Garelli’s Gilardino bet pays off

A few weeks ago, 2sb poked fun at Garelli’s decision to hire Alberto Gilardino as a spokesperson, especially in light of Suzuki bringing in Alessandro Del Piero as “Mr. Burgman. Now that the Cup is over, we are eating our words, Gilardino played more minutes, and roughly equalled Del Piero’s stats. Assuming (surely) Del Piero cost Suzuki a good deal more than Garelli paid Gilardino, Garelli got quite a bargain. (We ignore the fact that Del Piero is a worldwide household name and we’d never heard of Gilardino before June):

GILARDINO Alberto (GARELLI)

MP MinP GF PG A SOG S FRE YC RC FS
5 304 1 0 1 6 8 0 0 0 9

DEL PIERO Alessandro (SUZUKI)

MP MinP GF PG A SOG S FRE YC RC FS
5 172 1 0 0 3 4 0 0 0 5

Garelli’s new site

Garelli’s website is working, if you have time to wait for the Flash to load. As is the trend, they’ve enlisted a member of the Italian national soccer team. At first, we thought “Wow, they got Totti?” but it took us a half hour to figure out that it’s Alberto Gilardino, who we imagine cost them a good deal less than Suzuki paid Alessandro Del Piero. The site features “their” new models (ooh, another Chinese Vino clone!) and a history of the company, which is interesting even for those unable to read the text. “Facile essere liberi,” by the way, means “It’s easy to be free,” though we suggest the slogan “Facile essere cinese.”

Garelli is back, if only in name

Motoblog.it reports that Garelli, thought to be lost forever in the never-ending shuffle of Italian motorcycle brand names, has three new scooters on the market, but as one reader comments, “Oltre al marchio cosa ha di Garelli questo pezzo di plastica?”. It’s another case of a once-great manufacturer that exists now only as a trademark, slapping their esteemed name on Chinese scooters.