1953 Laverda 75 Sport

This exquisite little machine, the color of a delicate Italian caffelatte, caught my attention on the website of Australian motorcycle photographer Phil Aynsley. The picture was taken in a small village near Bassano del Grappa in northern Italy, and the bike appears to be a 1953 Laverda 75 Sport. That means it was built just five years after Francesco Laverda decided to create a lightweight motorcycle for his own use. By 1952, Laverda had created a factory team of four racing bikes to enter into the Milano-Taranta road race—and when all four bikes finished the race, the Laverda name was established in the motorcycling world. The 75 Sport, with a new tubular steel frame, then dominated the 1953 Motogiro d’Italia. And the rest, of course, is history. [There's more on the history of this bike in Mick Walker's Italian Racing Motorcycles and Ian Falloon's Laverda Twins and Triples Bible PDF.]