The 1977 Laverda 1000 V6 Prototype is quite possibly the most interesting bike I’ve ever featured on Bike-urious. Despite the concept for the bike stemming from the questionable idea that was to bring an automotive engineer onboard to design a V6 race engine, it’s still a genuinely awesome machine. This bike doesn’t appear to have the same kind of notoriety that some of the other legendary 1970’s two-wheelers possess, but this fascinating machine is more than worthy of having its story told.
Laverda started in the 1870’s as a humble producer of farming and agricultural equipment. The Italian company would continue producing farming tools until after the second world war when it would produce its first scoot. Post WW2 Europe – Italy and Germany in particular – was in a tough spot with the economy in shambles. Laverda would produce its first motorcycle just prior to the 1950’s; a cheap reliable means of transportation in the form of a 75cc four-stroke single. The company would continue to produce motorcycles under the “Moto Laverda” marque founded in ’49. Within its first decade of business, the moco would produce some solid racers and experience a good deal of success on the track.
Laverda didn’t offer any machines with a displacement over 200cc until the 1960’s. As other manufacturers began shifting their focus to larger displacement bikes, Laverda knew it needed to follow suit if it was going to remain competitive. Francesco Laverda – who had founded Moto Laverda – had a son named Massimo who would travel to the States around this time, witnessing the the relatively behemoth machines that dominated the US market. When Massimo returned home he suggested the company develop a larger motorcycle which led to the introduction of an air-cooled 650cc parallel twin in ’66. Not too dissimilar from Ducati and the Pantah, this Laverda 650 twin would become the basis for the vast majority of Laverda’s successful motorcycles from that point forward.
In ’68 ,production would finally begin on Massimo’s long-awaited project and the model was greeted with a very warm reception from the public. Like Laverdas early fifth-liter scoots, the new 650 boasted stellar performance and reliability thanks to quality engineering, ample R&D, and an all-around great design. Unsurprisingly, the 650 was bumped up to 750, a model that would make its way to American shores under the not-at-all patronizing moniker of “American Eagle”. Nice. This model would turn into the S, then the SF, and finally the SFC. These machines would develop a well-earned reputation for being bullet-proof, making them ideal for endurance racing events which the Laverdas started to dominate in.
As the years went on, riders continued to want bikes that were better, faster, and stronger. Japanese four-cylinder “superbikes” started dominating the market, leading Laverda to bumping up its engine yet again (from 750 to 1000cc), and this time in the form of a three-cylinder. Because triples are generally awesome, Laverda enjoyed the success these three-pots experienced leading up the 1980’s when that began to change. Bikes from Japan were lighter than Laverdas, and more importantly they weren’t just easier to handle, they were cheaper. Laverda had become an elitist brand, and elitist brands have much more niche markets.
Laverda may have not grasped exactly what the problem was, and thus its solution to said problem made very little sense but would at least result in a cool bike. While one might think the answer would be to produce cheaper affordable entry level machines to rebuild a customer base, Laverda did not. The solution formed in a Breganze boardroom was to develop a state-of-the-art racer so incredible that it would attract attention and create new customers. By halfway through the ’70’s Laverda’s offerings had grown long in the tooth and a redesign was clearly on the horizon.
Next a series of what should have been unimportant events would set off a chain reaction that would result in the V6. Francesco’s son Massimo Laverda had an engineer at Laverda by the name of Luciano Zen, introduce him to an automotive engineer named Giulio Alfieri. Alfieri had spent two decades at Maserati where he worked on some truly noteworthy four-wheelers including the famous “Birdcage” aka Tipo 61, the 90-degree V6 used by both the Maserati Merak and the Citroën SM, and the 250F Grand Prix racer. Massimo felt he’d found the perfect person to design the scoot that would get Laverda back on track.
Because of his tremendous work on the V6 he designed while at Maserati, Alfieri suggested that this motorcycle should be a scaled-down version of his 90-degree V6 with dual overhead cam heads that would share the same architecture as the one designed for the four-wheeler. Because emissions laws were becoming increasingly strict, Alfieri opted to utilize liquid-cooling. The plan was to develop the Alfieri-designed 90-degree V6 racer, reap the benefits of the machine’s success and branding value before delivering a toned-down road-going production version – starting with a sport-tourer before an array of modular engines built around the same design would be introduced – of the V6. In ’75, work began on the project with Alfieri and designer Luciano Zen spending one day every week solely focused on the V6.
Laverda’s design was mounted longitudinally with the gearbox bolted at the rear driving a shaft to the wheel. The V6 utilized a separate five-speed gearbox that was not unitized with the crankcases. Final drive was by shaft, which was somewhat of a weird choice for a race machine albeit markedly easier to execute with the longitudinal mounted layout. The cylinder heads are splayed out a decent amount due to the 90-degree V angle, resulting in a wide motor that boasts ample room between the cylinders to accommodate a sextet of specially designed downdraught Dell’Orto carbs. Like the high-performance motorcycles of today, the Laverda V6 had chain driven dual overhead cams driving 24-valves through shim-under-bucket tappets.
The thing also had a special electric start system – which was fairly common on endurance machines at the time – from Marelli that reportedly was derived from the V12 Ferrari unit that had a one-off distributor design. Cooling was accomplished via dual radiators mounted ahead of each cylinder bank, flanking the steering head. Bore and stroke was 65x50mm, resulting in 996cc’s with a surprisingly modern pent-roof combustion chamber design that had a shallow 24-degree included valve angle. Lubrication was by dry sump with dual pumps, one responsible for scavenging and the other for feeding.
Early tests were recording 120hp, with later tests seeing that figure climb to 140 (at 11,800rpm). Despite everything seemingly going well, the previous plans of developing a sport tourer were jettisoned in favor of further developing the V6 into an endurance racer. But one of the biggest problems facing the design team was vibrations produced by the engine. While inline-sixes are well-balanced V6’s are not, especially when said V6 has a 90-degree layout with three-crankpin crankshafts, a la the Laverda. The idea is similar to introducing the rocking couple and vibration issues inherent to an inline-triple and doubling it, and then mixing in the problem of uneven firing intervals as the icing on the violently vibrating cake
Laverda had come across problems like this prior to this with its earlier 120-degree crankshaft triples and solved this with by introducing a 180-degree layout to mitigate rocking couple (the flexing motion of the crank as the pistons move up and down), albeit this did come at the sacrifice of some of the smoothness it would otherwise offer. To achieve decent balance a V6 will usually have a 120-degree firing interval which can be accomplished via the angle of the V being at 120 or 60-degrees. Getting a 90-degree design to be smoother requires either using two-throw split crankpins to get the “magic” 120-degree interval, or a counterbalance needs to be installed in order to cancel out the main vibration.
Alfieri’s remedy to this was pretty brilliant. Rather than introducing the additional weight and complexity of a counterbalancing assembly, the rotation of existing components are used to balance the engine. Using a counter-rotating clutch and alternator that turned opposite to the crank, Alfieri’s design didn’t just smooth out the vibration, but it also canceled out the torque reaction of a longitudinal crankshaft. Meaning that unlike the way a Guzzi V-twin or BMW Boxer will lurch to the side when blipped as the mass of the crankshaft is accelerated, the Laverda would not.
In ’77 this prototype was debuted at the Milan Show. The steel chassis sported a design in which a thick tube ran over the V up top, while the engine was used as a stressed member underneath. The seat cleverly housed the oil-tank in what was basically a single unit. The prototype wore Marzocchi suspenders and Brembo disks front and back. The bike’s appearance was admittedly a bit strange. A bulbous fairing and front end wrapping around the hefty V6, with a pair of “bug-eye” head lamps furthering the Laverda’s weirdness, all of which was adorned in the company’s classic bright orange racing livery.
One feature on the Prototype that impressed the public was a mono-shock rear suspension unit that utilized an underslung coil cover mounted to the transmission case. Most bikes were still running dual-shock rear suspension systems so this was a progressive design. Ironically, this feature that many considered to be noteworthy was complete garbage, even Massimo Laverda described it as “unrideable”. The unit had been haphazardly jimmied together at the last minute in order to ensure the bike would be ready for the ’77 Milan Show. The jacking-effect of the driveshaft was dramatically worsened by the short swingarm. The torque reaction of the stiff driveshaft results in the rear suspension jacking up when under acceleration, and then squatting when decelerating. On top of this, the shock mounting placed far too much strain on the transmission casing.
Because this entire bike was now strictly a race machine, a massive amount of resources went into fixing these issues so the bike could do what Laverda had built it to do: go fast and win races. The Italian moco wanted to have everything sorted – including the handling which still needed to be dialed-in – in time to see the V6 compete in the 1978 Bol d’Or 24-hour endurance race at Circuit Paul Ricard in southern France which was the first year that the iconic event was held at Ricard. Luckily the development team would get the bike done – or at least done enough – and the powerful V6 would see completion. Laverda had set out to build a machine that would dazzle, it was counting on the V6 doing exactly that to generate attention and sales.
Apparently the V6 showing up the 1978 Bol d’Or 24-hour surprised a lot of people, but jaws dropped when the machine barreled down the straight at speeds over 175mph. That was about 20mph faster than the second fastest bike – a 1000cc Honda – on the grid that day. On top of that, the sound the V6 makes is pretty incredible, a noise that’s often compared to a Ferrari V12. This machine has been tested more recently and reportedly is a seriously friendly and tractable high-power 1970’s racer boasting silky smooth delivery. This example is just such an oddity, but it happens to be a particularly cool oddity. Sadly the machine suffered mechanical failure and wouldn’t finish the 1978 endurance event but still made its mark on history.
Built around an original factory spare frame, this example is powered by the original #1001 EICMA engine with 30mm carbs. The seller claims this example is wildly close to the original Milan show bike of ’77. Supposedly there are only three Laverda V6 machines in existence – the ’78 Bol d’Or 24-hour racer is owned by the Laverda family and the ’91 Zanini Laverda V6 mock-up example is in the possession of V6-guru Cor Dees. That makes this example one – if not the only – chance to purchase one of these V6 racers. The vast majority of prototype that have existed no longer exist in their prototype form they once did, and this machine is no exception. However it’s wildly close, one of extremely few, and an all-around fascinating beast of a machine. C’mon, it’s a V6.
Find this incredible Laverda for sale here on Via Thema in the Netherlands with a ‘price on request’.