Italian stallion
ON YER BIKE
In a game like mine, motorcycles, as I’m sure you can imagine, are never far from my mind. And so it was at the recent Skope Classic historic motor racing meeting in Christchurch where I was taken by a gorgeous 1960s-era 2 + 2 coupe made by long-since liquidated Italian manufacturer Iso Rivolta.
I still – absolutely vividly, too – remember reading about the company’s jewel-in-the-crown, the Iso Grifo, when I was a kid growing up in Gore. And to finally see one in the flesh as it were, even after the 40-plus intervening years, was a special moment.
In more ways than one as it turned out, because the bike I just happen to have been riding for the past two weeks, a Moto Guzzi 1200 Sport 4V, is very much the two-wheel equivalent of the quintessentially Italianwith-a-twist Grifo.
Like the Grifo, the Sport 1200 4V is a true ‘‘Grand Tourer’’, a big, beautiful, bruiser of a twowheeler with a simple, oldfashioned overhead valve (in this case across-the-frame 90 V-twin) engine, a simple, practical, costeffective tubular steel frame and maintenance-free shaft drive.
Note well the compound word cost-effective. That’s key here because in much the same as the Grifo – despite its drop-dead looks – is no Ferrari, the 1200 Sport 4V is no Ducati.
The Grifo may bear more than a passing resemblance to Ferrari’s famous V12-engined Daytona 2+2, but beneath the bonnet is a (simple, cost-effective and probably more to the point utterly reliable) American-made 5.4 litre Chevrolet V8 and 4-speed Borg Warner transmission!
OK, the 1200 Sport 4V Moto Guzzi doesn’t have quite the same trans-atlantic parentage. But despite upgrades in every other area the engine that powers the 1200 Sport 4V remains based on the original across-the-frame 700cc V-twin that celebrated Italian engineer Giulio Cesare Carcano created as part of a company police bike project in the early 1960s.
Sure it is now fuel-injected and breathes through four-valve cylinder heads, but it is a far cry from the latest ultra-hi-tech short-stroke, in-line V-twins Ducati and Moto Morini have produced in recent years.
Not surprisingly then, the Sport 1200 4V has a definite oldeworlde feel, hence the link – in my mind anyway – with classic 1960s four-wheelers like the Iso Grifo. It’s big – really big – for a start, with a long stretch even for me to the wide, low-line clubman-bend handlebars.
It’s also quite heavy – tipping the scales at 240kg dry – though with the cylinder splayed across the bike rather than in-line with it, like all Moto Guzzis, the bike has the feel and response to input at the handlebar of a much lighter, less bulky machine.
There’s also the torque effect of the crankcase and shaft drive system to factor in, too when you are riding a Moto Guzzi. Blip the throttle and the whole bike moves right between your legs, something you get used to when you are at a standstill, but which upsets the general order of things when you’re going down through the gears.
Which all sounds a bit critical doesn’t it?
Yet it’s a mark of just how good these Moto Guzzis are that I’d rate the 1200 Sport 4V as one of my favourite Italian bikes.
It looks fantastic for a start and it’s got real passer-by presence. It’s also comfortable, practical and surprisingly economical. In the past when people have asked me about Moto Guzzis I’ve said that they are real Italian motorcycles for real people. That’s not a cheap shot at Ducati or Mv-agusta, more a reflection on the niche base of most of their models.
Moto Guzzis are real allrounders. And the 1200 Sport 4V is one of the best.
QUICK FLICK