AN ITALIAN ADVENTURE
I feel privileged to have worked with some of the best motorcycle trial photographers globally while publishing these magazines. Looking for pictures from past events can usually be sorted with a call to one of them; all their names are listed in the front of the magazine. It was a huge shock when my old friend, Giulio Mauri, suddenly passed away while competing in a classic trial in June 2012. As President of the FMI (Italian Motorcycle Federation) Trial Commission and a CTR Bureau Member, he remained an active campaigner within the sport of trials to the very end. He was a mine of information. It was not just the friendship I lost when he passed but also his knowledge of a sport I am so passionate. With time, I often wondered where his archive of pictures had disappeared. It was an email followed by a meeting with a lovely chap, Valenti Fontsere, that answered my question. He had been good friends with Giulio, and his family agreed he should become the custodian of the photographic archive. Now we too share regular communication on our fantastic sport.
We talked about the 1981 Scottish Six Days Trial when Valenti reminded me of a trip that Giulio and his lovely wife Renata had made to the event on an SWM trail–street model SWM 315 GTS scrambler. I asked, “Are you sure they came all the way from Italy to Scotland on this two-stroke air-cooled machine?” The response was, “yes, and I have some pictures!”
MOTOCROSS MAGAZINE
As a fellow Italian, Giulio was great friends with SWM and its Trials Team Manager Pietro Kuciukian. At the rapidly expanding SWM factory in the early ‘80s, they were looking at producing new models to expand their product range and came up with the idea of a ‘Street Scrambler’. They produced a handful of the futuristic but cool-looking retro SWM 315 GTS scrambler models. To ‘prove’ the machine, the idea came about that Giulio and his wife Renata would travel from Milan to Fort William, a journey of 2,106.3km, two-up on a heavily modified trials machine! The result of the trip turned into two articles; one on the SSDT and the other an extended test ride, both for the title MOTOCROSS Magazine.
AN ADVENTURE
I would have loved to hear how he sold this idea to Renata, but then again, Giulio was a fun-loving, crazy Italian guy. The SWM 315 GTS scrambler was supplied by SWM and picked up at the LEVATI concessionaire for SWM in Monza, Italy. On the trip through Europe, it attracted so much attention, maybe because it was ahead of its time. Speaking to Mike Rapley about the pictures, he remembered it was quite a ‘moment’ when they arrived in Fort William; it just like it was a normal day. Giulio and his wife spent the week took many of the pictures throughout this international feature.
I HAVE ONE
After the ‘Scottish’ Giulio and Renata braved the elements and rode back to Milan. I asked Valenti if he knew of any surviving SWM 315 GTS scrambler models, and to my surprise, he said: “I have one, a superb example”. I am always very appreciative to the magazine’s contributors, both editorials and pictures, but on this occasion, I raise my glass to both Giulio Mauri and Valenti Fontsere; thank you.