Italo Piana is a living legend among Italian MotoGP fans. He won the Italian Motorcycle Championship three times, and was part of a team that set 46 world speed records at the Monza oval with a Ducati 100-cc Gran Sport in 1956.
Born in Torino, Italy in 1930, Piana raced motorcycles from 1950 to ’70 and was a factory pilot for such manufacturers as Rumi, Parilla, Laverda and Ducati.
Piana said, “I started racing right after World War II and since then more than 50 years have passed by. I began my career racing a Morini modified ‘Ignazio’ 125-cc two-stroker, the type with the magneto on the front. Next I raced a Rumi 125. That one I still own. If you have the book by Crippa entitled Rumi and the Motorcycles of the Artist, you’ll find me around 1957 with Zonca and Troisi as an official driver. After that I raced for Parilla and later for Laverda and then Ducati.”
According to Piana, now 80, his favorite bike of all time is a 1956 Ducati 125 “Marianna,” which he heavily campaigned from the mid ’50s through the early ’60s. He won at Trento-Bondone and at Chivasso-Castagneto on that bike. He was also second best at Cuneo and third at Gallarate. Piana and his “Marianna” finished 4th at Alessandria in ’58, 7th at Imola in ’61, 9th at Monza in ’62 and 8th at San Remo Ospedaletti in ’63. But there was another interesting Ducati in Piana’s garage.
Piana also owned a 100-cc “Privateer” Ducati Gran Sport that he fitted with a one-off aluminum bell fairing of his own design. He piloted this wind-cheating bike in circuit races and point-to-point competitions between 1950 and 1957. Sometime in the mid ’50s he swapped in a 125-cc engine. Piana recalls running this machine with the bigger engine at Turin and Cuneo. He also remembers a 7th place finish at Torino in ’56. In 1957 the regulations outlawed bell fairings (a safety measure) so Piana retired the “Privateer.”
Piana had a soft spot for his “Privateer” Ducati and kept it after he retired it in ’57. Needing cash to help his son’s racing efforts, he sold a group of bikes in 2001, including the “Privateer,” to Rick Weedn of Santa Barbara. Weedn sold the “Privateer” to Brian Samson of Vancouver in 2002. Five years later David Ledlin bought it from Sampson.
Ledlin is a Vancouver-based automotive restorer with an interest in Abarths. One of his Abarth friends, Chip Starr, was intrigued when he heard the description of the bike. According to Starr, “I went and saw it about a month after he got it and when I walked into his shop I absolutely fell in love. It’s was one of the neatest bikes I’ve ever seen. The fairing is to die for and it’s the same one that Piana hand built in the ’50s. The bike is just so right, so amazingly original—it ought to be since Italo owned it for more than 50 years—and it hasn’t raced since ’57.”
Starr is involved in the family restoration business, Race Car Resurrections, in Portland, Oregon (www.rebornracers.com) and is always on the hunt for something unusual. It took him nearly two years of hand wringing, but in mid-2009 he was finally able to get a deal done with Ledlin to buy the bike.
Since then Starr has been in contact with Piana, who has confirmed from emailed photos that Starr’s recent acquisition is his “Privateer” Gran Sport. Piana said, “The motor bike looks fine to me and it has the transplanted thermal group from my Marianna. When I was racing it I moved the pin springs, balance wheels, and valves, which I can clearly see in the photos of your bike. Thinking back to the modifications I made to that bike, the cleverest one was to bring the lubrication straight to the head of the camshaft, since the Ducati cams suffered from usage. I also put cork tops inside the pin spring spirals in order to reduce resonance and decrease the likelihood of breakage.”
Starr is considering vintage racing the motorcycle and plans to show it at various concours events. He not only was able to acquire a motorcycle rich in history, but he’s made a new old friend in Torino who just may be able to give him some riding tips.
