As mentioned with reference to that interview , when the Agri division was sold to Fiat , the proceeds or dividends were paid out to various family members ......... I believe Massimo once mentioned that he and Piero had something like six or seven sisters ... ( may be incorrect on that , apologies if that`s the case .... ) ..... plus many other family members who would have benefited from the sale , which means the proceeds allotted to each individual beneficiary , when divided out , would be ( relatively ) small ......
It would have been difficult to persuade every beneficiary to invest their share into the motorcycle company ....... I suspect most of them had their own ideas about what they were going to do with the money .......... taking a big gamble by investing it in Moto Laverda obviously wasn`t going to come very high on the list .
( The link to the actual interview is no longer available , by the look of it ........... so my version of events above is my recall of things said in various other articles , rightly or wrongly , btw ..... ) ...........
In late 1976 Suzuki introduced the GS750 ....... an air-cooled four , built along fairly conventional lines , as was the air-cooled Laverda triple ..........
Just seven years later , Suzuki introduced the aluminium framed , oil / air cooled , six speed , featherweight , race styled GSX-R 750 , which changed the way large sports bikes were designed and produced forever .......
Suzuki could pull off such a trick at a drop of a hat ....... With global sales , huge turnover , large development teams stuffed full of talented engineers , they could do it .
How could a small concern like Laverda hope to compete with that ..........
Small scale production means high costs ... which means high retail prices ... which means limited sales ... which means limited cashflow ... which means a difficulty in funding new designs .......... ( especially after the V6 sucked the company dry ) ............. and outdated designs means even more limited cashflow .......... and so it goes on ............
The best they could do , in the circumstances , was to bring in Giuseppe Bocchi and his new fangled computer design ideas , in order to update the old engine ( 120 degrees in RGS clothes ) ........... but by then we knew it was all over anyway ........
