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Benelli Q.J.

Six brothers, one story. Six men for a legend become reality. It was the spring of 1911 when Teresa Benelli, widowed, invested all the capital of her family to establish a workshop and ensure a stable job for her six sons, Giuseppe, Giovanni, Filippo, Francesco, Domenico e Antonio “Tonino” Benelli.

At the beginning it was only a service garage, where some spare parts for cars and motorcycles were also made. But the six Benelli brothers had a much higher ambition : building motorcycles. Eight years later, in 1919, the first engine was born, a two stroke 75cc applied to a bicycle frame which did not produce satisfying results.

In December 1921 the first real Benelli motorcycle appeared : the “Velomotore”, 98cc two stroke lightweight bike presented in two models, Touring and Sport (125cc), followed in 1923 by a 147 cc version, with which Tonino Benelli started to win the victories which will make the company of Pesaro renown throughout Europe.

In 1926 Giuseppe Benelli designed a new motorcycle, a 175cc 4-stroke engine bike, overhead camshaft commanded by an original ‘four gear train’ and performances equal to or superior to the motorcycles of larger displacement, which would lead to countless triumphs of Tonino Benelli, Italian champion in 1927, 1928, 1930 e 1931. The production increase and sales success (the 175cc was produced in different models until 1934, when a 500cc and a 250cc 4-stroke motorcycle were presented) lead to the enlargement of the factory, and in 1932 the Benelli brothers bought the pavilions of the sawmill Molaroni in ‘viale Principe Amedeo’, which is now ‘viale Mameli’.

Two years later, in 1934 Benelli introduced two new racing bikes: a 250 twin cam and a 500. In 1940 Benelli launched a 500cc with side valves and a fantastic racing bike (a 4-cylinder with double overhead camshaft and supercharger that would never be used on the track) but the outbreak of the war forced the company to produce only military motorcycles.

MV Agusta

The name Agusta first rose to prominence in the early twentieth century. It belonged to a pioneer of the fledgling Italian aeronautics industry, count Giovanni Agusta. Born in Sicily, he later moved to Lombardy and in 1907 founded his company at “Cascina Costa” in Samarate (Varese). Production of Agusta aircraft soared during the First World War, when the Count also signed up as a volunteer in the Malpensa Air Battalion.

When he died in 1927, the company passed into the hands of his widow Giuseppina and son Domenico, who soon found themselves faced by a crisis in the aeronautics sector and were forced to diversify to avoid shutting down altogether. They decided to convert production from aircraft to motorcycles, in response to the Italians’ growing demand for individual motorized transport. The first thing they did was come up with a motorcycle engine which was inexpensive to produce and run, a two-stroke engine with a displacement of 98 cc and a three port timing system; the resulting bike had primary gear transmission, an oil-bath clutch and a two-speed gearbox.

Development of the engine was interrupted by the second world war, and in 1943 Cascina Costa was occupied by German troops. The occupation lasted until the end of the war, when Domenico Agusta established Meccanica Verghera in order to complete his motorcycle project: this would be a new company, one fully prepared to meet the challenges of the motorcycle market.