Lot 226: 1979 Laverda 1116cc 1200 Triple

Laverda’s reputation for sports bikes was built upon their ‘SF’ series of twins, later much enhanced by their mighty ‘Triples’. Large and mightily powerful DOHC, triple-carb, engine units, their 180 degree crankshafts gave them a distinctive ‘rough’ firing note suggesting, quite rightly, that these were real ‘horses’, not Japanese ponies. Even today, amid the immensely powerful competition, a Breganze Triple remains an icon, needing a necessarily skilled and determined rider to master it, being a bike unsuited to gentle posing. This triple, in its maker’s original black finish, was last on the road in 1986, the intervening years being spent in a private collection. Showing 19000 miles, the Laverda looks good, the Campagnolo wheels and the original (loud!) exhaust system being in good order, indicating an easy journey back to road use, following safety checks. It has contemporary paperwork, old MOT certificates and a V5.