Italian Motorcycles

Today in Motorcycle History

Shifty Motorcycles

Manufactured: 1975-1978

Ugo Grandis of Busa di Vigonza in Padua built a very large motorcycle using a Fiat 127 four-cylinder 907cc water-cooled engine with chain drive. Other components included a seat from the Benelli Six, beneath which was a fuel tank from a Fiat 500. The instrumentation was also Fiat 127, housed in the dummy tank.

Despite its cumbersome appearance and hefty weight of 270kg, it could achieve 170km/h. As Motociclismo pointed out, compared to the 380kg of the Harley Davidson Liberator which they reviewed in the same issue it was almost svelte.

Some 70 examples were built but it did not meet wide acclaim. Grandis was bankrupted in 1982 and died in 1998, only 56 years old.

Sources: MC Storico Conti, superpista.it.