Back in January I mentioned that I was on the prowl for a Moto Guzzi Griso 1200 so that I could turn it into a custom street bike with some track aspirations thanks to a kit from Guareschi Moto in Italy. Looks like that dream may be dead in the water because it seems that Guareschi is no longer making the kit.
Several people were kind enough to reach out with some options for Grisos/Centauros/Norges – thanks to all of you for thinking of me! I specifically wanted a Griso as I figured that the suspension on the Norges and Centauros would be inadequate for what I was looking to do.
You can get Centauros for pretty cheap, though!
I also felt bad chopping up a running bike, my ideal was to find one that had already been crashed as it would save a few bucks that I could use towards the kit and I really only needed the motor/suspension/wheels/brakes. Gray (one of our employees at Iconic) found a very promising option – a crashed Griso 1200 in northern California that basically had everything I needed. In an ideal world it would have been a 2013+ model which had the roller tappet upgrade from the factory, but the price was right ($1,500) and the seller claimed that the forks and wheels were straight.
Only problem was that the bike wasn’t local and the Iconic van had just come back from a Bay Area run a couple of hours ago so we weren’t scheduled to go back up for three weeks or so. I reached out to the seller to see if that was OK, and…apparently it wasn’t.
I guess I could have been more detailed and said that I was willing to pay ASAP if he was willing to hold the bike, but I was so turned off by his response that I figured it was a sign to find something else. It appears he’s the owner of Santa Cruz Motorcycle Service, so I’m curious what his customer service is like.
With that said, I had sent my buddy Jay (the one who suggested this project to me in the first place) the link to the crashed Griso and he quickly called me back: “I don’t think Guareschi is making the kit anymore. The website has been saying that the kit is out of stock and it will be available in 2-3 weeks, but it’s been saying that for the last 6 months.” Well, shit.
Jay and I have both tried reaching out to Guareschi via their website, and he’s had a friend in Italy try calling as well with no luck. The prevailing theory is that they outsourced production of this kit to a different company and that might no longer be an option for them, or it just looks like they may have moved on and are just focusing on off-road products for the V85TT and Tuareg. Any chance one of you knows someone at Guareschi that could help me get to the bottom of this? Otherwise I’m guessing this project might be over nearly as soon as it started…
Thanks in advance!