I am fortunate to own these three machines. All Italian. One a parallel twin, another a V-twin, and the third an inline four. All 1970s-era machines which reflect elements of the 1950s, 60s and offer a preview of the 80s. Two 350s and one 250; red being the dominant colour. I thought it would be worthwhile to compare the marques and machines…
I've owned the 1973 MV since 2019, when it had 20,133 miles on the speedometer. It came from the UK's Made In Italy Motorcycles, having been imported by the previous owner some years before. I was happy to get the dual seat along with the racing seat. But the bike was obviously not original, as the front forks and drum brake had been replaced by the forks and front disc from a Yamaha XS400D! I had to rebuild the calliper and it took a while to figure out what it was. One day I hope to replace the front end with an original.
The MV was also missing several steering head bearings, but worse, the fixing nut was stripped. Hang on, it wasn't: rather the steering stem's threads had worn away! Happily, Ray, one of my friends from the Canadian Vintage Motorcycle Group (from whom I had purchased a Jota back in 2013), made me a new stem.
There are some other differences from stock, the exhaust headers for example, a design I quite like. But once I sorted all this out, installed a new battery and mounted a set of Avon
