‘Formidable & challenging’
In the seventies ‘macho’ still meant something. And Laverda’s Jota was certainly macho…
Named after a frantic, triple-time Spanish folk dance, the Jota oozed Italian charisma. At 140mph it was, in 1971, the quickest ever production bike and, coming from a company best known for building combine harvesters, it felt like a machine, not just a two-wheeled motor vehicle. Hence the sand-cast crankcases, the beefy bottom and DOHC top ends, the solid cradle frame, stiff suspension and top notch components: Bosch magneto; Brembo brakes and yes, Japanese switchgear.
Bursting onto a biking scene where macho still meant something, it was an uprated version of Laverda’s 3C, a slowsteering sports-tourer whose 180˚ crankshaft engendered almost primordial vibration but also massive 66.4 lb.ft torque, a white-fingered, bum-numbing discomfiture UK importer Slater cannily elevated to a badge of honour with the Jota. He got the factory to install hotter cams, higher comp pistons and most (in)famously a larger bore and much louder exhaust system, making for a claimed 97bhp at a raucous 7800rpm, which bested the 3C by some 8%, and its obvious Japanese competitor, Kawasaki’s Z1-B, by 9%. That the big Kawa cost some £1100 less didn’t harm the Jota’s visceral, rarefied appeal and indeed encouraged some top-end car traders to become Laverda dealers, a trend BMW would follow decades later.
One such was Hexagon of Highgate whose loquacious salesman, Ken Blake successfully raced his Jota in the influential Avon/bike Production Series until, that is, he cooked his clutch and somehow borrowed mine: after coming third at Snetterton, he returned it with a chamfered alternator cover, an extra badge of honour I proudly wore. So yes, it was a formidable, even challenging bike to ride as its makers intended, especially when muscling it through twisties, but it felt supremely planted at any speed, ate long distances and taught me how to ride fast and furious. I still mourn its loss.
‘It taught me how to ride fast and furious’