LAVERDA 1000 3C prototype photos from 1969

sfcpiet said:
Here's one that did active police duty in Bassano del Grappa, just up the road from Breganze. Also pictured in Tim Parkers' "Italian Motorcycles".

View attachment 108351
Fairing and panniers are preserved, owner prefers to ride it without the heavy police equipment. Sister bike to my own GTL, consecutive frame numbers!

Quite a few police Laverdas, 500, 750, 1000 and 1200, were rescued from Kuwait in the mid-1980's, among them, my GTL.

piet
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Recently I found out the the police used a GT as well. Here it’s shown with SF1 brakes just like mine. So must be a 1973 model. Maybe there are more photos of the police GT (Pre GTL) models known!

a3a6df3a-e11e-4d9c-a762-24249be5dea2.jpeg

Herman
 
sfcpiet said:
Here's one that did active police duty in Bassano del Grappa, just up the road from Breganze. Also pictured in Tim Parkers' "Italian Motorcycles".
View attachment 108351
Fairing and panniers are preserved, owner prefers to ride it without the heavy police equipment. Sister bike to my own GTL, consecutive frame numbers!

Quite a few police Laverdas, 500, 750, 1000 and 1200, were rescued from Kuwait in the mid-1980's, among them, my GTL.

piet
Click to expand...

Hi Piet, here is the pic you were referring to! Ciao, Gert

IMG_7131.jpeg
 
Returning to Laverda prototypes , and the pros and cons of shaft drive ...........

Piero`s aversion to shaft drive at that time was that he was keen on a sporting image for the triples ........ Shaft drive back then equated to staid R Series BMW`s , V7 Guzzis ( pre the more sporting ones ) and the like ......... It was seen as slightly oddball , much more suited for heavy tourers .....


The Laverda ( Maserati , Citroen ? ) V6 had shaft drive obviously ...... like the Pan and Guzzi and CX500 , the layout suited it ..........

Unfortunately it was shaft drive failure which caused the V6`s retirement at the Bol , just eight hours into a twenty four hour race ......... Massimo Laverda said later that they could have replaced it and continued , but the odds were that it would fail again after another eight hours , with another eight hours of the race still to go , so what would be the ;point ?

Add to that the fact the V6 was languishing in twenty fifth or twenty seventh ( or something like that ) place when it retired........ and both Cereghini and Perugini found it physically exhausting to ride for long periods , due to it`s weight and shaft drive torque reaction ...........

It had a ten mph advantage over the winning Honda on top speed ......... but one observer said it lost out against the opposition exiting slow corners ....... as he put it " chugging away " , before getting into it`s stride again ........... probably a slight exaggeration , but with shaft drive , you have to run with what you brung.........

Massimo was also quoted as saying that they decided not to continue with the race as ... " they had discovered all they needed to know " .......

So if the V6 wasn`t an endurance racer , and it wasn`t a platform for a new Laverda range of V-twins , V-fours , and a new in-line triple ... ( where would the investment come from , never mind sufficient sales in the face of cheaper Japanese opposition ) ....... then what was it ?

Rumours were that Zen had on several occasions tried to get the Laverda brothers to kill off the V6 ....... He had worked together with Alfieri , but some reckoned he resented the fact that it was essentially Alfieri`s baby , not his ........... the whole thing going against his more measured , conservative approach to engine development ........

A sort of Alfieri cuckoo which had flown in from outside and was now sat in the Moto Laverda nest , devouring everything before it .........

Maybe he was the one person who looked at the V6 , and saw it for what it really was .......

( That`s me done on Laverda prototypes for the time being ... valid thoughts , or complete bollocks ..... you can make your own minds up ... :)..... ) ........

BTW , don`t get me wrong ..... I think the V6 is fantastic ....... for a money draining pseudo prototype ....... ;) ...............
 
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Mastroianni said:
The shock absorbers must have really taken a beating, because the guy is solid.
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Yeah, he certainly was a big boy. Spent a pleasant afternoon with him and my mate haggling over price, etc. Apparently he had actively served on this very bike and bought it to keep it for himself when he was promoted to Police Chief of Bassano. He was very happy when he realised it was going to a group of Laverda enthusiasts.

IIrc, it had rear shocks from a triple to jack it up a little, later swapped for the correct items.

piet
 
The local Sydney Cops rode a bike called a Triumph Saint, a Cop cariation of the Unit 650 with beefed-up electronics; they parked them in the abutments under the Sydney Harbour Bridge road access. After the Triumph, it was 750 Honda 4s and, then Kawasaki 900s, and then BMW twins.
 
I remember the Triumph cop bikes in NSW. In 1971 I was cruising up the NSW coast highway somewhere north of Newcastle on my brand new Honda 750 K1. It was a nice day and I was enjoying a lovely bit of road that twisted its way through a forest. Not riding flat out, but fast enough to make it fun through the bends. Every now and then I heard a faint wailing sound coming from somewhere in the forest. I was curious as to what kind of bird lived in that forest to make such a strange screeching call. Eventually the forest opened out into some flat pastoral country and I came to a service station. I was getting a bit low on fuel so pulled in to fill up. I got off the bike, took my helmet off and had begun to fill the tank when I heard the wailing sound again, only this time it kept getting louder until a cop bike appeared from the direction I'd just come. The sound I'd caught brief snippets of was his bloody siren. He spotted me in the servo, swung the bike in and pulled up next to me. He was on a police issue Triumph Saint and he said he'd been chasing me for 20 minutes but couldn't catch me. The poor old Triumph had obviously been working hard. It was radiating heat like a pot-belly stove and making a "tink tink" noise as it cooled down. It also had smoke coming off the oily engine and smelled of burnt oil. I figured I was about to get a speeding ticket so turned on the polite and apologetic attitude. I called him Sir and said sorry for not stopping sooner, and that if I'd known he was chasing me I'd certainly have pulled over. He said he didn't care if I was speeding. He only wanted to get a look at my Honda Four because the police were soon going to be issued with them and he hadn't seen one in the flesh before. He asked if they were any good. I reminded him that he was going flat out on his Triumph and couldn't catch me when I wasn't even trying to get away. He took a coffee break and we chatted for a while. He was a nice chap so I offered him a brief ride on the Honda but he declined. I guess it would have looked a bit dodgy if he'd been spotted playing about on a non-police bike while on duty. By the time we parted ways he seemed quite enthused at the prospect of getting a Honda 750 under him.
 
I remember a tale of a Laverda Rider in the UK, who when stopped by a senior officer after a spirited ride, was encouraged when the cop said "Well, the only saving grace is, on that thing, you could've been going a bloody sight faster."
 
rocketonarail said:
Returning to Laverda prototypes , and the pros and cons of shaft drive ...........

Piero`s aversion to shaft drive at that time was that he was keen on a sporting image for the triples ........ Shaft drive back then equated to staid R Series BMW`s , V7 Guzzis ( pre the more sporting ones ) and the like ......... It was seen as slightly oddball , much more suited for heavy tourers .....


The Laverda ( Maserati , Citroen ? ) V6 had shaft drive obviously ...... like the Pan and Guzzi and CX500 , the layout suited it ..........

Unfortunately it was shaft drive failure which caused the V6`s retirement at the Bol , just eight hours into a twenty four hour race ......... Massimo Laverda said later that they could have replaced it and continued , but the odds were that it would fail again after another eight hours , with another eight hours of the race still to go , so what would be the ;point ?

Add to that the fact the V6 was languishing in twenty fifth or twenty seventh ( or something like that ) place when it retired........ and both Cereghini and Perugini found it physically exhausting to ride for long periods , due to it`s weight and shaft drive torque reaction ...........

It had a ten mph advantage over the winning Honda on top speed ......... but one observer said it lost out against the opposition exiting slow corners ....... as he put it " chugging away " , before getting into it`s stride again ........... probably a slight exaggeration , but with shaft drive , you have to run with what you brung.........

Massimo was also quoted as saying that they decided not to continue with the race as ... " they had discovered all they needed to know " .......

So if the V6 wasn`t an endurance racer , and it wasn`t a platform for a new Laverda range of V-twins , V-fours , and a new in-line triple ... ( where would the investment come from , never mind sufficient sales in the face of cheaper Japanese opposition ) ....... then what was it ?

Rumours were that Zen had on several occasions tried to get the Laverda brothers to kill off the V6 ....... He had worked together with Alfieri , but some reckoned he resented the fact that it was essentially Alfieri`s baby , not his ........... the whole thing going against his more measured , conservative approach to engine development ........

A sort of Alfieri cuckoo which had flown in from outside and was now sat in the Moto Laverda nest , devouring everything before it .........

Maybe he was the one person who looked at the V6 , and saw it for what it really was .......

( That`s me done on Laverda prototypes for the time being ... valid thoughts , or complete bollocks ..... you can make your own minds up ... :)..... ) ........

BTW , don`t get me wrong ..... I think the V6 is fantastic ....... for a money draining pseudo prototype ....... ;) ...............
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I spoke to Piero at the Laverda rally here in California back in 2006. My SFC1000 won the trophy for the best 120. When Piero handed me the trophy and we spoke about my bike, I eventually asked about the V6. He stated the V6 was never intended to be a production road going bike. Then why did they waste so much money on something they were never gong to make? Getting your customers excited about a bike that will never race again and will never be available for sale makes no sense.

I understand many bike compainies make race bikes you can't buy but at least they make something similar that you can buy. Honda made six cylinder 250 and 350 bikes you coud not buy but at least you could buy a 750 four. With Laverda, your only choice was an old obsolete triple.
 
I think we all understand your frustration that so much was spent on projects that never transformed into a new range of road bikes. Perhaps if Laverda had found the investment needed to carry the development through to production things would have been a lot different and we would now be saying how far sighted Massimo and the team had been. If things had worked out differently I would have been riding a ‘modern’ Laverda triple and V4 rather than the Benelli and Aprilia versions.
 
According to Piero, the major problem was the high number of units that would have to be built, 18,000 IIRC, to break even on the development costs of the V6.
There were negotiations between Laverda and Aquariva which, had they proved successful, would've meant production of the V6 could've gone ahead.
aquariva-yacht-riva-passion4luxury-1.jpg
 
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1200ts said:
I spoke to Piero at the Laverda rally here in California back in 2006. My SFC1000 won the trophy for the best 120. When Piero handed me the trophy and we spoke about my bike, I eventually asked about the V6. He stated the V6 was never intended to be a production road going bike. Then why did they waste so much money on something they were never gong to make? Getting your customers excited about a bike that will never race again and will never be available for sale makes no sense.

I understand many bike compainies make race bikes you can't buy but at least they make something similar that you can buy. Honda made six cylinder 250 and 350 bikes you coud not buy but at least you could buy a 750 four. With Laverda, your only choice was an old obsolete triple.
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The marketing impact of these projects should not be underestimated; they unite customers who are already won over with those who are yet to be.
And as our friend Terminator would say ""i am old not obsolete"" Hasta la vista, baby
































































​

 
1200ts said:
I spoke to Piero at the Laverda rally here in California back in 2006. My SFC1000 won the trophy for the best 120. When Piero handed me the trophy and we spoke about my bike, I eventually asked about the V6. He stated the V6 was never intended to be a production road going bike. Then why did they waste so much money on something they were never gong to make? Getting your customers excited about a bike that will never race again and will never be available for sale makes no sense.

I understand many bike compainies make race bikes you can't buy but at least they make something similar that you can buy. Honda made six cylinder 250 and 350 bikes you coud not buy but at least you could buy a 750 four. With Laverda, your only choice was an old obsolete triple.
Click to expand...
Moto Guzzi made the V8
 
I seem to recall reading in a German motorcycle magazine that the V6 was intended to serve as a testbed for a future model lineup - that the cylinder units could be used in various configurations (ranging from two cylinders upwards, resulting in different displacements) to cover a wide array of models, markets, and so on. Unfortunately, lack of funds and the subsequent insolvency likely got in the way.
 
Jo said:
I seem to recall reading in a German motorcycle magazine that the V6 was intended to serve as a testbed for a future model lineup - that the cylinder units could be used in various configurations (ranging from two cylinders upwards, resulting in different displacements) to cover a wide array of models, markets, and so on. Unfortunately, lack of funds and the subsequent insolvency likely got in the way.
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… and they printed a brochure for the V6 - so I think they had a plan! Ciao, Gert
 
The Sock said:
According to Piero, the major problem was the high number of units that would have to be built to break even on the development costs of the V6.
There were negotiations between Laverda and Aquariva which, had they proved successful, would've meant production of the V6 could've gone ahead.
View attachment 108371
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I read somewhere ... ( I believe everything I read :D ) ....... that there was a branch of the Laverda family called Lionelo Laverda who made powerful speed boats ........
I have never found any info or confirmation of this , but then I saw this photo and thought " Yes ... It must be true " ..........

Then I realised this is a Riva speedboat , not a Lionelo Laverda speedboat ........... I guess the clue was in the name .... Aquariva ..........


Undaunted , the quest to uncover the truth about Lionelo Laverda continues ............
 
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