roberto tenni Posted July 16, 2009 Posted July 16, 2009 Providing the marque contiunes to survive does it really matter where they are made? Would of been nice to stay but if its between moving the factory so it can contiune to be profitable and confined to the history books! I'll take the move anyday. Wash your mouth-out with soap. I think that the divider between the two opinions may be whether or not you have visited Mandello and absorbed the atmosphere and sense of history and pride in what is a small town with a motorcycle factory at it's heart - beating continuously and pumping life into the community since 1921.
Murray Posted July 17, 2009 Posted July 17, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=copOYXvEsRs&feature=fvst
luhbo Posted July 17, 2009 Posted July 17, 2009 Wash your mouth-out with soap.I think that the divider between the two opinions may be whether or not you have visited Mandello and absorbed the atmosphere and sense of history and pride in what is a small town with a motorcycle factory at it's heart - beating continuously and pumping life into the community since 1921. Roberto, you for sure have not been in Mandello the last 30 years or so. What you write is just not true, or you are blind? Mandello is a nice town, yes, but what you call a motorcycle factory is just a sad relict of maybe better years in the middle of the last century. Go there, the windows are broken, the roofs leak, the facilities stink and so on. There is nothing left but romantic memories. Memories of dreams we may have dreamed sometime. Hubert
Dimitris Posted July 18, 2009 Posted July 18, 2009 Mandello is a nice town, yes, but what you call a motorcycle factory is just a sad relict of maybe better years in the middle of the last century. Go there, the windows are broken, the roofs leak, the facilities stink and so on. There is nothing left but romantic memories. Memories of dreams we may have dreamed sometime. Wether I like it or not (I surely don't), this is a true fact. On June and for 7 days I was in Mandello. We visited the Moto Guzzi factory as the Hellenic Moto Guzzi CLub and we were given a tour in the factory lines, the wind tunnel and the museum, by Mr Luigi, a 75 year old man, who was working in Mandello from 1947 till 1982 (afterwards he moved to Lanfraconi). To cut a long story short, I witnessed the glory of Moto Guzzi, but in the same time, this glory was "enveloped" in a factory that is so old..like a remnant. Whoever has walked IN the Factory, whoever has seen the picture from the "INSIDE", he could understand that this is not a situation that could ensure the healthy future of GUZZI. I would prefer that the production stay in Mandello. COULD PIAGGIO really rennovate the factory and make it antagonistic? I wish It will be! Outside every door of the factory are signs indicating the renovative platforms that are planned to take place. This is encouraging.... Time will show!
Admin Jaap Posted July 18, 2009 Posted July 18, 2009 Roberto, you for sure have not been in Mandello the last 30 years or so. What you write is just not true, or you are blind? Mandello is a nice town, yes, but what you call a motorcycle factory is just a sad relict of maybe better years in the middle of the last century. Go there, the windows are broken, the roofs leak, the facilities stink and so on. There is nothing left but romantic memories. Memories of dreams we may have dreamed sometime. Hubert I think Roberto visits Mandello almost every year... But I have to agree with Hubert; although it's a shame that the Mandello factory will dissapear, it isn't suited as a proper motorcycle factory anymore.
luhbo Posted July 19, 2009 Posted July 19, 2009 I think Roberto visits Mandello almost every year... But I have to agree with Hubert; although it's a shame that the Mandello factory will dissapear, it isn't suited as a proper motorcycle factory anymore. That's the point. A motorcycle factory is no romantic opera scenery. It's just money, money spent or money earned. And in fact all or at least most of the buildings were already sold years ago, guess for what reason. Why not move the manufacturing to Pontedera or Noale and keep some smaller things like a maybe expanded museum (remember the pic of McGuzzi) and a good merchandising shop in the front buildings with the big red door, put a dependance from the also sold Agostini or from Stucchi or both into the former race or test shops for instance and all would be good. Things like that. It's just a matter of having some proper marketing ideas if you want to keep Mandello/Guzzi alive and worth visiting. Hubert
roberto tenni Posted July 22, 2009 Posted July 22, 2009 Roberto, you for sure have not been in Mandello the last 30 years or so. What you write is just not true, or you are blind? Mandello is a nice town, yes, but what you call a motorcycle factory is just a sad relict of maybe better years in the middle of the last century. Go there, the windows are broken, the roofs leak, the facilities stink and so on. There is nothing left but romantic memories. Memories of dreams we may have dreamed sometime. Hubert I ride to Mandello every year and there is nothing wrong with my sight. Whilst Guzzi no longer make their own castings, they do assemble bikes at Mandello and there is nothing wrong with the buildings in which this takes place. The empty, badly maintained buildings are no longer used - except for storage. What they need to make motorcycles already exists at the Mandello site - with room for expansion. But this is not the problem - the fundamental issue is that they are not selling enough bikes - perhaps not enough to be viable in the eyes of Piaggio who have Vespas, MP3's etc flying out the showrooms of the world. Under the Piaggio umberella, Derby, Gilera, Vespa have the small engines covered whilst Aprillia have the sports range. That leaves cruisers... . My concern is that it will be Mandello or nothing. But perhaps you are right and everything will be shipped to Pontedera from Mandello - to continue assembling motorcycles which are being assembled at Mandello with assembly lines moved from Mandello to Pontedera? The Mandello site may be a prime property development prospect.
GuzziMoto Posted July 22, 2009 Posted July 22, 2009 I ride to Mandello every year and there is nothing wrong with my sight.Whilst Guzzi no longer make their own castings, they do assemble bikes at Mandello and there is nothing wrong with the buildings in which this takes place. The empty, badly maintained buildings are no longer used - except for storage. What they need to make motorcycles already exists at the Mandello site - with room for expansion. But this is not the problem - the fundamental issue is that they are not selling enough bikes - perhaps not enough to be viable in the eyes of Piaggio who have Vespas, MP3's etc flying out the showrooms of the world. Under the Piaggio umberella, Derby, Gilera, Vespa have the small engines covered whilst Aprillia have the sports range. That leaves cruisers... . My concern is that it will be Mandello or nothing. But perhaps you are right and everything will be shipped to Pontedera from Mandello - to continue assembling motorcycles which are being assembled at Mandello with assembly lines moved from Mandello to Pontedera? The Mandello site may be a prime property development prospect. Well said. I would add that you can't run Guzzi the same way you would run Aprilia or Piaggio and expect it to work as well. In fact, out of all the other makes Piaggio owns, Guzzi has probably the most in common with Vespa. People do not buy Guzzis because they are the fastest or best in any given way. I bought mine (3 so far) because of the way they make me feel, the emotional connection to them. Their history and the fact that they are hand built in Mandello is part of that (to me).
Dimitris Posted July 28, 2009 Posted July 28, 2009 I wonder... Does Piaggio want to sell GUZZIs to much more people? Or is Piaggio satisfied, if GUZZI keeps selling only to those that they would buy a GUZZI, either way.. The answer will form the future plans...
roberto tenni Posted July 29, 2009 Posted July 29, 2009 I wonder... Does Piaggio want to sell GUZZIs to much more people? Or is Piaggio satisfied, if GUZZI keeps selling only to those that they would buy a GUZZI, either way.. The answer will form the future plans... They 100% want/need to sell more Guzzis to more people.
GuzziMoto Posted July 29, 2009 Posted July 29, 2009 Nooo....., the WANT to sell more Guzzi's to more people. They NEED to make a profit. The problem they have right now is that when deciding how much they can sell the new Guzzi's for they based their calculations on not how many they sold last year but how many they wanted to sell this year. That is a classic bean counter mistake. What they should have done is based the price of a new Guzzi on how many they sold last year (that would mean a higher price per bike) and if they sold more this year then they did last year they could adjust the price for next year to reflect that. Just food for thought, back in '93 my friend bought a new Daytona for $17,000 (he just sold it to me for a bit less). I bought my Griso for $14,000 in '06. No one wants to pay more for something, but selling a low volume hand built motorcycle for less today then it would have cost in '93 (not even taking into account what $17k was worth back then) is an odd business plan.
Skeeve Posted July 29, 2009 Posted July 29, 2009 Just food for thought, back in '93 my friend bought a new Daytona for $17,000 (he just sold it to me for a bit less). I bought my Griso for $14,000 in '06. No one wants to pay more for something, but selling a low volume hand built motorcycle for less today then it would have cost in '93 (not even taking into account what $17k was worth back then) is an odd business plan. This may be the worst anecdotal story in support of a contention that I have seen yet! Over a 15 year span, the exchange rates of AUS$ to lire, lire to EUros & finally AUS$ to EUros have [to put it mildly] varied widely. Not to mention that the factory was using much more man-hours per vehicle produced in '93 than they are today due to HUGE upgrades in physical plant over the intervening years by two "white knight" takeovers. Moreover, the economies of scale come into play when discussing the price of a motorcycle that had an entire production lifespan of what, Guzzimoto, you clearly have almost no grasp of economics whatsoever. Not that it's any worse than the suits running Piaggio, but until it is better, perhaps you shouldn't be riding your pricing horse? OTOH, I cannot fault your point that wishful thinking should not be the basis for production decisions.
GuzziMoto Posted July 29, 2009 Posted July 29, 2009 I'm sorry that what you read into my "food for thought" statement was so upsetting. But all I did was point out that my new Guzzi cost less to buy then what a friend paid for a new Guzzi in '93. I did not suggest that a new Guzzi should cost MORE then one did in '93, nor did I attempt to factor in what $17,000 was worth in '93 versus what $14,000 is worth today. Yes, they do buildmore Grisos today then they built Daytonas in '93. But as far as I know they likely actually made a profit selling Daytonas in'93 and they are not, apparently, making a profit selling Grisos today. My point was, since you did not seem to be able to grasp it the first time, is that in '93 they priced Guzzis based on how many they could sell much better then in todays Piaggio age where they based there margins on how many they wanted to sell. They set too low a price on the current bikes to make sufficient profit on them selling in the volume they sold. Period. They expected to increase sales by nearly 50% and based prices on that and instead sales were actually down from what I understand. Edit deleted
luhbo Posted July 29, 2009 Posted July 29, 2009 ..... They set too low a price on the current bikes to make sufficient profit on them selling in the volume they sold. Period. .... Well, that's one interesting approach Price it higher and next time I'll take two. But only if you cut the power output down to something reasonable. Godlike, thx .... Hubert
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