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A good friend of mine has an early Sport with a strange spec. It has an Australian Compliance plate that says 2/76 so probably built in late 1975. However, it has a Borrani front rim with a Strada twin shoe drum brake. It has the second type of fuel tank with the more square profile. It has clip ons that look like the type from the very early Sports. It has also had the centre stand lifting bracket removed from the frame (crudely....).

Frame number is A/3 085.. The engine has the S marking.

My friend thinks it could have come from the factory with the Strada front brake however I don't. I suspect it was in an accident at some time which destroyed the front end and it was replaced with whatever they could find at the time (a Strada brake being laced into a Borrani wheel).

Has anyone seen a bike of this spec before?

It must be extremely unlikely that a Sport would have left the factory with a GT/Strada front brake.

I have a set of Borrani rims with Strada hubs in storage... I bought them years ago and they seem to be spoked with original factory spokes.
Could it be that it is a Strada with clipons added later? If it is a Sport the rear drum is 180mm, a Strada has 160mm.

It is not strange for Strada's to have "S" engines, the factory would do that when importers requested so or use them when no Strada engines were available upon assembly. I have a '74 Strada with an "S" engine from the first batch that was shipped to the Netherlands. The importer requested the more powerfull engine to boost publicity and sales.

Not many Morinis will still be exactly as they left the factory, and most bits are interchangeable. The club Strada has alloy rims (I can't remember if they are actually Borranis), but I don't know the history behind that. My Strada had the lifting handle cut off at the start of its life so that panniers could be fitted.

hendre wrote:I have a set of Borrani rims with Strada hubs in storage... I bought them years ago and they seem to be spoked with original factory spokes.
Could it be that it is a Strada with clipons added later? If it is a Sport the rear drum is 180mm, a Strada has 160mm.

It is not strange for Strada's to have "S" engines, the factory would do that when importers requested so or use them when no Strada engines were available upon assembly. I have a '74 Strada with an "S" engine from the first batch that was shipped to the Netherlands. The importer requested the more powerfull engine to boost publicity and sales.

I will ask him the diameter of the rear drum however I dont think he will be happy if it suggests a GT not a Sport ....oohh

hendre wrote:I have a set of Borrani rims with Strada hubs in storage... I bought them years ago and they seem to be spoked with original factory spokes.
Could it be that it is a Strada with clipons added later? If it is a Sport the rear drum is 180mm, a Strada has 160mm.

It is not strange for Strada's to have "S" engines, the factory would do that when importers requested so or use them when no Strada engines were available upon assembly. I have a '74 Strada with an "S" engine from the first batch that was shipped to the Netherlands. The importer requested the more powerfull engine to boost publicity and sales.

did the GT (Strada) still have a front drum in early 1976????

MarkB wrote:Not many Morinis will still be exactly as they left the factory, and most bits are interchangeable. The club Strada has alloy rims (I can't remember if they are actually Borranis), but I don't know the history behind that. My Strada had the lifting handle cut off at the start of its life so that panniers could be fitted.

My friends one has the high flange Borrani rims as per the Sport but the single drum of the GT (Strada) the one in the pics has alloy rims but they are not hi flange Borrani.

MarkB wrote: The club Strada has alloy rims (I can't remember if they are actually Borranis), but I don't know the history behind that.

They're Akront rims as I recall. No doubt the original chromed Radellis were replaced many moons ago.

Easier than measuring the rear drum is to count the sprocket bolts. The 160mm drum has six, whilst the 180mm drum has five. From the introduction of the disk braked wire wheel bikes, both GT and Sport used the 180mm rear drum.

The 1976 Strada/GT still had the drum brake on the front. (Search the net for pictures. The 76 Strada/GT paint scheme was a bit like the 74/75 drum brake Sport, with black panels/white pin striping on the tank and side covers; the black panels were larger than on the 74/75 Sport, particularly on the tank. Colours I have seen for the 76 are silver, metallic deep red, and gold. A factory brochure shows a silver bike and a gold bike. The gold looks very nice.)

The 76 Strada/GT had the same shape tank as the 75 Sport and Strada/GT. I think the Strada/GT still had the same tank when it went to a disc front brake (in 77?). Your friend's tank sounds like a 76/77 Sport tank, a completely different tank to all the tanks before it.

Both Strada and Sport were provided new with discs in 1976 - however (at least in the UK, and probably elsewhere) many dealers would have an older model in stock and not sell it until well after manufacture. So it would be quiet likely that two bikes standing next to each other could be registered two years apart. The UK importer (Harglo) was well known for striking a deal, and is likely to have picked up end of production run bikes to keep the costs down!

The Clarke book has the prototype Strada / GT shown at Bologna in 1971, and a early Sport and Strada featured in a brochure in 1974; initial sales were of the Strada only. By 1976 - in Italy - both Strada and Sport were offered with discs, and cast wheels were introduced for 1977 in the home market. Meanwhile, in the UK I picked up a Strada early in 1977 (ordered in December 1976) which had wire wheels and disc brakes...

Boring details, but it was a great bike to ride!

CC