Guzzi Literature

[Skeeve]

I've been having some fun lately, reading some books on Guzzi history. To keep this short & sweet, I'll provide capsule reviews using the following short hand:

 

OG: "Old Guzzi" - basically, this is history of the company before the V7 in more detail than highlights of the racing "firsts" like the TT wins and the 1956 V8

 

V2: History of our favorite engine (Carcano motor) in full detail.

 

S2: History of the small-block twins (Tonti motor) as more than an "oh yeah..."

 

MMM: Promotes the Myth of the Mechanical Mule as being the precursor to the V7 line.

 

MOTO GUZZI - Forza in Movimiento, David G. Styles

160pp, pbk.

V2

I really like the title; I think it translates to "Moto Guzzi, power in motion" but that's just a guess. Despite this being physically the smallest of the books reviewed here, it is hands down the best written, with enough detail on the company history & OG material to provide a good foundation but clearly focuses on the descendants of the Carcano designed/Tonti improved V2 line. If you're only going to read one book on Guzzi & don't have much time to do it in, this is the one to pick.

 

Moto Guzzi Big Twins, Greg Field

128pp, pbk.

V2

As the title implies, this book is very focused on the V7 & its descendants, up to the 4-valve Hi-Cam motor. Copyright is 1998, so it's timeline ends with the Centauro. It goes into more detail than the others on the development of the spine frame Guzzis, with some great 1st-person narrative by Dr. John incorporated in the text.

 

MOTO GUZZI V-Twins, Mick Walker

192pp, hbk.

V2, S2, MMM

The production quality of this book is excellent, with some of the best photographs and the only one in hardcover. The author provides a lot of information particular to the U.K. market, as he was the importer or worked with the importer for that market for many years. Unfortunately, it seems like he keeps bringing up that detail, as if he needs to prove his authority? I don't know, maybe it's just perceptual. The book is a bit of a dry read, as it provides too much technical detail on each model it covers by including a page of tech specs on each model variant; this just uses space, altho' it is undoubtedly useful for someone doing a restoration to make certain they get the right carbs, color, etc. It is also written in an almost "textbook" fashion, with a lot of sidebars that actually contain the most interesting bits of data kept apart from the flow of the text.

Where this book shines is in its coverage of the Tonti small twins, which get relatively short shrift in the other books.

 

80 years of MOTO GUZZI motorcycles, Mario Colombo, translated by A. McEwen & W. McManus

446pp, pbk.

V2, S2, OG, MMM

This is a large format coffee-table book, covering the entire history of the company in almost exhaustive detail. If you need an encyclopedia of Guzzi, this is it. However, be warned that it makes several technical errors repeatedly throughout: I don't know if it was the original writer (who was clearly an historian) who didn't grasp the difference or the translators, but it constantly confuses "over-square" and "under-square" engine designs, and is inconsistent in the notation of the associated bore & stroke dimensions. To illustrate: the original prototype GP with a bore & stroke of 88x82 millimeters is refered to as "undersquare," and in other places in the text when dealing with changes to the stroke it will list the change occuring in the first figure (ie, the bore dimension.) If it did so consistently, then the reader could work around the incorrect nomenclature (provided they even care & don't just blip over the data), but since the text can't decide whether it wants to list the dimensions as bore x stroke or stroke x bore, it just makes the reader confused. But that's all just back seat to the photos: this is really a photo history, primarily black & white, but with a wonderful section of color plates featuring some of the milestone models placed in the middle of the book.

 

Anyway, that's my take on these books, and if you're going to read them all in succession, do them in the opposite order than I did! By saving the biggest for last, I wound up reading the same facts I'd already gotten from the smaller books but in a dry, detailed, historical timeline format, making it hard to wade through that behemoth book.

 

Ride on!

[Skeeve]

PS:

 

The Perfect Vehicle

(sorry, I don't have the book handy right now for page count, author, etc. info...]

 

This isn't really a book about Moto Guzzi, other than as a catalyst for the author's voyage of self-discovery and the driving force behind some of her life-changing choices. The moto press made a big deal about the title referring to the author's Moto Guzzi [small block], but other than a framework upon which to hang a tale, there's really not much of interest to the Guzzisti here.

 

I can get enough feminine angst from other sources. It's well-written, but other than that I can't recommend it.

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