Guy bumps into a senior Piaggio body ( story below ) new engine development

Ash

Oh Yes....
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Below is his post..

Copied from a post on moto guzzi MGC UK Facebook page yesterday...

Curtesy of Nigel Abraham Dowsing.


I bumped into a senior Piaggio Individual last week. He was interested to know my feedback on my Eldorado. No bike is perfect and I told him what things I felt could be improved on but also told him genuinely that it was the best bike I have owned to date in many ways and really loved it.
I queried him about the future and the conversation got interesting. I have heard online chatter that Mandello de Lario is scaling down and that parts of the site were being sold off for residential development. This guy said that they had cleared part of the del Lario site as they are going to build 2 brand new production lines with very modern production techniques. He said that MG were developing brand new engines that would be more suitable to be manufactured on more automated assembly.......as opposed to the heavily hand-built nature of the current machines. I asked about details of the engines e.g air-cooled or water/oil cooled but he smiled and said you will have to wait and see.
He also said that for the last few years they have been overhauling their dealer network and many have gone. The intention was to have dealers who were truly enthusiastic and cared about the marque but had the capability and means to provide what was required for new era. That they did not want to start these new production facilities until the correct dealer network was in place. I told him straight that many dealerships think Piaggio is the problem rather than the other way round. His response was that Piaggio was a very Italian company. In that case a few British or Germans in the boardroom might be an advantage. He got the point. Waiting 4 weeks for spares was not always what customers wanted. I asked if MG would produce a Le Mans Mk1 or a MGS01 type machine the former to offer an alternative to say Triumph Thruxton R, BMW KNineT, Ducati Cafe Racer etc. He said Guzzi did in the form of the Griso but that it was a fairly slow seller but that it was his all time favourite Guzzi. After talking some more we had other stuff to do but it was an insightful conversation.
 
Interesting stuff, have kept an eye on MG for years and only just finally bought a new one as the quality and support is far better than it used to be to be fair to Piaggio, albeit you dont always have a dealer that nearby.

Be keen to see how they develop their range, its all about heritage after all, remember BMW talking about scrapping the boxers? MG need a broader range but not too many as to be un supportable or confusing. V7 and V9 are good bikes, maybe a smaller offering needed?

Be nice to see a few more out there.
 
Interesting to hear of "new" engines, lets hope they are not just another variation on their old air cooled v twins. Been commenting for years(as have a lot of others) that they need to get into water cooled engines to maintain a future, and sales.
I drifted away from MG after years (decades) of ownership, felt they were being left behind and had gone stale......
 


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