THE JEWEL OF BREGANZE
The 500 Laverda twins come in various flavours, based on the same extremely robust engine. In UK the civilised road version was called the Alpino. For reasons no one seems to understand, other that the American tendency to avoid anything NIH (Not Invented Here), the very same model morphs into the Zeta in the USA. The hotted-up version was called the Montjuic after its race success held in Barcelona’s Montjuic park. Then came the Formula 500 which is the same thing with full race fairing and completely open exhaust.
Last but certainly not least there is the lovely 350 version. This was an Italian tax-dodge exercise whereby a 350 attracted considerably less purchase tax. We sold a handful of 350s in England but they cost the factory as much to build as the 500 with larger pistons, so there was very little interest. All were built like Swiss watches and have a well-earned reputation for being bulletproof.
There’s proof for these claims – the small twin holds the fastest lap on the Isle of Man by a Laverda at 105mph. So reliable were these twins that there was a race class in Italy solely for privateers running their own Formula 500s. It was a 40-bike sea of orange on the start line. The 500 twins were first and second in their class in the Barcelona 24 hour race, not once but on two consecutive years. The two bikes involved were the very same ones for both years; they were not replacements or rebuilds. The winning bike was ridden by my old pal Pete Davies and Agusto Brettoni. I was part of the factory team
