This month’s auction previews include a Morbidelli Museum clearout at Stafford
Largest ever private collection to go under the hammer at Bonhams’ Autumn Stafford sale
A world-class collection of road and racing motorcycles from the celebrated Morbidelli Motorcycle Museum in Pesaro, Italy will be the centrepiece of Bonhams’ annual Autumn Stafford Sale on October 18-20.
Comprising approximately 300 motorcycles, and representing every decade of the 20th century, the collection was built up by the museum’s founder, motorcycle manufacturer and GP boss Giancarlo Morbidelli, over a period of 40 years, and is the largest single collection to be offered by Bonhams to date.
The bikes, ranging from immaculate restorations to prototypes and barn finds, represent the passion of the farmer’s son and former woodworking machinist who, while building up a successful engineering firm as his day job, spent his ‘downtime’ tuning, racing and later building his own motorcycles.
Highlights include two examples from the Morbidelli GP racing collection, largely designed and built by Giancarlo with input from Jorg Muller and Franco Ringhini, and fabricated in a corner of the Morbidelli woodworking factory.
Morbidelli were giant-killers, seeing off major factory rivals to claim the 125GP world title in 1975, ’76 and ’77, as well as winning the 250cc world title in 1977. Bonhams will offer the 1974 125cc Morbidelli ridden by the late, great Angel Nieto to second place in that year’s Spanish and German Grands Prix.
A Morbidelli 250 ridden by 15-time world champion Giacomo Agostini, who rode for the team during its golden period in 1976, gaining a second place at Misano is also being offered. Other notable lots of the Morbidelli Collection include arguably the finest machine in the collection, a 1964 Ducati 125cc fourcylinder GP racing machine, plus three famous Benellis: the 1934 175cc Bialbero ridden by Dorino Serfini, a 1950 250cc ridden to victory by Dario Ambrosini, and the 1964 250 ridden and signed by two-time world champion Tarquino Provini.
Ben Walker, International Department Director for Bonhams Collectors’ Motorcycles, said: “This is the largest single collection to be sold by Bonhams and as such means that we will extend our Autumn sale to three days for the first time.”