AERMACCHI BUILD
Stu Thomson set his sights on a single-cylinder Aermacchi and came up trumps with a 1959 Ala Azzurra. Before he sets to with the spanners, what exactly is it?
Stu Thomson set his sights on a singlecylinder Aermacchi and came up trumps with a 1959 Ala Azzurra. Before he sets to with the spanners, what exactly is it?
Iam a bit of an Italian bike nut and own small capacity Morini, MV Agusta, Mi-Val, Moto Guzzi, Bianchi and Gilera bikes, mainly from the 1950s and 60s. My interest started some years ago when I bought a Laverda 750 SF1 and saw a small Moto Guzzi which the seller also owned. I thought that the bike’s design was very good for the period. Although I can’t now remember which model Guzzi he owned, it was (unsurprisingly) red with white highlights. A few years later, I have accumulated a small collection of small capacity Italian bikes, mostly red of course, and thought an Aermacchi might be a nice addition.
Most classic motorcyclists are aware of Aermacchi, made famous by their motorcycle racing heritage and Mike Hailwood’s exploits. Aermacchi machines have something of an iconic status, perhaps greater than their straightforward, single cylinder pushrod designs might merit. But during their heyday in racing they were fast bikes which handled and performed really well straight out of the crate. In the hands of specialist tuners their potential was further increased, with good results in the Isle of Man TT and at national level on the Continent.
Originally Aero-Macchi, Aermacchi started life in 1912 in the aircraft industry in Varese. They built award-winning seaplanes, and still hold the record at 709.21kph, secured in 1934 by a piston-powered seaplane. Aermacchi’s first motorcycle was built during the war years in 1943 – not one of the Marshall Plan machines like many Italian manufacturers, but an experiment with an electric engine. Serious motorcycle production began in the late 1940s when the company had spare production capacity and skilled workers. Like MV Agusta, Aermacchi made high quality, expensive products compared to their competitors, using the same machine tools and quality control processes, procedures and materials on bikes as in aircraft manufacture.
Lacking any experience of motorcycle design or production, Aermacchi employed an experienced designer, Lino Tonti, to design their first bikes. When he moved to FB Mondial, Alfredo Bianchi from Moto Parilla
replaced him. Ing Bianchi’s designs are the ones which made Aermacchi famous and successful in the motorcycle arena. Their two-wheeled range gradually expanded to include two- and four-stroke machines along with mopeds, scooters and threewheel trucks similar to the Piaggio Ape, real utilitarian vehicles great for using in the narrow Italian streets.
The company first generated international interest with the Chimera, which debuted at the 1956 Milan show (See RC165 for its full story). The Chimera’s 175cc horizontallymounted single-cylinder pushrod engine was hidden by stylish and complex bodywork which showed off the company’s aeronautical skills and connections. It also demonstrated some innovative features such as monoshock rear suspension and castings blending with sheet metalwork to create the clean lines. In fact, it looked a bit like a jet engine with a wheel at each end.
Although acclaimed by the press and designers alike, the Chimera was not well received by the rather conservative motorcycling / buying public. They liked to see the engine as the centrepiece of a motorcycle and not have it hidden away behind fairings like a scooter. The sales for the Chimera were nothing short of appalling.
To counter this, Bianchi was instructed to change the design to make it more appealing to the public. His simple solution was to undress the Chimera and remove the futuristic monoshock. Fitted with double shock absorbers it then looked more like the majority of the competition – apart from the engine of course, as there were not many horizontal engines in motorbikes at the time.
The result was the Ala Verde and Ala Rossa machines – the 250 and 175 versions of the undressed Chimera. This change in design spawned a whole range of Ala (‘wing’) models which became very popular. They were considered to be all-new models, as people didn’t know what the ‘hidden’ Chimera engine had looked like. Aermacchi’s Alarange engine looked a bit like a Guzzi single, with its horizontal cylinder, but no external, old-fashioned flywheel.
Although other manufacturers such as Guzzi, Mondial, Parilla and MV were fitting ohc engines to sports and touring bikes, Aermacchi resisted the urge to go down this complex route. Their ohv machines could be easily maintained by the home mechanic; a strategy adopted by Moto Guzzi and MV who swapped their overhead cams for pushrods.
The Ala ranged proved very popular with
racers, thanks to their robust design, low centre of gravity, good handling, quality of manufacture and decent performance for their capacity. Today they have something of a cult following, especially among classic racers. While other 175cc machines struggled to reach 60mph, even with overhead cams, the Ala Rossa was capable of 75mph.
The range of ‘wings’ consisted of the Ala Rossa and Ala Rossa GT (red wings) and the Ala Bianca (white wing) 175s, accompanied by the 250s Ala Verde (green wing), Ala Azzurra (blue wing) and the Ala d’Oro (gold wing). The GT, white and blue wings were touring bikes; the red and green wings were sportsters, and the gold wing was the firm’s off the shelf racer. The Ala d’Oro ran 10:1 compression giving almost 25bhp, with a large carburettor and a top speed of 110mph. By 1968 these figures had increased to 30bhp and 120mph which, for a pushrod 250, was nothing short of outstanding. It’s not far short of a Triumph 500 twin, but with much lower weight combined with the Aermacchi’s exceptional handling from its low c-of-g and stiff frame.
In late 1960 the company went into partnership with Harley-Davidson, who snapped up 50% of Aermacchi’s shares for less than $250,000. Harley wanted a small capacity machine to fill a gap in their sales range. By 1972 Harley-Davidson had themselves been taken over by the giant American Machine and Foundry corporation, and had assumed full control of Aermacchi. The machines which descended from the original Chimera were then badged as AMF Harley-Davidson and the Aermacchi name disappeared completely. When Cagiva took the reins in 1978, that signalled the end of production for these single-cylinder engines, although the production plant at Varese produced MV Agusta and Cagiva twowheelers during the 1990s.
By 1972 AMF Harley had managed to turn a beautiful swan of a motorcycle into a rather ugly duckling in the form of the ‘Sprint’ models with peanut tanks and overlarge seats, unfinished looking mudguards and pointless twin exhausts which succumbed to fashion rather than function. They even changed the tried and trusted Aermacchi frame to incorporate twin downtubes; ruining (in my view) the clean lines of the original machine. That seems strange, considering that the single backbone frame with the engine as a stressed member had been so successful in competition. The strength of the original Aermacchi single was its simplicity. AMF also changed the cylinder heads of their development of the single, with a finned cover which made the engine bland looking. They later reverted to the original Italian design when their modification proved unpopular.
If you compare a late 1960s or early 70s Harley Sprint with an early Ala Verde or Ala Azzurra it is difficult to believe that they were in essence the same bikes. Only the ‘Wisconsin’ model of the early 1960s kept its styling and was almost identical to the original Ala Azzurra. However, the Wisconsin was short-lived and was rebadged as the Sprint – naming a bike after a single American state proved unpopular, it seems!