway to go back, we saw the Franco Morini factory over our right shoulders. It looked quite a large site.
A couple of days later we went to Sienna.
Might as well try to find Cesare Luzzi's shop while I'm here. This time we had a map and very quickly found Via Piave. We parked about ten minutes walk away. Towards the bottom of the hill Suzanne saw an Excalibur through a window at foot level. At the bottom was a small set of glass doors opening out into a triangular shaped workshop. The doors were wide open but no one was to be seen. Near the doors were a couple of old Corsarinos, further in a 350, a couple of 350 engines were on a workbench, all the workshop tools were hanging on the walls. At the end were a couple of single cylinder engines (Settebellos possibly?) on another bench. A Corsarino scrambler was on a hydraulic lift in the centre. Everywhere around the workshop were boxes and piles of Morini parts.
We stood and looked around for about ten minutes, still no-one to be seen.
Just as we were thinking of leaving, a van pulled up and an oldish gentleman got out and came into the workshop. 'Snr Luzzi ?' I asked.
'Non' he replied and pointed back at the van just as a very old looking gentleman came around the corner. He had blue overalls on and was almost bent in half. We guessed he was around 80 years old. I said hello and tried to explain who I was in my best, not very good Italian. 'non capisco' he said in his old voice and turned around and walked out.
Suzanne and I looked at each other as if to say what the hell do we do now.
Then Snr Luzzi came back into the workshop and beckoned us to follow him.
He went over the road and in through another glass door into a dimly lit shop.
This one was more of a showroom, crammed full of Morinis. There right in front of the door was THE 250 GP Morini.
Snr Luzzi saw the look on my face and grinned, I think he had forgotten his false teeth that day.
I couldn't understand everything he said, sometimes very old men speaking in English are hard enough to understand, but I heard Provini and Agostini and he said the bike should have a fairing on. The bike looked just like it had been parked up after it's last race and not touched since. It was battle scarred and covered in oil and incredibly small.
Then he asked me something and I just made out the word 'ricambi' - spare parts, I nodded. I wanted a kick starter 'avviamento' mine has a bad crack in it and a side panel badge to replace the one lying at the side of a French road somewhere south of Paris.
He spoke no English at all and is also slightly deaf but by pointing at parts on other bikes and with the few Italian words I know we sort of understood each other.
He said there were no spares in his workshop and they were kept 8 kilometres away. The kickstarter he said was no problem, even the later K2 style one I wanted, the side panel badges he tutted and said 'un pocco', only a few. Then he asked where our car was. 'About 10 minutes walk away'
He shook his head and then beckoned us to follow him again. He opened up a Fiat Uno and indicated we were to get in.
Was this a good idea?
We were sat in a car with an 80 (at least) year old Italian who had no teeth, was slightly deaf, spoke no English, walked with a stoop. Was his eyesight any good? We had no idea where he was going to take us, only that it was 'otto kilometri' away. What were we thinking of.
Five minutes into the journey, he patted his pockets and banged his fist on his forehead, 'chiave', he'd forgotten the keys to wherever we were going.
Back to the workshop to get the keys, when he got out we were thinking of doing the same and making a run for it.
As it turned out he was a very careful driver and took us around Sienna and off into the countryside and up into the hills. All the time he was driving he only ever used one hand on the steering wheel.
He said he spoke no English but that his son lived in America and spoke very good English. On the way there we did not speak much, but he seemed to be getting more friendly and less abrupt.
Eventually we came to a stop outside a two storey barn. Snr Luzzi pointed to it and said it was going to be a Morini museum one day and that the building was 1000 years old. He opened the gates and went towards a second barn. All around outside were Morini parts, mudguards, tanks, sidepanels, a box of crankshafts. He uncovered one crate which was full of unmachined crankshaft castings. Then another where he showed me two more finished cranks with con rods, one a very early 350 one.
Inside the second barn was full of racking. An Alladins cave full of Morini bits.
He disappeared off into the depths and came back a few minutes later with a kick starter, he was shaking his head and looked for another parts book. It was an earlier kick starter to the one I wanted. He knew exactly which type I wanted and was very disappointed to find he did not have one. I think he swore a few times in Italian then was very apologetic for not having what I needed.
Off he disappeared again and came back with a side panel badge, in Silver, not Gold. That was all there is left. He also gave me a couple of 500 Camel stickers in gold and indicated I could cut the 'Camel' part off.
He gave us a quick guided tour. I remember seeing dozens of seats in plastic wrapping, boxes full of A,B and C cambelts, cables, gaskets, camshafts and lots more I have forgotten.
I felt guilty for bringing him all this way for just a 500 badge and tried to think what other parts I wanted. Seeing all those spares just made my mind go blank. Then I remembered I could do with a new headlamp shell, mine has cracked and been welded several times. Off he went again and came back with a complete headlight unit, including bulb, in a plastic wrapper.
Thankyou.
I asked if I could take some photos, but as he replied he turned away and walked outside again beckoning us to follow. I didn't understand his reply and was reluctant to take any photos in case he had said no. He was turning into such a sweet old gentleman I did not want to risk insulting him.
We went around the back of the barn and up some steps to the upper floor. He unlocked the door and with a big grin let me go in first. More of the same, the entire floor was covered in piles of Morini Spares with more racks at the far end. Then he pointed towards a ladder going up into the roof space and told me to climb up. Again it was full of plastic body parts, petrol tanks, exhausts.
While I was up the ladder, Suzanne said I was in 'paradiso', Snr Luzzi took hold of her arm and giggled like a small child.
On the second floor I picked up an unmachined piston casting out of a small pile of them, Snr Luzzi just grinned and nodded again.
He picked up a large Bing carburettor as fitted to BMWs and said it was from the last Morini, I'm sure he said a 750. Then he picked up a brand new Ducati 900 cylinder head to show me.
On the way back he was a lot more talkative. He said he started at Morini on the 6th of January 1952 and before that had worked in Germany. He also said 1910 in Italian. I'm sure he was talking about when he was born. That would make him 91 years old!
I think he had also had a bad accident and was in a plaster cast from his waist to his neck for several months.
I mentioned Franco Morini, and he said that in his opinion they would never make a full sized motorbike, they were only interested in Scooters, scooters, scooters. he banged his fist on the dashboard each time he said the word.
Everytime he talked to me he would take hold of my arm with the one hand he was steering with and lean over to me. It was very hard for me not to grab hold of the steering wheel and bring the car back into the right side of the road each time.
Back in his showroom I asked if I could take some photos of the GP bike. 'of course' he said. As I was doing so he tapped me on the back and pointed towards the back of the showroom. 'tre e mezzo prototipo'.
It was very hard to see because the bikes were so close together but there it was. It was definitely a 350 Strada, but all the details as we know them were slightly different. The rocker covers were curved towards the front of the engine, not flat, and the ignition switch was down near the oil filler. He said it was made on the 29th of November 1969.
I barely had time to look at it when he pulled me towards a factory Settebello 175 racer and told me to photograph that. Then we went into a back room and down some stairs. There were even more older Morinis down here, again tightly packed in and hard to get to. He went over to one of the Works Regolarita machines and patted the tank proudly.
His love of these bikes was obvious and I could tell he was very proud and excited to be able to share them with someone who also felt the same way.
I offered him some money towards his petrol. 'benzina??' he said in amazement, 'no,no, no' and flatly refused anything for his time and petrol costs.
He wrote down the cost of my headlamp and badges on a scrap of paper, I was 10,000 lira short in my wallet and asked Suzanne if she had a 10,000 note. Snr Luzzi said not to worry and accepted what was in my hand. When Suzanne took out a note he refused it.
I wanted to shake his hand as we were leaving but he said his hands were dirty, I insisted anyway and we shook hands.
This lovely, dear old man might have possibly helped to make my bike, or handled some of the parts before they were fitted, or even just seen it in the factory.
And I shook his hand.
I apologised for my bad Italian, this just made him grin more and shake my hand harder. I wish I could have asked him so many more questions.
Suzanne also went to shake hands and he took hold of hers, bent over even further, and kissed the back of it.
He wished us 'bon fortuna' and waved as we walked back up the hill.
Back in England, we both agreed that the highlight of our holiday had not been Sienna or San Gimignano or Pisa or Firenze, but our time with Snr Cesare Luzzi, a lovely old man.
(Snr Luzzi sadly passed away in November 2004)
Steve