Moto Guzzi V12 Le Mans, three new images of the Mandello prototype

During 2009, on the occasion of the sixty-ninth International Motorcycle Show in Milan, Moto Guzzi, the historic motorcycle manufacturer, presented three prototypes of two wheels, which gained considerable media attention and which favored recognition by the Motorcycle Design Association Award, as the best prototype booklet of the event: they were Moto Guzzi V12 Le Mans, Moto Guzzi V12 Strada and Moto Guzzi V12 X.

With these three motorcycles, the brand, founded in 1921 by Carlo Guzzi, had – or has? – the serious and concrete intention to recover from the industrial apnea, which struck him years ago (don't point the finger, as usual, at the never-ending economic crisis). Today, when Moto Guzzi is owned by the Piaggio Group, one of the three motorcycles that were exhibited at the Milan Motor Show was exhumed from the company attic.

This is Moto Guzzi V12 Le Mans, which is told through three new images. The prototype – will it ever be commercialized? – was designed, like the other two, by designer Pierre Treblanche, who attempted to merge and combine the tradition of a brand like Moto Guzzi, linked to the ancestral, anachronistic pencil, and the future, loudly requested by the swarm of passionate.

The new line distilled from Moto Guzzi V12 Le Mans is clean, light, elusive: in some places, it risks being excessively disruptive, especially in the row of horseshoe-shaped front LED headlights or in the slender one at the rear, really not very harmonized with the remaining part of the bodywork, limited to the limit of what is possible.

Great space is given to the image of the engine, the 12° V90, two cylinders and four valves, with 1.200 cubic centimeters of displacement (1,2 litres): the reference to the past, here, in the aridity of sheet metal to hide the unit, it is a must, not detecting it and revealing it is unprofessional. In your opinion, could Moto Guzzi V12 Le Mans, together with its sisters Strada and X, revive the success of the motorcycle manufacturer?