Magni Sport 1200S - Italo-Asian Hybrid

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When it comes to exotic Italian motorcycles, few brands can claim the prestige and history of Magni. The bikes that have rolled out of Arturo Magni’s shop are the sort of two-wheeled art that become instant classics right out of the showroom. Magni's decades of experience with Gilera and MV Agusta during their respective glory years have informed the development of some of the most iconic and beautiful sports machines ever produced in Italy, powered by classic engines from MV and Moto Guzzi. Magnis are fast and elegant, and are powered by sonorous, red blooded Latin engines.

So when Magni introduced their swansong production model in 1999, it only made sense that it would be powered by a Japanese four yanked out of a Suzuki Bandit. Wait, what?

Voxan - Café (Racer) Français

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When you think of big sporting V-twins and café-styled roadsters, what do you picture? Italy and Great Britain maybe - well-groomed Latin men astride thundering sports machines or perhaps greasy-haired rockers congregating outside a bar.

It’s unlikely you’d imagine Issoire, a quaint town filled with medieval architecture situated in the heart of France.

König 500 GP - Outboard-Powered Underdog

Kim Newcombe and his Konig Grand Prix bike
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Once in a generation there emerges a racing prodigy who defies belief and achieves success far beyond the odds. These men and women display innate and remarkable talent that is often so extraordinary that they become legends in their own time. They are the mythical “naturals”, those who perform complex tasks extraordinarily well despite their lack of experience. New Zealand motorcycle racer Kim Newcombe was one such prodigy, and one of the most tantalizing “what ifs” of motorcycle racing. He entered competition as a novice and immediately began to beat seasoned veterans. Not only that, but he single-handedly crafted and maintained his own machine – which he then campaigned successfully at the top level of the sport against the greatest riders of the 1970s. The tale of Kim and his Konig 500 GP motorbike is a true motorsports Cinderella story, and one of the most fascinating and tragic tales from the golden era of motorcycle road racing.

Nembo Super 32 Rovescio - Topsy-Turvy Triple

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Conservatism runs strong in motorcycle design and anything that breaks the mould is sure to garner its fair share of attention. You have many opportunities for improvement at your disposal – you could redesign the suspension (FFE350, Vyrus), the chassis (Gurney Alligator) or you could fit an unusual engine (Van Veen OCR). The Super 32 Rovescio, built by tiny Roman manufacturer Nembo Motociclette, is just such an iconoclastic machine. It is a motorcycle that literally turns engine design on its head – because designer Daniele Sabatini decided he could build a better motor by flipping it upside down.

Moto Guzzi MGS-01 - Cooking Goose

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Booming Italian twin-cylinder trackday terrors have generally been the specialty of Ducati over the last 30 years; you might picture the odd orange Laverda parallel twin thrown in when that company is flirting with solvency, but generally Ducati is the go-to Latin track machine. Rarely do you picture a big, air-cooled, transverse V-twin out of Mandello de Lario thundering out of a corner and scything past the opposition. Moto Guzzi generally presents an air of staunch traditionalism, a sort of Italian BMW that is somehow more passionate than the Munich brand but far more rational than the exuberant offerings from Bologna. Guzzi riders are weathered, skilled old men who thump along the backroads, do their own repairs, and generally abstain from high-speed shenanigans. Or at least that’s the stereotype, one that was briefly blown into the weeds by the spectacularly uncharacteristic MGS-01 Corsa.

Vyrus Motorcycles - Hub-Centre Perfection

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Last week we featured the FFE 350, a heavily modified forkless Yamaha RZ350 built by engineering virtuoso Julian Farnham. In keeping with a forkless-front-end theme, this week we will be profiling the most exotic and advanced hub-centre steering designs of all time – the Vyrus.

If you want to re-invent the proverbial wheel in the motorcycle industry, it seems that the most popular place to start is the front suspension. Dozens of companies have fielded hundreds of prototypes and the odd production model that eschews the conventional telescopic fork for something more effective. It seems that every few years an iconoclastic design emerges to tip the motorcycle world on its head and correct the flaws of the traditional fork. One of the most striking (and difficult to execute) alternative suspensions is the hub-centre steered front wheel, and the undisputed current king of the hub-centre design is Vyrus, based in Coriano, Italy.

Yamaha A-N-D FFE 350 - Forkless Two-Smoker

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As far as motorcycle design goes, manufacturers tend to err on the side of conservative engineering. Stick with what is known, what is common, what is produced in great quantity and with known characteristics. This is especially true in suspension design. With the current proliferation of so-called “conventional” telescopic forks, it’s quite easy to forget that there are hundreds of alternative front suspension designs, many of which address the key weaknesses of traditional forks with distinct performance advantages.

The Irving-Vincent - Anachronistic Trackday Missile

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The Irving-Vincent

Let’s say you are the head of a successful engineering firm in Australia. You have a full compliment of advanced casting, prototyping and milling machinery at your disposal and years of R&D experience in various avenues. And you happen to be passionate about motorcycles.

Norton P86 750 Challenge - Norton's Last Gasp

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When we think of the death of the British motorcycle industry in the 1970s, we generally recall the final generation of cantankerous, leaky, vibrating, old fashioned crock-pots being foisted onto an increasingly apathetic market. These were conservative and under-engineered machines that harkened back to an earlier era of motorcycle design (and lax quality control). With the advent of oil tight, reliable, well built, and fine-riding Japanese motorcycles (with – gasp – electric starters), the writing was on the wall for most of the British marques. Some made a last-ditch attempt to stave off failure by hurriedly cobbling together something that might be competitive against the Japanese onslaught.

Ducati 916 SP/SPS - Ultimate Desmoquattro Superbikes - Part II

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One of the most famous pictures of a 1997 916 SPS, sold as a life-size poster by the Bullivant Gallery

 Part II of our profile of the Ducati 916 Sport Production series, the ultimate evolution of the Desmoquattro engine platform. 
Click here for Part I.

Ducati was no stranger to homologation specials, having built many versions of the 851 and 888 in various states of tune. Generally the formula was this: each year take some bikes off the production line and prepare them by hand to a higher degree of specification overall. Lightweight parts and carbon fibre bodywork would cut the weight, higher spec suspension and brakes would suspend it, and a massaged motor with hotter internals would fling it down the road. Maybe throw on some new Corsa spec parts to make them legal for the new season. Slap some lights on and get it homologated for street use in Europe (the US EPA was too strict in terms of noise and emissions) and bam, you’ve allowed your race team to upgrade some components for the new season. The 916 SP continued the tradition. It wasn’t as extreme as some of the previous specials (the 888 SPS was one of the most bonkers, vicious machines ever allowed onto a public road) but it was markedly improved over the standard Strada and was considerably more rare.