Bygone To New-Born

Old School Suddenly Seems To Be The New Cool And The Fb Mondial Hps 300 Seems Primed To Ride The Hipster Wave. We Go Scramblin’ On It To See If It Can Roll-in The Retro!

- Varad More

Motorcycles are inherently beau-tiful machines. No matter how ratty or scrappy some of them might look, the wise eyed folks will inevitably spot the charm and character in them; regardless of their country of origin or date of birth. That said, one nation clearly distinguishes itself when it comes to motorcycle design - Italy. Some of the most iconic nameplates have emerged from espresso land, specifically Northern Italy. The caffeine induced, pizza chomping folks have successfully mastered the art of merging beautiful form with precise function. This has often resulted in objects of pure lust across the globe. For instance, the FB Mondial HPS 300 - a small capacity premium motorcycle was recently introduced in the country via Motoroyale by Kinetic Motors. Never heard of FB Mondial? Well, you’d have heard all about it if you were following motorcycle road-racing back in the 50s.

Started in 1929 by the four Boselli brothers, the FB Mondial (FB denoting ‘Fratelli Boselli’ which stands for Boselli Brothers) was one of the most successful motorcycle companies in Motorcycle World Championship racing (now known as MotoGP to the millennials). It won a total of five world championships between 1949 to 1957. In fact, when Soichiro Honda decided to enter into motorcycle world championship series, it was the 125cc world championship winning race-bike from FB Mondial that he benchmarked for developing Honda’s initial race machines.

Unfortunately, in 1957, the Italian company decided to withdraw from racing due to rising costs in the sport. This eventually transformed into waning popularity of the brand. It was a move that led to tumbling sales that forced the company to shut shop entirely by 1979. A couple of Italian magnates tried to revive the FB Mondial brand again in 1999, but that effort ran into distresses and it spiralled down to losses and ownership pickles in 2004.