Aprilia obviously did their sums and reckoned the returns in producing spares or new castings wouldn`t justify the effort .......... How many crankcases or barrels would they have to sell to make the whole thing viable ........ and how much would they charge for them , even if a Laverda owner decided he needed them ....... ( How many crankcases or primary chaincase covers do you get through ? ... ) ............. How many Laverda specialists would be prepared to pay Aprilia upfront for items that they might never move on ? ......
I`m guessing a good 40 to 50% of a Laverda would originate from outside the factory anyway ............ Electrics and ingition ; suspension ; frames ( by Verlicchi I believe , I may be wrong on that ) ; wheels ( FLAM were Laverda owned , but a separate concern , I think .... again , I may be wrong ) ; lights from Bosch and CEV ; Instruments and switchgear from Nippon Denso ; and so on ..........
Not much in it for Piaggio / Aprilia , is there ? .......... They could have sold the tooling on I suppose , but as they owned the Laverda brand , maybe there would have been litigation problems as a result of an outside scource retailing new " Laverda " items , which would have been outside of Aprilia`s control ......
BTW ... I understand that Piaggio would be willing to sell the Laverda brand name on , if they could find the right buyer ........ We might just see Indian or Chinese built Laverdas yet .....
.............
( Reminds me of the story about how in the 1960`s , Ford decided they wanted to get into 24 hour and sports car racing , ( Le Mans , that sort of thing ) ....... The easiest way was to buy into somebody who was already involved in it ..... So Ford approached Ferrari , with a view to acquiring a controlling interest ......... Ferrari were`nt exactly keen on this idea , and after their accountants had gone through Ferrari`s books , neither were Ford ....... ) ......
