MotoGP, the farewell of Italian motorbikes torn up by Count Agusta

In early December 66 years ago, some say December 8th is the day of the Immaculate Conception, the owner of MV Agusta Domenico Agusta summoned the small group of mechanics and technicians from his racing department to his studio to communicate urgent information . Tension is high, for fear of receiving bad news from the “Mr. Conte”: the closure of the racing department. Two months earlier, at the end of September ’57, MV had signed the pact to abstain from racing together with Guzzi, Gilera and Mondial. Instead Agusta communicates to his men that MV no longer recognizes that agreement. Indeed, the Cascina Costa company will contest the ’58 world championship in all engine sizes with a squadron: in the 500 Surtees and Venturi plus Hartle, Masetti and Bandirola, in the 350 again Surtees and Hartle, in the 250 and 125 Ubbiali and Provini, plus others drivers in the Italian championship.

the decision

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Those present applaud and some of them cannot hold back their tears for joy. The farewell to racing had come like a bolt from the blue, after the four great Italian manufacturers had dominated the 1956 season: especially the world champion MV Agusta with Carlo Ubbiali in the 125 and 250 and with John Surtees in the 500 (no manufacturer had ever succeeded before such a poker!) as well as with the Moto Guzzi with Bill Lomas in the 350. For the Germans the… sop of the sidecars with the BMW of Noli-Cron. The FIM itself (the organizer of the MotoGP at the time) thanked the Italian manufacturers without which the races would not have been possible, certainly not at this technical and competitive level. The bitter and historical adversaries of the Italians, the English and German Houses, had in fact raised the white flag by making various types of excuses. There was only one truth, the total supremacy of Made in Italy motorcycles and the inability of Norton, BMW, Ajs and so on to counter them. Not only. In Italy, other manufacturers were preparing for the races: Ducati with a flaming 125 desmodromic entrusted to the promising Degli Antoni, Romolo Ferri and Montanari; Benelli, which was thinking of the great return to 250 after the conquest of the world title in 1950 and the withdrawal of 1951 caused by the death in Albi of Dario Ambrosini (in fact the Pesaro company returned with an unprecedented single 4-stroke twin-cam in 1958 in Monza with Silvio Grassetti) and other “minor” brands. At the end of 1956, for Christmas and the end of the year holidays, panettone and sparkling wine in the racing departments of the Italian industry to toast the successes of the season and those considered imminent in 1957. Our manufacturers will still dominate: Mondial (125 with Tarquinio Provini and 250 with Cecil Sandford), Guzzi (350 with Keith Campbell), Gilera (500 with Libero Liberati). But, at the end of ’57, there will be no more toasts.

end of an era

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It was the end of an era, or rather of an epic. A very hard blow for racing and for the Italian industry. The path opened to the Japanese. The question arises again: why did our great manufacturers withdraw from competitions at the very height of their triumphs, with structures and professionalism at the top of the world and with motorcycles of refined and daring technology as demonstrated by the prodigious 500 8-cylinder 4-stroke from Guzzi, emblem of extraordinary racing cars that are the result of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of Made in Italy, leaving the field open to opponents, primarily the industry of the Land of the Rising Sun? At the time, the first reason for the lump sum, “we are abandoning it because the regulations have prohibited full fairings since 1958”, was a clumsy and mocking idea. Worse still is the second opinionated reason: “We are abandoning due to lack of opponents”, considering the participation of other Italian and European manufacturers and, above all, the announced arrival in the World Championship of the Japanese manufacturers, already present in 1959 in force at the English TT with Honda, then followed by Suzuki, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Bridgestone, anticipating great successes on the track and in the markets. Again, cynical and cheating fate cannot be blamed. The manufacturers involved in racing left the field, not only and not so much because of the large human and financial resources necessary for competitions, but because they no longer believed that the motorcycle had a future. From this perspective, racing no longer became an added value and a resource, but rather a luxury that was no longer sustainable even for large manufacturers: victories no longer had a direct impact on sales, they were no longer the flagship but a harmful noose around the neck. This, at least, was the assessment of Guzzi, Gilera, Mondial and also MV (the Cascina Costa company still had its back thanks to its aeronautical production, primarily helicopters) which led them to choose to say goodbye to racing. But did racing really put those companies into crisis? Or was it not the inability to adapt the “motorcycle” product to the new needs of the markets and the relationship with the overwhelming automobile, and not to fully evaluate the “value” of racing in the new context, not only as a test bed for production standard, but an irreplaceable tool for the identity of the company brand? Instead of taking up the new challenges and relaunching, innovating, it was decided to raise the white flag, severing the branch of excellence and image, the most attractive for the enthusiast-consumer, the one that most stimulated the plant itself to give its its best fruits.

John’s emotion

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Certainly, that “abstention pact” of ’57 was a defeat, a great missed opportunity. That “farewell to arms” pact was made official on 26 September 1957, also signed by the Varese-based MV Agusta, which then, not without controversy, would turn around and withdraw its lump sum, dominating the scene for many seasons from 1958 (that year he played poker with Ubbiali in the 125, with Provini in the 250, with Surtees in the 350 and 500), with his cars marked on the tanks with the ambiguous and opportunistic wording “privat”. In this context, the 1958 MotoGP will therefore be one-colour: for the first time one manufacturer will take over all the titles (excluding the sidecar one) and for the first time eight titles will be assigned to a single brand, namely MV Agusta. Only once, to the astonished Jonh Surtees, did Count Agusta justify his decision to withdraw from the abstention pact and retrace his steps to racing. “It seemed like an escape, a defeat, not only personally but for the whole of MV, for all the employees, especially for the drivers and my technicians in the racing department. I don’t like escapes or defeats.” When, twenty years ago now, “Big John” told this story to the writer of these notes, he passed a red handkerchief over his shining eyes.