EUROPEAN CLASSIC BIKES HAVE SO much to offer. As a rule, you are looking at mid-1960s through to the late 1990s, so they are more able to live with modern life than older British bikes. They are largely left-foot gearchange like modern bikes, metric fittings, and parts should be available if they were imported to the UK when new. Look to the East for budget bikes with a get-me-home hardness and wonderful clubs, to the south for Italian chic and exotic race pedigree, or to Germany for quality, high-mileage touring. Small bikes are great fun; large bikes are what filled posters – especially in the 1970s.
Do your homework. What would suit you? Can you get parts? Is there a good club which might provide help? Were they imported originally to the UK? Certain makes changed parts annually; will this cause an issue if you have an incomplete bike? Talk to people, to clubs, forums, and owners. These largely selfless folk will help you with what to look for, what to avoid, and show how you’ll enjoy ownership. There are European bikes out there to suit everyone, but a little prep will mean much less hassle afterwards.
Prices are in flux, especially at the moment, so our figures are a rough guide only: there will always be a bargain in a shed and an owner/ dealer asking for the moon on a stick. Buy because you like it, not because someone says it’s an investment – unless you believe in magic beans. Do. Your. Homework. It’ll be worth it, we promise.
AERMACCHI HARLEY-DAVIDSON
Aermacchi began life as aircraft manufacturer Macchi before the First World War. After the Second World War, the company began motorcycle production, producing very fast, small motorcycles for the Italian market on the shores of Lake Varese, where Ducati would make the first 916. In 1960, Harley-Davidson, searching for a source of small-capacity bikes, bought half of Aermacchi. In 1973, H-D bought the rest of the company and went into producing a range of two-stroke singles, before selling out to Cagiva, which used the leftover H-D/Aermacchi range to establish a foothold in the Italian market, with motorcycles continuing to be made at Varese.
The four-strokes Chimera
172cc OHV single, 300lb, 60mph 1956-1960
The four-stroke Aermacchis began with the Chimera. A delightful period piece, the Chimera saw Aermacchi adopt full enclosure with more success than the British, and the bike has a distinct 1950s space-age look. Only a few hundred were made.
Prices
Low, £3500; high, £6000
Ala Verde, Sprint and others
249/344cc OHV single, 320lb, 90mph, 1960-1974
These singles became the first Harley-Davidson branded Aermacchis. Great little bikes with a spine frame and a laid-down four-stroke engine that’s a fantastic bit of engineering. The singles can propel riders at remarkable speeds, and racing versions killed off the big British thumpers in club racing. As road bikes, they came in classic Italian or fake American clothing. In 1969 the 250 became a 350 and in 1972 it got a rather strange cradle frame, a fifth gear, and a troublesome electric start. Never officially imported to the United Kingdom, with most of the production going to the US, these are now making their way back across the Atlantic. Racers are very fast indeed.
Prices
Low, £2500; high, £4000
The two-strokes SS/SST/SX 125-350cc
124/174/242/341cc two-stroke single, 250-280lb, 70-90mph, 1974-1982
A range of rorty two-stroke singles badged as Harley-Davidson and sold alongside Sportsters and Electra Glides. Not especially popular, the singles were good-looking little machines with a fair turn of speed and decent handling but suffered from poor quality control and an indifferent finish, with bikes rusting quickly. Parts are scarce in the UK, but a good one will definitely turn heads, with the trail bike versions the best bet. They also made a tiddler X90 version which was popular with patriotic US Winnebago owners who could not bear seeing a Honda hanging off the back of their RV.
Prices
Low, £1000; high, £3500
APRILIA
Aprilia was established in 1945 as a bicycle factory and built its first moped in 1968. It also made lights and switches for other Italian manufacturers. By 1975, it was producing a range of machines with motors from Motori Morini Franco, Sachs, Rotax, and Hiro, including some championship-winning motocrossers. The brand really reached public attention when it took on the major Japanese GP teams with 125cc and 250cc Rotax two-stroke twins, winning both championships in 1994. The 1980s saw a wide range of sporty two-stroke street racers, two-stroke trail bikes, and some ugly two-stroke US custom-style variants. In the late 1980s it made the Tuareg Adventure sports bike with a Rotax single engine, which was a bit too tall, and the more practical Pegaso, also with a Rotax engine, which was later fitted with the same motor BMW chose for its F650.
Pegaso 600/650
652cc 5v OHC single, 385lb, 1990-98
The Pegaso was one of the neatest bikes to come out of Aprilia in its early years. A decent dual-purpose single, it works well on the road and marginally well on the dirt. Smartly styled and eschewing the garish fashions of many an Italian machine at the time, combined with a well-built Austrian engine, the Pegaso was widely praised on launch in 1990 and even more so when it became a 650 in 1995. A reasonably priced early dual-sport, but also check out the excellent BMW F650.
Prices
Low, £600; high, £2500
Moto 6.5
649cc OHC single, 300lb, 95mph, 1995-2002
A real oddity, the Moto was styled by Phillipe Starck, designer of the famous orange squeezer. Intended to cut a dash on city streets, the Moto 6.5 had a lower seat than the street/trail Pegaso but found few buyers, being altogether too odd. After being heavily discounted by Aprilia to clear unsold stocks, it became briefly popular with London dispatch riders, who promptly thrashed it to death but proved that it was a practical proposition as city bike. Bodywork panels will be hard to find.
Prices
Low, £1000; high, £2500
BENELLI/MOTOBI
The Benelli story began in Pesaro in 1920 when the Benelli family made their first engine, a 75cc two-stroke. The following year they built a Benelli motorcycle, powered by a 98cc powerplant. Benelli built race-winning competition bikes throughout the 1920s and 1930s, winning a TT in 1939. The factory was bombed during the Second World War, but Benelli returned and by 1962 employed 550 people and produced some 300 motorcycles a day.
Benelli bikes were badged as Wards Riverside in the USA and sold through the Mongomery Ward department store chain.
Motobi, meanwhile, was founded in
