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Posted by Peter Jones
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Saturday, 20 September 1997 |
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Page 1 of 2
Story by Peter Jones ~ Photos by Tim McKinney
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| Tractors. Even some Moto Guzzi owners affectionately refer to their machines in that way. But it's not really fair. Moto Guzzi's machines once pushed the cutting edge of the performance envelope. |
| First introduced to the European market in 1971, the Moto Guzzi V7 Sport was intended to be a sportbike that could compete, on and off the track, with the best cafe racer in the world - Ducati's 750SS. The V7 was a tad heavy compared to the Ducati but that's because Moto Guzzi designed it to be a better street machine as well as a stable and fast performer. And though it was heavier than the Ducati, it was lighter than the Laverda 750SF and the MV Agusta. |
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The V7 Sport had the same two missions of the Ducati 750 - to be a streetable sportbike and to provide the basis for a competitive superbike. But where the Ducati compromised its street friendliness for performance, the V7 tried to be the best of both worlds. On the street and the track, the V7 Sport was intended to revive excitement for the Moto Guzzi marque.
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| Many of the V7 Sport's unique features were revolutionary in its day and the V7's 1/4 mile time of around 14 seconds flat, proved it to be an ultra-high performance sportbike. That dragstrip time might sound ultra slow in light of today's open class bike times of around 10 seconds flat, but in the early '70s a motorcycle with that kind of ability could intimidate all but a few brave men. Not only have bikes gotten faster but so have rider's expectations. |
| Taking a look at the V7's engine 27 years after its introduction, one is first struck by seemingly how little has changed. The power plant is a 90-degree, pushrod, V-twin mounted laterally, with a driveshaft final drive. The Guzzis of today are but a conservative progression of that design without any missing links or evolutionary leaps for the last 30 years. The new sporting Guzzis have received untold numbers of significant updates from metallurgy to manufacturing processes to styling, but the latest machines from Guzzi all wear the heart of the V7 Sport on their sleeves. A Guzzi is clearly a Guzzi, regardless of its age. |
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