There’s something I love about the Italians and their attitude to things, people and machinery. There’s no half-arsed approach; no toe-in-the-water; they love you or they hate you; it’s go big or go home; it’s all in or not in and I love that side of them.
Think about their motorcycles: beautiful and effective. Paul Smart’s 1972 750SS, the 916, Laverda’s Jota and, of course, more than a few Aprilias. I’ve long been a fan of the Noale-based manufacturer. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the ‘special ones’ (rich kids) rode around our estate on Italian 125s: mainly Aprilias, (okay, the odd Cagiva Mito), a mix of AF1s, one Loris Reggianitracks in a haze of two-stroke. Better still, later models would always carry a badge on the tank showing how many world championships they’d won – they took their first world 125cc championship with Alessandro Gramigni, and they celebrated the big names by marking some of their bikes in the colours of the big names: not just Gramigni and Reggiani, but many others, too…
