ULTIMATERACER
TROUBLEONOURHANDS
Guzzi’strue potential wasseenatMonza in 1956 in frontofthe
massive 160,000 crowd in atitanicbattle between Bill Lomasand
Gilera’sthree-timeworld championGeoffDuke.The two repeatedly
exchanged the leadin a25minstruggle,which endedwhenbothwere
forced to retire, the Guzziwith asplit waterhose after settinganew lap
recordat 153.50kph/95.38mph. “This wasthe first timeIrealisedwe
mighthavetroubleonourhandswiththeGuzziV 8 ,”saidDuke.ClassicRacer 49
ULTIMATERACER
It mayonly have raced fortwo years in
1956 and1957,and neverwon aWorld
Championship GP,but there’s an aura
about this motorcycle that’sentirely in
keeping with itsimprobablespecification.
Here arethe highlights of one of the
mosticonic racingmotorcycleseverto
grace atrack:
Conceived almost60 years ago
Revvedto16,000rpm safely
Wasspeed-trapped at 178mphalong
the MastaStraight at Spa-Francorchamps
in its final race
Produced 79bhp at 12,500rpminits
ultimateguise
Had eightcylinders, 16 valves, eight
carburettorsand four camshafts
Created in asmall workshop in the
MotoGuzzi factory on theshores of
Lake Comobyateam of just 12 men,
including the threeengineers who
conceived it.46º of advance(dictated by the highrevs)
fitted ratherthan amagneto,since none
wasavailablebackinthe 1950s to handle
engine speeds of 12,000rpmand up.Guzzi
triedusing theSwiss-madeScintillaVertex
magneto employedonthe lower-revving
Gilera fours, butitcouldn’tkeep up the flow
of sparksto the V8 motor. Theeight separate
coilswere mountedin twobanksoffour,with
asmall 10mm sparkplugper cylinder,and an
arrayoffourcontact breakers positioned on
theleftend of eachinlet camshaffttt.Carcano’s original V8 design employeda
six-speedgearbox, because it wasfeared
that suchahighrevvingengine wouldhave a
narrowpowerband thatwould dictate more
ratiosto keep it buzzinghard. But early tests
provedthe opposite,with abroad rangeof
usable powerfrom7000rpmto11,000rpm,so
to save weightand friction MotoGuzziwent
to afour-speedtransmission for1956.This
provedastep too farexceptontight, twisty
tracks, so an eventual compromisesaw theV8
runningwith afive-speedgearbox for1957.044 MotoGuzzi500 V8_SEP.indd 49 26/07/201715:23:30