Dune respects: One of the many Paris-dakar bikes at the Dune Motor collection
These two gentlemen are hosts of the unique Dune Motor collection, dedicated to the thundering conquerors of the dune-covered wilderness – rally-raid bikes
Located between anonymous factory buildings in Villasanta, near Milan, Dune Motor is a 300 square-metre shrine, crammed on two floors with around 100 racing bikes, parts and memorabilia. They’re all from the golden era of the ‘rally-raid’ – the ’80s and early ’90s, the time of evocative races like the Paris-dakar Rally, Rallye de Maroc and the Rallye des Pharaons. Every square centimetre of the walls is decorated with pictures and posters, with walls full of photo albums and photo boxes, and endless collections of motorbike magazines, souvenirs and glass flacons full of desert sand.
The Paris-dakar Rally was the brainchild of Frenchman Thierry Sabine, a rally car driver who had become lost in the Ténéré desert in 1975 while competing in the Abidjan-nice rally. This experience gave him the idea of organising a race in which competitors crossed the Sahara desert –an endurance test from the French capital to Dakar, the capital of Sengal.
The Paris-dakar is the most famous ‘rally-raid’ – a general description for a long-distance off-road rally of up to 15 days in duration, although it can be as short as two to three days. For bikes, cars and trucks, rally-raids differ from normal car-type rallies in that there is no prior recce of the stages beforehand – and the event roadbook is only supplied just before the event, so the competitors have to rely on navigational skills as well as their riding skills to succeed.
The Dakar was primarily for cars and trucks, but a class for off-road motorcycles was fuelled by the French and Italian passion for big trail bikes that had gained popularity since the launch of Yamaha’s XT500 in 1975.
The inaugural Paris-dakar started on Boxing Day, 1978 and finished in the new year after 6200 gruelling desert miles that saw just 74 of the 182 vehicles (bikes, cars and trucks) complete the course. The event had captured the hearts of adventure-loving petrolheads the world over, attracting 90 motorcycle entries. Frenchman Cyril Neveu won the bike class riding a Yamaha XT500, from Gilles Comte on another XT, with Phillippe Vassard taking third on a Honda XL250. The three of them beat the first car to the finish.
Angelo Caprotti and Filippo Colombo, co-hosts of the Dune Motor collection, met in the late 1980s. Caprotti had already set off for his first trip to Tamanrasset in 1978 on a Yamaha XT500. He was never really interested in the desert races, but was addicted to the landscapes, the poetry of the vastness and the pure adventure it represented back then.
In 1988 he started a job at the former Italian Yamaha importer, Belgarda, in the production department. During his holidays he made a total of 46 bike trips to Africa, 15 of them together with his colleague and friend Filippo Colombo, who had worked as a test rider at Belgarda from 1985.
Thanks to his job, Caprotti was able to build the perfect adventure bike for African trips. Using a Yamaha TT600 59X as a starting point, he transplanted an XT600 engine – complete with its more robust gearbox and 12-volt electrics – into the rolling chassis and topped it off with an oversize Belgarda fuel tank with an integrated air box.
Caprotti had a magical encounter in the desert on his way back from Algeria in the autumn of 1986. “I was stranded with a broken front wheel on my TT600 and happened to
‘IN THE ’80s JAPANESE FACTORIES SCRAPPED FACTORY BIKES... BUT ANGELO AND FILIPPO DIVERTED SOME BIKES FROM THE CRUSHER’
come across Jean-claude Olivier – the managing director of the French Yamaha importer Sonauto, known as JCO – who was testing the prototypes for the 1987 Dakar in Algeria. He gave me the front wheel from a factory bike, which enabled me to ride home to Italy,” he says, thankfully.
In the ’80s it was common practice for Japanese factories to scrap factory bikes once the racing season was over. Angelo and Filippo found this destruction of motorsport works of art unbearable, so whenever the opportunity arose they diverted the bikes from the crusher and into their collection.
At Dune Motor you’ll find the 1981 XT550 factory machine, in classic blue Sonauto livery, which was ridden by Frenchman Serge Bacou, along with the XT583 on which Andrea Balestrieri came 24th, becoming the first Italian to finish a Dakar in ’83.
Says Caprotti: “The bike was basically a stock XT550 with the addition of longer forks and a different shock. Giovanni Buratti, a well-known Yamaha dealer from Parma, prepared the three bikes for Balestrieri, Alessandro Zanichelli and Paolo Bergamaschi. It had a giant fuel tank from Acerbis and reinforcements to the rear subframe including a luggage rack. Assistance during the race was provided by motorcycle Grand Prix racer Gianfranco Bonera, who had trouble keeping up with the bikes. Bergamaschi crashed out of the race in France and Zanichelli broke the rear shock in the Ténéré desert. Balestrieri became a hero for being the first Italian to finish the Dakar on a motorcycle!”
The first bike built by Belgarda, however, was a TT600 with an XT600Z Ténéré tank, which Balestrieri rode in the 1983 Rallye des Pharaons. For the 1984 Dakar Rally, it was fitted with an air filter integrated into the top of the fuel tank and took Balestrieri to Dakar in seventh place.
“This bike was a big step ahead compared to the previous year’s XT550,” explains Filippo. “The fuel was better distributed around the bike, allowing for much better ergonomics and an overall better balance of the bike. The modern Monocross rear end was a big improvement – and with the addition of a front disc brake just bolted onto the original forks, the bike was better suited to going fast on gravel roads. The top air filter at the rear of the fuel tank breathed much better than the stock version and access was way easier.”
For the 1985 Dakar, Daniele Papi took over the team management and completely reorganised the crew. Sensationally, the three riders – Franco Picco, Giampaolo Marinoni and Gianpiero Findanno – were in the lead on the rest day in Agadez on January 11, almost 5500km into the race.
Suddenly the whole motorsport world became interested Yamaha Italy’s factory team. Franco Picco recalls: “It was my first Dakar and thanks to my motocross experience I had no trouble riding the thumper in Africa. But navigation was a real big challenge – I had no idea about it and just waited for a faster rider to follow. [Hubert] Auriol was the best one to learn from; ironically, [Gaston] Rahier, another motocross star, was not good at all. During the first stages in Africa, we lost the two service trucks and the pick-up due to transmission problems. Our team manager Daniel Papi organised some locals to carry the spare parts all the way through the Algerian Sahara in their Peugeot 404 station-wagon taxis.
“External assistance was illegal, so our mechanics dressed up like Touaregs to get the spare parts out of the taxis, waiting a safe distance away from the bivouacs. I arrived at the finish of the third-to-last stage in the morning, leading the race, had a quick breakfast before lining up for the next stage – and found myself in second position at the starting line!
“Thierry Sabine had grown tired of our illegal assistance and was aiming for Gaston Rahier win on the BMW, which would give the TSO [Thierry Sabine Organisation} much more publicity. When I confronted him on the starting line, he said: ‘If you don’t accept this, your whole team will have to withdraw. Desolé, c’est l’afrique! [Sorry, this is Africa!]’” Picco had to give way to BMW works rider Gaston Rahier and finished third behind the Belgian and JCO. Nevertheless, the team received a heroes’ welcome on arrival in Italy and
Belgarda sold its entire annual allocation of the XT600 Ténéré during the two months following the rally!
For the 1986 Dakar, Yamaha prepared the first real factory bikes in Japan. Jean-claude Olivier, looking for more top speed, debuted an FZ750 four-cylinder-powered bike in the French Sonauto colours, but the extra weight proved a disadvantage and he finished 12th. Meanwhile, the Byrd team raced OU26 660cc single-cylinder bikes.
Riders still rave about these bikes today and Picco recalls: “The interesting and innovative feature about these bikes were the aluminium fuel tanks that distributed the weight of 53 litres of fuel around the bike in a low position. The front fairing made of Carbon/ Kevlar protected from the wind and helped to conserve energy during the long stages. “The geometry of the TT600 frame was perfect for Africa and many components like the billet hubs were of excellent quality and very reliable. The 660cc engine with a completely open exhaust system was very torquey and strong; fuel range was good, with approximately 10 litres per 100km (28mpg). But the 17in rear wheels were a big problem; that choice was made to keep the bikes lower at the back to ensure more high-speed stability, but the Michelin Mousse [the solid foam inner tube used by off-road racers] didn’t stand up to the task and continued to disintegrate during the fast stages.’
Picco and Findanno won a total of five stages, but in the end, due to technical problems, they finished ninth and 11th, with Marinoni seventh. The new V-twin factory Hondas were indomitable; Cyril Neveu won the race ahead of Gilles Lalay and Balestrieri (still on a single-cylinder Honda). Dune Motor displays only a small model of the OU26 – none of the factory Yamahas could be saved from the crusher.
For 1987, the engine displacement of the singles was increased to 680cc, but it was the last year of the OU26 which, sadly, didn’t achieve great success. Cigarette brand Chesterfield sponsored the team and Picco remained in the leading group until shortly before the end of the rally, but finished fourth, with Giorgio Grasso having to retire after a nasty crash.
The next year, Yamaha Japan produced a bike that went down in Dakar history – thew OW93, a totally new rally-raid machine featuring a 750cc water-cooled single-cylinder engine with a five-valve head, twin carbs and dual ignition.
This was the best ever bike for the Dakar, according to Picco: “In 1987 we had no chance with the Xt-derived 687cc thumper against the Honda twins. Nevertheless, I was always convinced that a good-handling Mono with a little more power was the best solution for a winning bike in Africa. The single-cylinder OW93 for 1988 was close to perfection in this sense: great torque, sufficient power and outstanding handling. But the engine was very fragile; during the 1988 Dakar I got through six of them and battled the whole race with Edi Orioli to finish second.”
Unfortunately, this milestone motorcycle is the one big gap in this collection, although they do have an OW94 factory engine that Picco used in 1989. That year, victory eluded the team again. Picco was in the leading group for much of the race, but lost out in the closing stages to compatriot Edi Orioli competing on a Honda twin.
In the meantime, development work had already begun in Japan on the next generation of Dakar factory machines. The twin-cylinder YZE750T OWB8 racers were based on the XTZ750 Super Ténéré production bike. Carlos Mas finished second on one of these bikes, but Papi kicked Picco out of the team after victory slipped through his fingers again.
“We had serious technical problems with the pistons of the new bike at the Rallye des Pharaons in autumn 1989 and the troubles continued during Dakar 1990,” said Picco. After the race I was asked to pretend that I had had physical problems in Africa in order to ‘protect’ Yamaha. A few weeks later that statement was used against me, in the sense that I was ‘getting old’ when I was asked to develop the new bike for de Petri. But I didn’t accept that and our relationship ended.”
Sponsor Chesterfield was getting impatient, so Papi strengthened the team for 1991 with Lalay and Alessandro de Petri, who finished third on a Cagiva in 1990. Stephane Peterhansel started his winning streak with six victories in 1991 and Yamaha took the top three places. In 1992 the rally crossed Africa – a 12,500km north-to-south route, ending in Cape Town. The Chesterfield Byrd team was Lalay, de Petri and Cavandoli – and Papi was not present at the rally for the first time.
“There was so much going on in Yamaha Belgarda in that time and I was so busy preparing for the season, including other disciplines, that I had no time to join the team in Africa,” recalls Papi. “Every evening I spoke to Lalay on the phone and we had arguments because I had the impression that he was riding too conservatively, without attacking enough. Finally, I decided to board the plane to Congo to meet Lalay at the stage finish in Point Noire in order to ‘motivate him’.” Tragically, Lalay collided head-on with one of the organisers’ medical vehicles on the way to the bivouac after that special stage and was killed on the spot.
“I pulled the entire team out of the race and decided during the return flight never to go to Africa again as team manager. I was always aware that a fatal accident could happen. I was afraid of losing one of my boys; we were like a family, I raised them like my own children...”
After the dramatic outcome of the 1992 Dakar, Yamaha was planning to separate the Italian Racing Department from Belgarda’s commercial business. Papi didn’t like the economic conditions of these changes and resigned when Byrd was closed in the autumn of 1993 without a Dakar victory. An important chapter in Italian motorsport history came to an end, but revenge came in 1996, when Edi Orioli took the last of his four Dakar victories on a Yamaha XTZ850 TRX and finally scored a long overdue victory for Yamaha Italy! So why have the guys at Dune Motor someone put so much energy in conserving rally-raid machines and memorabilia from this long-gone era? Colombo and Caprotti share the explanation: “First of all, the bikes and the things that we have collected under this roof are a very important part of motorcycle and racing history. And like masterpieces of architecture, literature or art, we want to conserve them for the following generations.
“As you can see for yourself, the bikes are not perfectly restored, but carry their patina – dents and traces of thousands of kilometres of real-life racing stories through Africa. We are open to anyone who would like to come visit us without any commercial interest.
“It is important to share the stories and the passion of these years to keep the objects alive. Besides, we want to make clear that this is a place where objects of the African Dakar are displayed in dignified surroundings. If anybody has an original race bike stored somewhere in a dark garage, we would appreciate it if they would let us display it here.”
The Dakar and its machines tell dramatic stories that you can feel, touch and listen to in Villasanta. This cathedral of motorcycle racing heroics is a magical place, unique and timeless, that gives you goose bumps when you visit. www.facebook.com/dune.motor
‘THE BIKES ARE NOT PERFECTLY RESTORED, BUT CARRY THE PATINA OF REAL-LIFE RACING’