As Laverda rose from the ashes of the 1970s, they saw Ducati as a natural rival, inspiration, and target. Yes, I know that Laverda continued to produce new motorcycles into the 1980s, but those were just 1970s engines wrapped in new clothes, a pattern that would continue when the company was reborn in the 1990s……
If you are a regular reader of RSBFS (if not, sign up for our email service so you never miss out on a great find), you will know two things: Number one, the RZ350 is a very popular model of semi-rarity her in the United States; and number two, sellers have been classifying “reasonably good”…
Update 12.12.2018: The seller has notified us that this bike has SOLD! Congratulations to buyer and seller! -dc Sort of an homologation special for a company that wasn’t planning to actually go racing, the Laverda 750S Formula used premium components to upgrade the company’s existing fully-faired sportbike. After falling on hard times in the 1980s,…
Mid-seventies the two-stroke era was winding down, most manufacturers were looking for ways to tie their new mid-size four strokes to their smoking forebears. Yamaha stretched it out, keeping the RD-400 in the line-up until 1980. For 1977 they offered cast wheels, all disk brakes and 14-second 1/4 miles. 1977 Yamaha RD400 for sale on…
Clean, low-mileage examples of the MZ 1000S pop up for sale from time to time and, since most were silver, I always have to dig back through our archives to see if it’s one we’ve featured recently. Also, I get the feeling they’re hard to shift and the same listings seem to pop up again…
Update 8.28.2018: This bike has SOLD! Congratulations to buyer and seller! -dc Although two-stroke sportbike production continued well into the 1990s in much of the world, here in the US the Yamaha RZ350 was pretty much the end of the line. Blame stricter emissions laws and progressively bigger and faster four-strokes in a country with…
Wow, two Laverda 750 SFCs in one week, both with very serious pricing. Although, of the two, this one appears to be more original and is in much nicer, if less patina-d condition and appears to… what the hell, it’s decorating a New York City apartment?! Oh well, I guess if I had the money…
Back in the 1960s and 1970s you could buy race cars and race bikes that were basically road-legal, vehicles you could actually drive or ride to the track and reasonably expect to be competitive with pretty minimal changes. Of course, those days are long gone: race machines often share very few components with their road-going…
