MORBID' Fascination

The Italian name has its roots in racing, but the re-born Morbidelli brand has moved its focus from track performance to real-world practicalities and useability

- WORDS: Dave Manning PHOTOGRAPHY: Gary Chapman / MotoGB

Many readers will remember Morbidelli for its strikingly designed V8 motorcycle that was built in the nineties, despite the fact there were only four actually completed. But the name was more successful as a racing brand, two decades earlier, as Giancarlo Morbidelli began building racing machines in the 1960s, initially as a distraction from his woodworking business, making not only furniture and wooden coach bodies for cars, but also successfully developing machine tools.

The success of the main business allowed the racing to progress to some very successful bikes, with Morbidelli machinery winning the 125cc World Championship in 1975, '76 and '77, as well as the 250cc championship in 1977. These bikes were only used by the factory team - they weren't available to buy by privateers - although an additional factory was built in 1976 to manufacture bikes in association with Benelli (both companies were based in Pesaro on Italy's east coast), with the resulting MBA (Morbidelli Benelli Armi) bikes of 123cc and 248cc built in some quantity and available to the public. Cutting a long (albeit quite interesting) story short, racing was done with by 1982, the company was acquired by the Italian SCM group and, aside from the aforementioned four 847cc V8s (which, in 2001, were referred to by the Guinness Book of Records as the World's Most Expensive Motorcycle), there were no further bikes built.