SPAGHETTI WESTERN

The Moto Guzzi California had the unfair criticism of representing a marketing exercise designed to simply cash in on some of the success enjoyed by a certain brand from Milwaukee in the USA. It has to be said that none of this was helped by the name chosen by the marketers at Guzzi’s Mandello HQ all those years ago.

Of course, there can be no doubt there are Harley design cues inherent in the bike, and offering a European cruiser gave Harley-leaning buyers another option, but the Cali gains its own identity and credibility due to the length of the bike’s production run. Indeed, the first Cali landed right back in 1972, known as the 850 California.

The bike featured the then-new Tonti frame. Engineered