Of all Italy’s many defunct marques now to be found in the freezer section of motorcycling’s history store, Laverda is almost certainly the most popular. It has loyal fans all over the world from the USA to Italy, Australia to the Netherlands and the UK to South Africa still hoping it isn’t dead: just resting after the last such bike bearing this historic name was built in 1999. The array of models produced by the firm over its half-century of existence from 1949 onwards continue to exert heartfelt appeal, as manifested by the sea of orange rolling over the Varano circuit north-west of Parma each spring.
That’s when from all over Europe, headed by ex-company principal Piero Laverda and his son
