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 |
I’m still just disappointed in “Garelli” for tarnishing that name. I mean #9 on the all time manufacturer wins list in Grand Prix racing with 51 victories and now it’s down to clones.
RTMOP: I was just reading about the death of one of the founders of the Laverda motorcycle company in an old issue of Classic Motorcycle Mechanics and did some more ‘searching’ and came up with this interesting bit from wikipedia describing what happened after the laverda name got bought, along with Moto-Guzi, that is another example of the good-name abuse:
“Aprilia founded a new Laverda division business unit which shortly after began importing low cost Asian scooters and quads and selling them under the Laverda brand name, a development which upset traditional Laverda fans, who felt it diluted the prestige and quality of the original motorcycle company…(after the Aprilia purchase by Piaggio) Piaggio elected to quietly close all activities related to the Laverda brand, and has publicly stated that they would be willing to sell the rights to the brand if an investor should appear.”
I also came across the 6 month old news that MV Augsta was sold to an Italian bank for 1 euro, a year after Maylasian car maker Proton bought them. I wonder if Husquvarna came along with the deal. What a bargain. I wonder what Piaggio wants for the Laverda name? Beeb, sell some T-shirts and raise the cash.