When the Dart was introduced, Moto Morini was owned by Cagiva – at the time the latter had no mid-sized bike in their model range. They decided to remedy that by taking the frame of their Freccia 125, and then shoving in a Morini 350cc V-Twin. It’s a little odd to see an air-cooled engine surrounded in plastic, but hey, this was the 80s.
Initial Dart models were 350cc but Morini eventually moved to a 400cc bike, which is much harder to find. Total production between both displacements is approximately 900. In a November 1988 test, Performance Bikes magazine called the Dart “slow, docile and atrocious value for money. But it is one of the most gorgeous motorcycles ever to come from Italy.”
This example shows 14,770 kilometers on the dash. It was originally sold in Japan but at some point in the past it was imported to the United States and granted a Washington state title. The seller states that it’s a runner though he’ll be giving it a tune-up and flushing the fluids this week. “It’s in decent cosmetic condition with the exception of where the tank cover is cracked around the lock.”
Find this Dart for sale in San Francisco, California for $4,000 here on Facebook Marketplace.