EVOLUTION OF THE SPECIES

The last time I spoke to Richard, the first Granturismo casings were being machined ready for sale and he was working on a monster 266 conversion based on the Simonini Evo barrel. This is a well proven Nikasil aluminium unit that’s most commonly mounted to paragliders, and is used to running for long periods. It has a 73.8mm bore and when matched to one of Granturismo’s casings it uses 64mm stroke and typically generates around 35bhp, depending on the type of exhaust fitted. The most distinctive part of the kit is the carb location, the cut-out being around halfway down the right-hand panel.

The test ride was conducted on Richard’s development scooter and frankly I’ve never seen so many gauges on a Lambretta – ever. Having kicked the motor into life I was rewarded with a very distinctive exhaust note. At low revs the engine runs perfectly smoothly, in fact it’s very docile, but the exhaust gases emerge with a ‘rat a tat tat’ that sounds almost like it’s misfiring. Once on the open road it’s an entirely different kettle of fish. As the throttle’s opened the exhaust note settles and at around 5000rpm the pipe comes in with a huge surge of power. (Apparently the liquid-cooled Rotax GT300 has even more of a kick). Once on the pipe it’s huge fun and we ran out of dual carriageway well before the Evo exhausted its enthusiasm for life. For me it was all a little too frantic for day-to-day living but if you’re a rider with very little mechanical sympathy who loves wringing the neck out of their engines this is manna from heaven.