Aprilia: History of an Italian success

Dear friends of The Fleece Milano,

Since the opening of our Journal, we’ve been trying to take you by the hand for a dive in our world of fine knitwear combined with that flavour of timeless elegance that is a distinctive feature of the artisanal and made in Italy production.

This time, though, we want to take a little detour and take a leap into the amazing world of sports where more than a couple of weeks ago we have witnessed the crowning of another Italian dream, a story made of hard work, patience, passion and eventually success.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Aprilia, one of the most historic Italian motorcycle manufacturers, claimed its very first victory in the Argentinian Grand Prix of the top class of the world motorcycle championship: the MotoGP. Strangely enough, this was probably the only achievement that was missing from the trophy room of one of the most successful motorcycle racing brands in the history of the sport, winner, among the others, of 19 manufacturer titles (9 in 125cc class and 10 in 250cc class) in the world championship and 4 manufacturer titles in the Superbike championship.

As you’ve managed to learn from us, we always like to understand what’s behind a story of success like this one and how big is the effort made by people who believed in a project started from nothing and eventually managed to climb all the way to the top. It is always a great source of inspiration and motivation for us and that is why we love to share it with our readers.

Not everybody knows that Aprilia was founded after World War II by Cavalier Alberto Beggio as a bicycle factory at Noale, in the province of Venice. Ivano Beggio (Alberto’s son), took over the helm of the company in 1968 and built, together with few workers, the first 50cc motorcycle.

History of Ivano Beggio - The Fleece Milano

Despite being a relatively small company by global motorcycling standards, Aprilia has always been very active in motorcycle sports. 1977 was the year where Ivan Alborghetti, an Italian rider, won the first titles: the Italian 125cc and 250cc motocross championships. From there on, it has been a continuous growth fueled by the ability of Aprilia and its team to take brave decisions and rely only on their own strength.

Until 3 April 2022, Aprilia’s philosophy had not paid off in the world championship top class where the Italian manufacturer had tried many different innovative and sometimes revolutionary solutions to compete at the level of the powerful Japanese manufacturers. We are sure everybody remembers the three cylinders in an inline triple layout of the RS Cube MotoGP, which made it the bike with the fewest cylinders in the paddock.

However, Aprilia and the team never backed down and came back on the grid year after year more and more hungry and we can bet that the last turns of the Argentinian Grand Prix and the celebration on the podium paid them back for all those early mornings and late night of work.

Congratulations again to the Aprilia Racing Team for their amazing win which proved, once again, that it’s always too early to give up and it’s never too late to chase your dreams!

 

TFM Team

Ph. Credits: La Repubblica, motodagri.com

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