1977 Laverda V6

By Phillip Tooth

Years produced: 1977
Total production: 1
Claimed power: 140hp @ 11,800rpm
Engine type: 996cc double-overhead cam, water-cooled V6
Weight (dry): 524lb (238kg)

Moto Laverda might not be making motorcycles anymore, but there is still a lot to admire about the Breganze, Italy, company. Their 750cc double-overhead cam twins produced relatively modest power, but with a fat torque curve that just kept on delivering. And in the early 1970s, Laverda twins were virtually unbeatable on the long distance production racing circuits of Europe thanks to their amazing endurance.

The arrival of the 1,000cc triple in 1973 opened a new chapter in the Laverda story, and the 3C (tre cilindri) would become the mainstay of Laverda production for the next 20 years. And when the legendary Jota, with its race cams and pistons pinched from the factory endurance racers, hit the road three years later, the 140mph projectile became an instant classic. Big, loud and orange, the Italian heavyweight scaled over 550lb (250kg) with a tank of gas, but the brute handled well — if you showed it who was boss. The Jota soon racked up a string of production race victories. But it wasn’t enough for Massimo Laverda. He wanted more.

Massimo’s father, Francesco, established Moto Laverda in 1947, and introduced the company’s first bike, a 75cc single, in 1950. In the early 1960s Massimo visited the Land of the Free to find out where the market was going, and he came away with a lesson he never forgot: In America, Bigger is Better. And he knew that in America — one of Laverda’s most important markets — riders would go wild over a 1,000cc V6 motorcycle.

Beginnings of the V6
The plan was simple: build a prototype, prove it in endurance racing, and use the lessons learned to produce a new range of bikes. But first he needed an engine. That’s where Giulio Alfieri comes in. Alfieri had worked at Lamborghini and Maserati as technical director, and had years of experience with V6 power plants. In 1975, Alfieri was signed up, joining Laverda’s chief designer, Luciano Zen, and brothers Massimo and Piero Laverda one day a week to work on the project.
Just like the V6 Alfieri designed for Maserati, the water-cooled, short-stroke, six-cylinder he cooked up for Laverda featured a 90-degree vee with chains driving double overhead camshafts. The bore and stroke of 65mm x 50mm gave 996cc, and there were four valves per cylinder, each with a single 10mm spark plug. Sparks came courtesy of a Marelli electronic ignition unit plucked from a V12 Ferrari. Lucas fuel injection was tried at first, but was soon replaced with six specially made Del ‘Orto downdraft carburetors. Oil was carried under the seat, with two separate pumps for feed and scavenge mounted at the front of the crank.

The engine formed the main part of the frame, but the rest of the cycle parts looked as if they came from the Breganze parts bin with Campagnolo wheels, Brembo discs and 38mm Marzocchi forks. Lav’s V6 featured an electric starter, twin headlamps from the Porsche 911 parts list and two huge radiators mounted on either side of the engine to take the heat out of the six liters of water used in the cooling system.

With a scant two years of development behind it, the V6 made its sensational debut at the Milan Show in November 1977. Now development could really start.
“This bike was not designed for competing in the long distance championship,” says Piero. “The V6 was the laboratory where we would develop a new generation of Laverda motorcycles. We would be testing the fastest laboratory ever built.”

From prototype to racebike
To test the V6, they decided to enter it in the 1978 Bol d’Or, held that year at the Paul Ricard circuit in France. “A 24-hour race would be the best test you can do for a new machine,” says Piero. “You can learn in a day what would take four months of normal road testing.”

But before they could go racing, there were a couple of minor problems to sort out. Under hard acceleration the torque reaction from the longitudinal crankshaft tried to turn the engine across the frame. And with the original monoshock fitted to the prototype, the tail would lift and fall under acceleration and braking.

To counter this, the five-speed gearbox was moved to one side and a reduction gear fitted to the clutch so that it ran in the opposite direction, cancelling out some of the rotational forces. The alternator was also converted to run in the opposite direction.

To minimize shaft-drive-induced see-sawing effects when braking and accelerating, a massive “girder bridge” swingarm was fitted with the pivot point nearly halfway along the engine, an idea copied by supersport bikes today. Conventional Marzocchi twin shocks sorted out the back end.

The fairing had generous apertures for the twin radiators, and plenty of room for the breeze to flow over the oil cooler and engine cases. A snake’s nest of exhaust pipes under the engine finished in two small megaphones with reverse cones.

The huge gas tank only added to the bulky appearance of the V6, and the fairing was bigger and wider than the slimline fiberglass unit fitted to the prototype for the Milan show. But the Lav was still a bit of a porker — fueled up and ready to race it weighed in at 524lb (238kg), with the engine contributing a hefty 385lb (175kg).

The V6 was tested at the factory’s tiny test track, but there simply wasn’t the time available for extensive road testing. At least the engine was more tractable than expected — power came in at 4,000rpm and the Lav delivered an impressive 140hp at 11,800rpm. Alfieri claimed it could be tuned to give 160hp, but he wanted reliability for the Bol d’Or 24-hours in September. For the race, the engine was tuned to deliver 138.7hp @ 10,500rpm.

Battle of the Bol
The Bol d’Or (Golden Bowl) is easily the longest event in the motorcycle racing calendar and can trace its roots right back to 1922 when it was more than 48 hours long — yes, two days and two nights of blasting around a track, more than enough to ignite the French passion for long distance racing.

More than a race, more than a carnival, more than a celebration of motorcycling, the Bol d’Or attracted upwards of 100,000 enthusiasts. Audience participation was always high on the list of spectator priorities, the greatest being the track invasion before the official finishing time. If the gods smiled and Laverda could pull it off, there could be no better place to debut their new baby. Just imagine the boost to road bike sales as pictures of 5,000 people crowding onto the track to surround the orange Laverda flashed around the world.

But that would be easier said than done. Laverda might have had Nico Cereghini, their best endurance racer, and Carlo Perugini, that year’s Italian 500cc champion (on a Suzuki RG500) as co-pilots, but they were up against some stiff competition. Honda France and Honda Britain were running 997cc 16-valve RCB works racers while Yamaha was fielding an OW31 — a full-on 750cc two-stroke racer fitted with lights and a kickstart piloted by Patrick Pons and Christian Sarron.

Prepared by NCR, the race-prep subsidiary of Ducati Bologna, the semi-works 900 Ducatis hid nothing of great novelty under their combined fairing and big gas tank. In fact, the Ducatis were very similar to the 900SS ridden by Mike Hailwood in the Isle of Man TT. But not a single Ducati was to finish the 24-hours.

Pops Yoshimura brought a touch of American Superbike racing to Paul Ricard with a Suzuki GS1000 enlarged to 1,100cc. It had an extremely long swingarm and extensively modified rear subframe to take laydown KYB shocks. The steering head was strengthened and all the welded frame joints were covered with brazing. Morris magnesium wheels carried large discs with Lockheed calipers while special Kayaba air forks sorted the front suspension.

The great unveiling
But the V6 was still something of a sensation when it was unveiled at the Bol d’Or. Everyone had expected a new Laverda triple and not the V6, which many considered to be only a show project. And when the V6 was timed at 175.46mph down the Mistral straight during practice, 5mph faster than the OW31 and way ahead of the 163mph Honda RCB-482A, people really started to take notice. With the right gearing, Laverda predicted a top speed of 186mph.

But it was no fairy tale debut. Although the chassis was good enough to hold the V6 at over 148mph through the very fast curves without it weaving all over the place, the bike’s weight handicap imposed severe physical strain on Cereghini and Perugini. And what was worse, the weight killed acceleration, something that was plain to see as the Laverda chugged away from the slower corners on the circuit.

The Lav had no chance against the light and powerful OW31, let alone the mighty Honda factory racers, but nobody expected the Yamaha to last more than a couple of hours before it needed a new crankshaft, barrels and pistons. But the crank had been worked on by the Hoeckle experts in Germany and to everyone’s amazement the OW31 went on and on, swallowing a tank full of gas every 50 minutes, reducing brake pads to charcoal and, at night, flattening a whole batch of batteries that supplied the total loss lighting system. After setting a record 96.7mph for the first hour, Pons and Sarron settled down to a steady pace that kept them between two and four laps in front of the pack well into the 17th hour before the crank finally cried enough.

The big Laverda was never able to climb above the 23rd place it held at the end of seven hours, and the V6 joined the Did Not Finish list after eight hours when the needle rollers in the Cardan-cross universal joint in the driveshaft broke up. Out of the 73 bikes entered, only 26 finished the race.

The OW31’s retirement removed just about every serious threat to the RCB works machinery. The 42nd Battle of the Bol ended after 23 hours, 53 minutes and 42.10 seconds when the crowd spilled onto the finish line to greet the winning Honda France team of Jean-Claude Cheramin and Christian Leon, with Hondas in the second and third spots as well. And Honda-engined bikes took eight of the top 10 places, with 4th and 8th going to Kawasaki 1000s.

Yet even though the V6 had broken down, the Laverda pit was not disheartened and they enthusiastically talked about coming back in 1979 with a new bike slimmed down to a competitive weight. It never happened — the FIM changed the rules, limiting Endurance racers to four cylinders, so the project was shelved. The wild V6 might not have won any races, but it became a legend.

Laverda no more
The Laverda marque is no longer owned by the Laverda family, the company having been bought out by Aprilia in 2000. Hopes of reinvigorating Laverda with the SFC 1000 and its RSV Mille-derived V-twin engine came to nothing. Now that scooter maker Piaggio, which also controls Vespa, Gilera and Derbi, has acquired the Aprilia group, it seems a Laverda revival might yet happen. But don’t hold your breath.

Yet Piero and his sons Giovanni and Simone are still as passionate about Laverda as ever. “Today we ride the V6 in the main classic events around the world, and enjoy meeting the Orange People,” says Piero referring to the nickname for Laverda fans. “The V6 is still fantastically reliable. It has not needed even a service during the last 10 years!” MC

Laverda timeline
1873 — Pietro Laverda founds a farm machinery manufacturing company in Breganze, Italy.
1947 — Moto Laverda is founded by Laverda’s grandson, Francesco.
1950 — Laverda’s first model, the single-cylinder Laverda 75, is presented.
1968 — Two-cylinder 650cc introduced, immediately enlarged to 750cc. The 750 is marketed as the American Eagle in the U.S.
1969 — A three-cylinder prototype is unveiled. The bike evolves into the 180-degree, 1,000cc 3C and later the Jota.
1982 — Reworked 120-degree 1,000cc triple introduced.
Mid-1980s — Production falls off amid a series of financial crises.
1987 — Laverda declares bankruptcy.
1989 — Nuova Moto Laverda, a cooperative formed by Laverda shareholders and workers, forms.
1991 — Nuova Moto Laverda partners with Japan’s Shinken Corporation. Two SFCs are produced, and Shinken announces plans to build 25 V6 replicas. It is rumored that one was built and currently resides in Japan.
1992 — New boss Francesco Tognon moves production to Zane and starts building a 668cc water-cooled twin based on Laverda’s old 500cc air-cooled twin.
1999 — Zane Laverda production ends.
2000 — Laverda becomes part of the Aprilia Group.
2007 — Laverda is part of the Piaggio Group, which acquired the Aprilia Group in late 2004. Rumors persist that Piaggio will relaunch the fabled marque.