THE TANGERINE DREAM
Unlike its much bigger 1970s rivals Ducati or Moto Guzzi, Laverda was never a major standalone motorcycle manufacturer, with the Italian firm’s bike division always just a spinoff from its agri-machinery core business. But thanks mainly to the passion of Massimo Laverda, who took over responsibility for Moto Laverda in 1964 at the tender age of 25, the family-owned firm produced a stream of high performance models, of which its iconic 750SFC parallel-twin tangerine dream was both the most prestigious to own, and the most successful on the race track. Just 549 examples were built during 1971-76, out of the 19,000 parallel-twin 650/750cc Laverdas manufactured before their mid-70s replacement by the one-litre triples and 500cc twins.
Laverda began life in 1873 manufacturing farming implements, wine-making machinery and the clocks surmounting the copious campanile bell-towers that are a trademark feature of its Veneto home region’s landscape. In 1905, founder Pietro Laverda moved his workshop to Breganze, a little town outside Vicenza, where in the 1930s Laverda became one Italy’s leading agri-machinery manufacturers. But with the chronic need for personal transportation in post-WW2 Italy fuelling a booming market for small-capacity bikes, in 1949 this was joined by a separate motorcycle company founded by Pietro Laverda’s grandson, Francesco. He’d begun designing his own such motorcycle in 1947, assisted by one of the company’s engineers, Luciano Zen, featuring a girder-forked pressed steel frame housing Laverda’s own ohv four-stroke 75cc engine, with a fully enclosed chain final drive reportedly to allay the fears of its first customer, the local priest, that his cassock might catch in it!
The Moto Laverda 75 entered production in October 1949, and swiftly gained a devoted following thanks to its robust yet sporting qualities. These were underlined when, almost inevitably, the firm began racing its products in 1951. But, unlike most of his competitors, Francesco Laverda opted to concentrate on gruelling long distance events like the Milano-Taranto and Motogiro, as best displaying his bikes’ inherent qualities of durability coupled with performance. It was a philosophy that would underpin Laverda’s entire competition history.
This strategy found immediate success, with Laverdas occupying the first five places in the 1410km-long Milano-Taranto single-stage marathon’s 75cc class in 1952, following up with the first 14 places in 1953. The debut of a larger 98cc model saw
