FROM ERITREA TO TENNESSEE
Sometimes the stories behind vintage motorcycles are as interesting and compelling as the bikes themselves. This is one of those times.
The persistence and talents of one man have resurrected not one, but two discarded, forlorn prewar Moto Guzzis found in a distant corner of the world. This epic began in 1968 when a 20-year-old Army-enlisted man from Tennessee named Spencer Graves was assigned to duty in Asmara, Eritrea. Eritrea became an Italian colony in 1889 and, under the hand of dictator Benito Mussolini, the capital of Asmara was greatly expanded beginning in the early 1920s. With over half of the capital’s 98,000 residents being native-born Italians, there were of course many Italian products, including motorcycles, as we shall see.
Early in his deployment, Spencer found a 1939 Moto Guzzi 500 GTS in sad condition, not running with many missing and cannibalized parts, following nearly 30 years of neglect. Shortly after acquiring the Guzzi, a fellow soldier sold him the sidecar off of
