The book that absolutely every Guzziste need to have in his personal library: Moto Guzzi 1921 - 2021

[Lucky Phil]

2 hours ago, docc said:

So, I received the new Falloon book today. It is nicely printed and large format (much larger than the May 1999 Falloon book I have). A very nice "coffee table book" with large, mostly color images (many that are new to me).

I recall the inaccuracies about the V11 Sport in the 1999 book, but forgave them as it was all new and largely unknown. It is a frank disappointment to read those same inaccuracies twenty years on!  When I read errors about something that I know about, it casts doubt on information about other models I am not familiar with. So, alas, "not a reference book."

The second place (after the early V11 Sport) I look to assess an author's knowledge of Moto Guzzi is their discussion of the development of the big block V-twin. In the 1999 work, I gave credit that Falloon declared Carcano's " . . . Fiat engine can really be considered the predecessor of the V7 . . ."  This 2020 edition states "The engine powering the V7 was descended from the earlier Fiat and 3x3 . . ."

What a load of crap! What absolutely deplorable journalism. This is the kind disinformation that perpetuated the "tractor motor" myth in Mick Walker's, and now Falloon's, series of progressively less accurate books. Thank goodness for Greg Field!!

[Rant over. For now.]  Nice picture book!     

Now I am anxious to hear what @p6x finds in this MotoItaliane pubication . . .

What I find hopeless docc is when a caption on an image describes something fitted that actually isn't. You dont need to be a Guzzi expert to see when a front brake isn't fitted on an old 1920's motorcycle but the caption goes to great lengths to highlight the fact it has the "optional" front brake, hopeless. I have just genuinely skimmed the text in this book so I'm not looking at it in detail. I also noted an image of a Mk4 lemans described with black rocker covers for the year model. My friend had one which we collected from Agostinis in Mandello in 86 and I can tell you they were a very dark blue, not black.

Falloon lives in Melbourne, I should track him down and give him some feedback.

Ciao 

[docc]

1 hour ago, Lucky Phil said:

What I find hopeless docc is when a caption on an image describes something fitted that actually isn't. You dont need to be a Guzzi expert to see when a front brake isn't fitted on an old 1920's motorcycle but the caption goes to great lengths to highlight the fact it has the "optional" front brake, hopeless. I have just genuinely skimmed the text in this book so I'm not looking at it in detail. I also noted an image of a Mk4 lemans described with black rocker covers for the year model. My friend had one which we collected from Agostinis in Mandello in 86 and I can tell you they were a very dark blue, not black.

Falloon lives in Melbourne, I should track him down and give him some feedback.

Ciao 

Interesting. It is my observation that captioned images, and their subsequent interpretations, are part&parcel of the stupid "tractor motor" debacle among other poor archiving.

Falloon's earlier work (2007, Moto Guzzi Sport & LeMans Bible) detailed the V7 (big block V-twin) in good detail. So disappointing that the latest work devolves. Why?!?

[rosso corsa]

If you already own the 2017 edition of Falloon's "Complete History", his 2020 "centennial" edition is a disappointment as it is only an update of the 2017 one (i.e. same text and pictures for everything pré-2017). Is that all that could be done to mark the 100th anniversary? Similar to previous editions, the section on the varies V11 special series remains disappointingly succinct....

[docc]

On 12/28/2020 at 7:34 PM, p6x said:

I got a reply from MotoItaliane yesterday;

They confirmed the sale and will ship the book.

At this point, I would advocate to purchase directly from them rather than Amazon.it. The shipping is only 5 EUR compared to Amazon's 29....

 

I do not see, in the order process, how to specify the English printing of the MotoItaliane book (?)

[docc]

On 1/2/2021 at 5:22 PM, docc said:

I do not see, in the order process, how to specify the English printing of the MotoItaliane book (?)

p6x tells me the book is in both Italian and English in the same printing. I see in the description, now: "italiane e inglese (Multilingue)".

Apparently, it not a typical sequence of models, but more focused on the history and people of Moto Guzzi. I am ordering my copy for "the library."

FWIW, I really have been enjoying Falloon's new book, in spite of some of the disappointments. I'm pretty bad about spending most of my time just looking at the pictures. Something I picked up from certain periodicals that others claimed they got "for the articles" . . . 

[docc]

My MotoItaliane book arrived today after about four weeks only (shipped from The Netherlands). Looking forward to enjoying more about Moto Guzzi.

Thanks, p6x, for the recommendation!

[docc]

With around forty delightful illustrations by Ettore Gambioli, the book is worthwhile for just that.

The authors have their editorial license to their opinions, of course. That they say that the Centauro  ". . . practically marked the disappearance of Moto Guzzi sports bikes until the advent of the MGS-01" might not set particularly well with this reader, but I accept their focus.  They nearly fell into the V-twin origins trap mentioning the "3x3 army vehicle" in their attribution to Giulio Carcano, but pulled it out with a decent account of the V-twin development in a later section.

Some interesting insights and fresh prospective on the long history of Moto Guzzi.

[Lucky Phil]

13 minutes ago, docc said:

With around forty delightful illustrations by Ettore Gambioli, the book is worthwhile for just that.

The authors have their editorial license to their opinions, of course. That they say that the Centauro  ". . . practically marked the disappearance of Moto Guzzi sports bikes until the advent of the MGS-01" might not set particularly well with this reader, but I accept their focus.  They nearly fell into the V-twin origins trap mentioning the "3x3 army vehicle" in their attribution to Giulio Carcano, but pulled it out with a decent account of the V-twin development in a later section.

Some interesting insights and fresh prospective on the long history of Moto Guzzi.

Great illustrator docc, I'm so envious of people with artistic talent as i have none. I'm a very harsh marker of motorcycle books I'm afraid. Any technical mistake and it's dead to me. No point telling an historical story with the factual errors. Same as it's pointless reading Biography's of world leaders until all the official documents have been released after 50 years. Read recently a Bio on Churchill and was reminded of this. I'm currently being educated on WW2 fighter aircraft which I had a passion for as a boy. Now with the internet I'm actually learning a lot of actual facts about them and WW2 that just wasn't available at that time. Changes things quite a bit in reality.

Ciao