This week we have a beautiful stock 1984 Moto Guzzi 850 LeMans III, and Sam's personal, lightly modified LeMans III. Have a look and please tell us about any of your Moto Guzzi stories in the comments.
I have owned & ridden a few of the LeMans marques. A 1, 3 & a 5. The 3 is, in my humble opinion, the finest of them all. There was an interesting modification to the carburation, whereby it had a revised needle jet and as a consequence, required a smaller main jet. I could get 50+mpg and 240 miles to a full tank. And I wasn’t ever hanging around, either.
The owner’s father had very good taste, and bravo to his son for preserving them, riding them and acknowledging what classic bikes these really are. 👍✅😎❤️
That story about the US bike is ver probably true. It is the 750 Indian 841. Only a few thousand where built because Indian lost out to the Harley in the end but some of them indeed went to Italy. I only saw a video about it recently but the similarities striking enough to make also make me think it can’t be a coincedence.
Always great to see content on this great mark of motor cycle, however Sam do some research about this amazing company. They have an amazing history and Carlo Guzzi was an absolute genius. I would recommend that you take the time and trouble to visit Mandello del Mario, Italy where there is a museum on the site of the works factory and this facility is full of all of the models of motorcycle Moto Guzzi manufactured. When I went through this factory/museum I was fortunate enough to be accompanied by an older gentleman who had worked in the factory and as I walked and looked he advised me of some of the particulars the model I was looking at. There were triple's the v twin Ducati configuration, flat four's, twin's, singles, and of course the amazing v8. Your story about copying a model of the Indian I find extremely unlikely as the elder gentleman pointed to the 'ducati' looking engine and said 'sperimentali, no productioni and claimed a date in the thirties, the triple that looked horribly like the Laverda, was the same, an experimental model again in the late thirties...... so I am quite sure that Carlo Guzzi would have developed his motor for the Lemans, which was preceded by the 750 engine by himself and his engineering team.
Of course, Moto Guzzi builds a V8 engine in 1954 and then in 1965 copies a V-engine of an unspecified Indian of twenty years before... And these rumors you heard also told you that the chicken carbonara is the Italian national dish, right?🤣