Vintage, Moto Guzzi, Pudding Basin Motorcycle Crash Helmet.
Sale price
Price
$ 8,000.00
Regular price
Unit price
per
Vintage, Moto Guzzi, Pudding Basin Motorcycle Crash Helmet.
Dickie Dale Isle of Man 1957
A good Moto Guzzi pudding basin motorcycle helmet with a red finish made in England by Cromwell. This helmet is fitted with a leather headband with foam padding and adjustable straps keeping a space between the head and outer case of the helmet. Good strong leather neck and ear flaps are also fitted as is a chin strap.
Guzzi and Parodi, along with Parodi’s brother, Angelo, founded the company in 1921 based in Mandello. The very first bikes were badged ‘G.P.’ (for Guzzi Parodi) however this was swiftly changed to ‘Moto Guzzi’ when the Parodi family requested to shield their shipping business from the venture.
They needn’t have worried. The first bike was a Guzzi-designed, horizontally-mounted, 500cc single, the ‘Normale’ which proved such a success the layout formed the basis of nearly all Guzzis for 45 years.
Another factor in Guzzi’s early success was racing. As originally intended, from the outset Moto Guzzi successfully used bikesport to promote its activities. In its first year it won the prestigious ‘Targa Florio’ and in 1935 famously claimed a TT double with Stanley Woods.
Then, in the ‘golden years’ of the 1950s, by which time Guzzi was Italy’s largest bike manufacturer, its Mandello factory had expanded to cover over 24,000sqm, employed over 1500 and included the world’s first motorcycle wind tunnel, it won five consecutive 350cc GP world crowns.
However, all of that quickly changed. Although between 1955 and 1957 Moto Guzzi developed its most ambitious racer yet, the 500cc, V8 ‘Otto’, the end of that decade also saw a collapse in motorcycling globally as buyers turned instead to a new breed of affordable microcars such as Austin’s Mini and Italy’s own Fiat 500.