Ivar de Gier wrote:
I guess is the proper phrase. If the information received is correct, Guzzi is no longer making motorcycles in Mandello del Lario. What a blow that must be for that gorgeous town with its friendly people. And what a long way the brand has gone since 1919 and 1921. The original founders had a vision that the brand should help the town that made it so prosperous. They wanted to build motorcycles that were sturdy and easy to maintain. Reliable and the racing machines had to be innovative. The V-twin was designed as a machine that should be easy to maintain, easy to build, and easy to operate whilst giving moderate performance. When a dentist showed he could do magic with Guzzi, he got the job to do it, and he did. Just like Carcano was brought in at the racing dept. in the 1930s, just like Carlo Guzzi showed the father of Giorgio Parodi. The founders had their own philosophy how to build bikes and where to do it. It came out of passion, and that passion fueled the birth of so many machines, and led to so many incredibly impressive racing machines.
That passion wanted to keep the factory where it was born, full of tradition, and the only safe place left where the original ideas of the founders still would be brought into the models that so many times were perceived by their designers for their riders. Guzzi Production has left Mandello. Ciao Guzzi. It was fun, thank you so much for staying there so long and making such a wonderful destination for countless trips. Thanks for providing a place to meet new and old friends. A place to show my kids, like my father showed me, like his father showed him.
Guzzi as I knew always have known it, is gone. I just cannot get over it but I think I am one of the few. But I still keep dreaming and hoping for that new Guzzi that looks like a Guzzi, handles like a Guzzi, can be maintained like a Guzzi and is durable as a Guzzi. And maybe it will be produced in Mandello. But ah well people, it lasted 90 years.
It is odd how lifelong cornerstone values can simply change. I really wonder who really cares though. But the people that work for Guzzi in Mandello, so many of them so proud of the brand, sometimes people with the 3RD generation already working for Guzzi, so passionate and always helpful for the non local Guzzi riders visiting their village and their factory; they are the ones that really suffer as their livelihood is in danger. And for all of us that have enjoyed their incredible hospitality; have learned to really appreciate the brands’ history; and have learned about the incredible dynamics of the way it created friendships and even families worldwide; for all of us it has left an uncomfortable void of a time that you knew once was, but never will return again.
