Rimini, Italy, 1950s. Every Sunday an Italian boy walks from his house to the barber for his weekly trim. The barber always talks to the boy about his great passion: Gilera. His shop is full of race photos of the famous brand located in the northern Italian city of Arcore, not far from the Monza circuit.
The barber shop is a meeting point for bike enthusiasts. Customers linger as every race, every parts update and every rider are analysed. The boy listens in amazement. The barber’s favourite rider is Geoff Duke because thanks to Duke, he says, the Gilera Quattros received a new chassis. And because of that, they won world title after world title… The boy never forgot those stories.
In 1960 at the age of 17 he got his first job at a Piaggio dealer in Pontedera. He enjoyed working with metal and repairing scooters and motorcycles, and was good at it all. A few years later he met two people, Valerio Bianchi and Giuseppe Morri and a friendship developed. In 1966 the three friends founded a new company called Bimota, which came from a combination of the first two letters of the last name of the three friends, Bianchi, Morri and the young boy who used to visit the barber every Sunday, Massimo Tamburini.
While it is often believed that in the early days Bimota only built motorcycle components and frames, in fact the company manufactured air conditioners and heating systems in 1966. This changed in 1971 when Massimo bought a secondhand MV Agusta 600. The MV’s four-cylinder engine resembled
