Bimota always were a class apart, though, due initially to the brilliance of co-founder Massimo Tamburini (whose surname, along with those of his friends Valerio Bianchi and Giuseppe Morri, gave the firm its name). Bimota was founded to make air conditioning systems but moved into Grand Prix bike racing in the early ’70s, building the frames that took Johnny Cecotto, Walter Villa and Jon Ekerold to 250 and 350cc world titles.
Racing has provided some of Bimota’s highs over the years. Their biggest success was the Formula One world championship won in 1987 by Virginio Ferrari aboard the FZ750-engined YB4. In 2000, Australian Anthony Gobert won a World Superbike round at Phillip Island on a TL1000-engined SB8K.
But by then Bimota was deep in another of the financial holes into which it has stumbled throughout its history. This time it was the 500 Vdue, powered by Bimota’s revolutionary “clean-burning” direct-injection two-stroke engine. The V-twin refused to run, properly, had to be recalled and bankrupted the entire company.
You’d have to be a real optimist to invest in a company whose history is turbulent even by the shaky standards of the Italian bike industry.
Even now the UK situation is grim. The last importer, Hoss Elm of Moto Cinelli, sold just two bikes in this country over a 12-month period. Confidence in the marque has dropped to an all-time low, and there weren’t enough people prepared to pay big money for Bimota’s relatively low-powered aircooled V-twins. The brand that was once a byword for Italian performance and exclusivity has lost nearly all of its allure and credibility. And this is somewhat sad.
In some ways the problem is easy to understand. Bimota — like rival chassis specialists Harris, Spondon, Bakker, Moto Martin and Egli — forged its reputation in the 1970s, when it was relatively easy for clever engineers to improve on the heavy, twin-shock dinosaurs from Japan. But later bikes like the GSX-R1100 and FireBlade made that infinitely more difficult. The real surprise is perhaps not that Bimota has struggled recently, but that the firm is still building bikes today — unlike most of those old rivals.
By 2003, when Roberto Comini became involved, the Rimini factory had endured two lengthy periods of closure. There was a strong possibility that Bimota had disappeared for good, which makes the subsequent revival quite amazing. It now seems that there will be more Bimotas in the near future. But in case that doesn’t happen as planned, here’s the very best that they ever made.
