Welcome

Hello and welcome to Laverda500.cc.

Laverda 500s didn’t interest me. I was a triples man and a small capacity parallel twin held absolutely no appeal until one day, whilst researching material for an article about the TT for the ILOC magazine, I came across some data which intrigued me. Looking through the lap times and race positions it appeared that the little Alpino- based racers had somehow consistently lapped the Island significantly faster than the mighty Jota. How could this be?

During that period the Jota was one of the fastest production bikes in the world competing on the world’s fastest race course, so how could a 50bhp twin outperform it? I had to find out so I ended up buying one, racing it and now , five years years later I`m writing a website about them! If you’re not a Laverda 500 enthusiast I`m hoping that this site will convert you...

 Bob Dixon

 

Where possible, I`ve tried to concentrate on providing information which has not been widely publicised before. Inevitably I have also had to refer to previously published information sources and would like to acknowledge the following sources which proved invaluable when researching the background information on the 500 and 600cc models;

Laverda Twins and Triples by Mick Walker, Laverda by Raymond Ainscoe with Tim Parker . Legendary Laverda 1949 -1989 Jean Louis Olive. Montydons website. Craig McWiliam’s Formula 500 website. Alan Cathcart, Malcolm Wheeler , Roger Winterburn, Roger and Richard Slater, Piet Hermann, Scott Potter, Maurice Ogier, Phil Todd and my friends on the Laverdapedia and ILOC forums

And of course my good friend Piero Laverda who persuaded me to buy my first 500!

 

No website dedicated to the Laverda 500 could fail to acknowledge the contribution made by Mike Waugh and his company Montydons who kept the interest alive in these machines when they were largely ignored by the mainstream dealers.  Mike was the only specialist outside Italy who concentrated on the 500s and helped keep many UK machines on the road. Sadly Mike is no longer with us but Laverda enthusiasts all over the world will remember Mike as true enthusiast and expert in the Laverda 500 twin.