Officina Moto Italia

With the big bike fest that is EICMA about to begin, Italian manufacturers and PR companies have gone into overdrive with information overload about what's going on, who's doing what, and what you will find where. One press release stood out and that talks of the setting up of a loose conglomeration of independent motorcycle manufacturers that are based in Italy, and it calls itself 'Officina Moto Italiana'.
Small manufacturers are nothing new in Italy - if you look down a list of small workshops putting together motorcycles in the first two decades of the 20th century, you would find hundreds of names, now mostly now all gone.

So, best of luck to (left to right),  Sarti (CR&S Motorcycles), Giovanni Magni (Magni), Pattoni (Paton) and Chiaia (Zaeta), who probably very wisely see strength in numbers, so may their independence flourish!

Scrambling for the best seats

I remember when I lived in Pisa in 1992, there was an old Ducati Scrambler that had been abandoned in an alley near a café I used to frequent (I have a photo of it somewhere), and I always admired its purposeful looks. Nowadays, like anything older with Ducati written on the tank, they are expensive and sought after.

But it looks like the Ducati Scrambler is coming back in name at least, though sadly not as a single cylinder - now that WOULD be fantastic. MCN this week published a photo that purports to be a likeness of a new Ducati Scrambler model based around a Monster-type frame and motor - and despite us asking Ducati if they had any other pictures and us being told that 'are we joking, it's just a Photoshop job?!' - you can expect to see the new Ducati Scrambler at this year's Milan EICMA show. Of course Guzzi already stole a march on Ducati with their Scrambler prototype a couple of years back, and Triumph have been producing them for a while now.

Mr Borile of Borile Motorcycles has been producing a modern Scrambler tribute for a while now (see pic above), and we feature our friend Alan Cathacart's test of it in the next Issue 6, coming soon...