Today in motorcycle history, March 1, 1959

  The race season kicks off in Daytona, Florida, with the Daytona 200 Lightweight Road Race at Samsula Airport.

  Harley-Davidson hopes to make it 6 years in a row.  Since the inaugaration of the AMA point-standing in 1954 Harley has reigned as champion.

  1958 was a particularly good year for Harley-Davidson Racing with Joe Leonard setting new records in the 200-Mile Beach-Road race with a time of 1 hour, 59 minutes, 11.3 seconds and in the 50-Mile 1-mile dirt track race in 34 minutes, 33 seconds and Carroll Resweber's blistering record in the 20-Mile 1-mile dirt track race of 14 minutes, 5.2 seconds.

  Fun in the sun.

Today in motorcycle racing, February 28, 2005

Mondial Supersport 200 circa 1955

 

Mondial 125cc OHC Racer circa 1953

 

Mondial, as we all knew and loved, breaths it's last breath.

 

   F-B Mondial  was produced in Bologna, Italy, between 1948 and 1979.  Mondial built some of the most advanced and successful Grand Prix road racers of the time, winning 5 World Championships.

  The "F.B." in the name stood for "Fratelli Boselli", after the owners, the Counts Boselli, a noble family from the Milan area.  The Mondial factory in Milan was much smaller than the large Moto Guzzi, Gilera or Benelli factories.    Mondial instead specialized in high-performance, small-displacement motorcycles with much of the production of each motorcycle being done by hand, which needless to say, kept output low, with production numbers typically ranging between only 1,000 and 2,000 units per year.

  In 1949, when MV Agusta decided to produce a 4-stroke motorcycle, they purchased a Mondial 4-stroke motorcycle to use as an example.  After the 1957 Grand Prix season, the major Italian motorcycle manufacturers including Gilera, Moto Guzzi, MV Agusta and Mondial announced that they would pull out of Grand Prix competition citing increasing costs and diminishing sales.  MV Agusta later had a change of heart and wondered what the hell it was thinking and continued racing.

  In 1957, Soichiro Honda approached Mondial owner Count Boselli for purchase of a Mondial racebike, with which the firm had just won the 125 cc and 250 cc world titles.  Count Boselli gave Mr. Honda a racing Mondial; Honda used this bike as a standard to which he aspired, in order to compete on a world-scale.

  An original Mondial 125 cc racebike is the first bike on display when entering Honda’s Motegi Collection Hall.

  The last all-Mondial motorcycle left the factory in 1960.  After this, Mondial purchased engines from proprietary makers.  Motorcycles with Mondial frames and ancillary parts, but non-Mondial engines, were produced by the factory until 1979.

  Fast-forward to 1999.

  The rights to Mondial were purchased by newspaper tycoon Roberto Ziletti.  Ziletti was an avid motorcyclist in his youth, and his dream was to own a prestigious motorcycle company.  Mistake #1.

   Roberto Ziletti attempts to revive the marque, then Ziletti's father died, leaving him in charge.  Mistake #2.

  After failing to farm Mondial out to a Swiss company, the Arcore (Italy) factory was placed in the hands of the Monza bankruptcy court in July 2004, with around 35 Mondial Piega 1000s in various states of completion.  In interviews in March 2005 a south Georgia (USA) motorcycle dealership, stated that the courts had arranged to sell Mondial to their American firm, Superbike Racing, on February 28, 2005.  However, the Monza courts decided to sell Mondial Moto SPA to another buyer.

  Did you know that prior to World War II Mondial manufactured delivery tricycles.  Just thought I'd add that little morsel of knowledge.