Destination: Morbidelli museum

The curator spoke no English, but I didn’t need a grasp of the Italian language to sense the emotion. Walter’s eyes misted over, and he repeated the word Agostini multiple times as he pointed at the display board, and then the motorcycle sitting on the mirrored podium behind him.

“Agostini, Agostini, contracto, contracto,” he said. “Uno, uno.”

What little Italian language skills I possessed were enough to understand that he was proudly pointing at the Morbidelli 250 on which 15-time world champion Giacomo Agostini had made a one-off appearance in 1976.

Along the facing wall was a 20m length of hinged pages, with hundreds of laminated press cuttings from the 1970s and ’80s recounting the successes of the Morbidelli motorcycles that competed in the world GP championships.

The page my enthusiastic guide, curator Walter Magrini, was pointing to was the one that held the contract that Agostini had signed for his one-off outing, with both Ago’s and Giancarlo Morbidelli’s signatures there to be seen.

Ago’s bike, a 1976 Morbidelli 250, was just one of a dozen or so on display in the special Morbidelli Salon at the rear of this little-known museum at Pesaro, just 20 minutes south of the Misano circuit on Italy’s Adriatic coast.

But while the Morbidelli Salon understandably takes pride of place in a museum that carries the founder’s name, the other 350 exhibits have their own significance as well. That’s right – in excess of 350 motorcycles are housed in the rather nondescript building located in the backblocks of Pesaro’s industrial area.

Giancarlo Morbidelli was born into a peasant family in 1934, going on to become a wealthy Italian industrialist who took on the world in the 1970s with bikes carrying his own name. His two-strokes won world championships in the 125cc and 250cc categories, with success also in the 50cc category and also the premier 500cc category – although not a world championship.

Morbidelli first entered the world championship in 1969 with a 50cc team, but it was in the mid-’70s that his bikes tasted their greatest success.

In 1975 Paolo Pileri claimed the world 125cc crown on a Morbidelli, with his teammate Pier Paolo Bianchi second. The following year it was Bianchi who won the 125cc championship.

It was 1977 when Morbidelli tasted his greatest success, with Bianchi again winning the 125 title while Mario Lega won the 250 crown to give the small Italian team a double.

Morbidelli had made his fortune building wood-working machinery, but his passion lay in motorcycles. His two-stroke race bikes were initially only for his own team, but from 1976 the 125s and 250s were made available for privateers as well – although under the MBA (Morbidelli Benelli Armi) name after nearby Benelli had assisted Morbidelli with a factory.

Morbidelli’s passion for motorcycles and his race-track success is there for all to see in his private museum, which was opened 12 years ago in 1999. It’s seemingly a well-kept secret, as during my visit I was the only one there.

It meant I had what amounted to a personal tour from Magrini, who lives upstairs on the premises. I didn’t need to understand Italian to get the gist of his knowledge or enthusiasm for every single motorcycle in the display.

“Mike Hailwood, Benelli,” Magrini said, pointing to the 1959 Benelli 250, one of just three factory bikes produced that year, and ridden at one stage by Mike The Bike.

“Valentino Rossi, uno,” said Magrini, indicating the 1994 Sandroni RS125-lookalike, The Doctor’s first road racing bike when he competed in the Italian championship.

“Harley-Davidson, uno, uno, uno,” added Magrini, emphasising the 1926 Harley’s single-cylinder powerplant.

He then dragged me over to a 1950 Ducati Cucciolo 60 Turismo, proudly pointing out the cantilever suspension on the small 65cc Italian commuter.

The guided tour added a personal touch to a museum that I’ll admit caught me totally by surprise. I’d been expecting Museo Morbidelli to house a selection of bikes carrying the Morbidelli name, not in excess of 350 motorcycles arranged in avenues of era, from the early 1900s through to the present day.

The oldest bike is a 275cc 1904 Moto Reve, with every motorcycle displayed on a mirrored podium. This not only adds a stunning impact to the overall museum, but it also allows for the underside of each motorcycle to be viewed as well.

And that’s important when there so many jewels in the crown, such as the one-off four-cylinder 1964 Ducati 125 (below). The little Duke didn’t taste much success on the track, but the fact that Morbidelli has the bike rather than Ducati’s own museum a couple of hours away in Bologna shows just how much influence and buying power Giancarlo wields.

There are plenty of other jewels too, such as the supercharged four-cylinder Benelli 250 of 1942, which revved to 13,000rpm – a truly amazing motorcycle that I stared at for ages.
Or the 1969 Benelli 250/4 similar to the one Aussie Kel Carruthers rode to the world 250GP title, the last time a four-stroke would win the quarter-litre crown.

It’s not just Italian racing marques that are represented, either: there’s a quartet of pristine TZ Yamahas – 125, 250, 350 and 750 – as well as a 1970 Kawasaki H1R and numerous production roadbikes, all capturing what was hot at the time.

But it’s the Morbidelli Salon that is naturally the centrepiece, with bikes like the monococque 500/4 of 1980 ridden by The Doctor’s dad, Graziano Rossi, and the 125GP bikes of Pileri and Bianchi.

Surprisingly though, the 1977 250 title-winner of Mario Lega was not to be seen, having been sold to the Barber Museum in the US. Money obviously talks.

Money can also buy you one of the factory Morbidellis for your own collection, with one of Angel Nieto’s 50cc bikes up for sale at the handsome price of some 85,000 Euro. Museo Morbidelli has both of Nieto’s bikes, but only requires the one.

My personal tour concluded with a walk through an adjoining storeroom where numerous bikes were awaiting restoration, as well as a sneak peek in the workshop where the Morbidelli V12 engine lay in pieces on the bench.

“No photo, no photo,” made it clear the camera was to remain locked away.

The V12 is a work-in-progress exercise that is a follow-up to the Morbidelli V8 of 1997, the latter taking pride of place in the museum’s entrance foyer.

Museo Morbidelli is a living example of one man’s amazing achievements, and his ongoing passion for motorcycles. My Italian may have been wanting during my personal tour with Magrini, but he understood “Grazi, belissimo” as I waved goodbye.

Morbidelli pulled out of racing in 1982, but the company’s involvement with motorcycles was to continue.

At the beginning of the 1990s Giancarlo decided to sell his booming wood-working company to concentrate on his passion for motorcycles, an exclusive 850cc V-eight motorcycle showcasing the technical expertise part of his dream.

In 1994 Morbidelli unveiled his V8 – an 850cc shaft-drive sportstourer with a liquid-cooled 32-valve powerplant. Expensive to produce, it received saturation exposure due to its exotic nature and was displayed at the Guggenheim Museums in New York, Bilbao and Las Vegas.

A 1997 example of the V8 exists in the foyer at Museo Morbidelli, with one also at the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

MUSEO MORBIDELLI
Via Fermo 39
Pesaro 61100
Italy
www.museomorbidelli.it
info@museomorbidelli.it