V85 motor secrets unveiled

[po18guy]

This current generation of smaller, less ambitious, hipster flannel Vs is the first out of Mandello del Lario that are genuine fakes. Intentional fakes. Costume bikes. Oh, one might point to the underachieving LM II and III etc, but it was not for lack of trying. Guzzi had zero cash, ever on the ropes as a seemingly endless succession of owners all pointing in different directions indifferently.  

Now that they have the money for a few diamonds, they are turning out rhinestones.

[Kremmen]

4 hours ago, pete roper said:

Guzzi gotta change....

I mean, it's looking like extinction at this rate, is it not? The official site lists the V85 and V7. And the 2017 California. The V9's existence is acknowledged in an intro/sneak peak article. How many models are really in production right now?

[jtucker]

On 10/13/2020 at 5:20 AM, pete roper said:

This is what Guzzi should be allowed to build. Not some sclerotic, wheezing, 2V air cooled shitbox.

But then Piaggio would be competing with themselves. Aprilia makes the sportbikes, and Moto Guzzi makes the "other stuff". Until MG has money to go their own way (not holding my breath) they are going to be relegated to their current niche by those controlling the purse strings.

__Jason

[pete roper]

And that is why, after forty years, they have lost me........

[po18guy]

I notice how it takes the Dr. John Wittners, the Erik Buells, the @#$$#! Fishers of this world to think far outside the box, to make progress with exciting, desirable motorcycles, and then to fade to obscurity after the powers that be stomp them out like a brush fire. 

[LowRyter]

I'm glad to read Mr Roper's opinions.  I tend to agree with them.  it would be nice if some of the Piaggio tech would find it's way to Mandello del Lario.   

 

 

[Lucky Phil]

14 minutes ago, LowRyter said:

I'm glad to read Mr Roper's opinions.  I tend to agree with them.  it would be nice if some of the Piaggio tech would find it's way to Mandello del Lario.   

 

 

If you want to know the whys and wherefores of the Aprilia/Piaggio influence on the history of Guzzi then get a copy of Dave Richardsons new book. Its an interesting tale of the influences there from someone that was pretty involved and connected to them.

Ciao

[Kremmen]

5 hours ago, jtucker said:

But then Piaggio would be competing with themselves. Aprilia makes the sportbikes, and Moto Guzzi makes the "other stuff". Until MG has money to go their own way (not holding my breath) they are going to be relegated to their current niche by those controlling the purse strings.

__Jason

Aprilia itself didn't think that way during their ownership of Guzzi. It's a stupid attitude; there is little overlap between Guzzi and Aprilia buyers and Aprilia clearly thought so too - they kicked off the Griso and almost got the MGS-01 out the door. I’ve always suspected a not-invented-here, compartmentalising, corporate-drone mindset at Piaggio was more to blame for that fail than Euro compliance, power concerns etc etc. The bike obviously got some way towards production – they changed from a fabricated steel tank to a plastic one, and the gearbox part to which the swingarm mounts was eventually changed to a die-cast piece instead of CNC.

Would you bother with even that much development for a bike you were only going to make a hundred of? Something changed, it changed around the time Piaggio took over, and it changed *despite the company knowing they had a lot of enthusiastic buyers lined up*.

That still pisses me off, then they stuffed about with all the other teases since then that led to nothing. I’m about ready to give up on them too. I’ll hold out hope for some exciting 100^th anniversary announcements, but not a lot.

[Lucky Phil]

1 hour ago, Kremmen said:

Aprilia itself didn't think that way during their ownership of Guzzi. It's a stupid attitude; there is little overlap between Guzzi and Aprilia buyers and Aprilia clearly thought so too - they kicked off the Griso and almost got the MGS-01 out the door. I’ve always suspected a not-invented-here, compartmentalising, corporate-drone mindset at Piaggio was more to blame for that fail than Euro compliance, power concerns etc etc. The bike obviously got some way towards production – they changed from a fabricated steel tank to a plastic one, and the gearbox part to which the swingarm mounts was eventually changed to a die-cast piece instead of CNC.

Would you bother with even that much development for a bike you were only going to make a hundred of? Something changed, it changed around the time Piaggio took over, and it changed *despite the company knowing they had a lot of enthusiastic buyers lined up*.

That still pisses me off, then they stuffed about with all the other teases since then that led to nothing. I’m about ready to give up on them too. I’ll hold out hope for some exciting 100^th anniversary announcements, but not a lot.

 

 

If you read the book I've mentioned you will realise what a waste of mental effort the reasoning in this post is. As an example Richardson talks of industrial crates loads of many, many hundreds if not thousands of cast parts for bikes that never made production and were never going to. Thats right, never going too. If you think you can apply some sort of logical reasoning to how the Italians run their operations with all the intricacies of not only family connections, political connections, political back room subsidies and local politics and unions then you are misguided. It's a total waste of mental energy and the only way to even understand 20% of it is you need to have a long standing and close personal relationship within these organisations.

Dont waste anymore time in thinking, just buy the book and learn a few of the machinations and then you will understand how pointless trying to apply any logic here really is.

"Oh they did this so they obviously had a plan for that" Nope. Had no plan at all, period. They had their castings done locally and someone owed someone or the local government needed the casting plant to stay open because a federal subsidy to maintain local employment hinged on it, etc, etc ,etc. Pick any scenario you can think of and then see why from Australia trying to apply Anglo logic is laughable.

I've known people dealing with the Italians in business for 40 years, none of it surprises me anymore. How would you like to open a container of parts you ordered from Italy, went over there and personally negotiated with them and when the container arrives 25% of the contents are stuff you didn't order and have no hope of selling. Real oddball stuff of limited if any value. How did this happen? well because when the order was fulfilled and the container loaded some of the things weren't available, no stock. So what do you do? Its all paid for? well you just supply whatever other stuff you have around at the time to the same or similar value in your eyes and send it off. There's some logic for you to apply at a corporate motorcycle industry scale. 

 

Ciao

[Kremmen]

Oh, yeah. Italy.

Fair point. I forgot.

[Kremmen]

I mean, you sorta think, it's the north...maybe some kind of semblance of organisation. That's the most industrial, functional part of the country, right? Ha. Must be completely maddening for dealers.

[Kremmen]

Even less reason to continue holding out any hope, then.

Oh well, off to TLM to plonk down stupid amounts on an Ohlins part I'll almost certainly never get to use.

[Emeraldv11]

We were in Mandello a dozen or so years ago for the first time, myself on my old T5, (still going strong with ALL its original electrics, never seen the valves or the pistons after 35 years and 120000 km) and my friend on his Rosso Mandello.

Just after arriving in the Abbadia Lariana campsite we sat at the bar for a beer.

This young lad in Guzzi overalls arrives and ask my friend: 'You want Ohlins? 100 euros!'

He went out and came back with a brand new back shock.After getting his money he said:' Want another one?' and off he went for it.

Northern Italy works in marvellous and mysterious ways!...

[footgoose]

I used to ride often with a small group that chased the high tech and high power formats. They had to upgrade every couple years to keep up with the times and each other. Some nice, fast machines. But for colors, they all looked the same to me.

I bought the Tenni new knowing it was out of date, parts of it were very out of date. I hope Guzzi makes it as a company, but if they fail, so be it. Regarding new bikes, All brands lost me some time ago. Too many great deals on used out there to suffer the serious depreciation of new.  That, and I don't see any mfg bringing to market a new offering that would make me happy enough to buy.  A V85TT minus 100# and I'd go have a look.

 

[po18guy]

It is said that there will always be an England. That aside, there will certainly always be an Italy - their disorder has become such an ingrained structure that it cannot collapse upon itself.