Franco recently emailed me from Italy, in fact he lives only 40km from Mandello. He wanted to send me some pictures of his genuine V7 Sport Telaio Rosso which he did, but then he sent other pictures of his garage and his superb collection of 1970s twins, I thought i'd post them all up so you can see what a great place his garage must be to walk into every morning!! All photos are further down the page. Check out the beautiful bikes in his garage....Adam
Here's Franco in his own words;
"I'm 51 years old and have always been a passionate motorcyclist. In the past I used to race bikes offroad, but now my passion is for bikes from the 1970s.
My bikes are: Ducati 900SS, Moto Guzzi V7 Sport Telaio Rosso, Norton Commando PR, BMW R90S, BMW 75/5, Morini 3/12 Sport, Morini 500, then i also have a Morini 50cc Corsarino and some Vespas from the 60s/70s. Finally I have bought an Aprilia Tuono factory (a rocket!!). Not being so young any more, I've had plenty of bikes and I changed them often from BMWs to a Guzzi Le Mans, to a Ducati Mike Hailwood Replica, various Jap bikes (that I'm not keen on) and so on.
My Ducati 900SS was recently featured on the front cover of MOTOCICLISMO D'EPOCA (Italian classic bike mag, the best in Europe), with me riding it!!" - PICTURE BELOW
THE STORY OF THE SEARCH FOR THE ELUSIVE TELAIO ROSSO
But the bike that i really desired was a Telaio Rosso. Even living near to Mandello I could not find this bike, which for me with the Ducati 900SS was the most beautiful bike off the 1970s. i wanted the V7 Sport as a 50th birthday present to myself.
One day a friend down at the bar told me that he'd heard from another friend that possibly an old chap who lived on the Lecco lake had a Telaio Rosso and was in negotiations to sell it to a German. When I heard this I hardly slept that night!! We managed to find out who this person was, and I virtually begged the old chap to sell the bike to me, not even negotiating a euro off his price (which was high!!). It even had Vittorio Brambilla's (ex - Guzzi factory racer) name on the log book and had been featured in various classic bike magazines. So I bought the bike and took it home and covered it straight over without hardly looking at it, so i could surprise myself on the day of my birthday! So the bike stayed there covered up for almost a month until one evening I couldn't resist anymore, so I took the cover off to have a look..In the meantime I had been reading everything there was to know on the Telaio Rosso so knew the differences and particulars of these bikes. Then a small detail made me slightly suspicious, so with a magnifiying glass I looked very carefully at the frame number and other details and discovered that it was in fact a black frame that had been faked as a TR!! Under an excuse, I got the seller to my garage then asked him directly about the bike. At first he denied any knowledge, then after hearing my evidence and proof, said that I was right and he too must have been fooled!! Anyway, the story ends that i was given back my money and the bike and owner disappeared. It's very possible the bike has ended up in Germany.
Even after this disappointment, I carried on my search. Then one day i saw an advert for a Telaio Rosso for sale in Sicily. I took the aeroplane the very next day and went to Catania, where the seller, having showed me the bike and all the information I was looking for, sold me the so-desired creature!!
My V7 Sport Telaio Rosso has frame number VK 11147 and the engine is VK 30098. The bike shows just 16,000km on the speedometer. The bike has been certified original by Guzzi and is also certified by ASI (The Italian AUTOMOTOCLUB STORICO ITALIANO). The bike has a number plate from the Mantova region of Italy, but i found it down in Sicily after looking for a genuine Telaio Rosso for a very long time. It's truly virtually impossible to find a genuine one!!
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