The Best Moto Guzzi Motorcycles Ever Made [2023 Edition]

Why We Picked It:

The Moto Guzzi Normale was an idea made manifest by Carlo Guzzi and Giorgio Parodi. At the time, many motorcycles needed to be primed before the engine could be started, and lubrication was hand-pumped as well, due to the vertical nature of single cylinder engines. The stroke of brilliance for the pair was that they rotated the engine forward 90 degrees, so instead of a vertical single, it became a horizontal single.

Other genius ideas were casting the engine from aluminum instead of steel, which aided immensely with engine cooling, as well as the engine "counter rotating," in that instead of the crank rotating clockwise, it instead rotated counter-clockwise. This caused the helical gear primary drive to spin the flywheel instead of the flywheel driving it, and the actual three speeds of the transmission were on the other side of the flywheel. This made the entire engine casing incredibly compact, but required the flywheel to be mounted "dry" outside of the casing.

All of this compactness, as well as the horizontal mounting, allowed for a very low frame to be manufactured, to the point that the seat was almost higher than the top spar of the frame. The frame too was a revelation, a double-cradle type that was the ancient ancestor of the modern trellis double frame. It was considered a "sporty" motorcycle, as the term and class of sportbike did not exist at the time, and with its nominal 8 HP, it could push the Normale to 62 MPH, which was face-ripping fast in the 1920s.

Why We Picked It:

The 1928 Moto Guzzi GT500 Norge is one hell of an important landmark in motorcycle history worldwide. With that statement out of the way, let us explain.

The Normale was selling well and was appreciated for its technical advancements, but not happy to just sit on their laurels, Guzzi and Parodi came up with some seriously impressive tech that helped from the GT500. It retained the horizontally mounted 498cc single, but added fairings around the engine, floorboards for the riders' feet, and from the racing side of things, the triple spring front suspension. The biggest change, however, was the rear suspension, which used a sprung cantilever (called "pivoting spring" at the time) swingarm. It was so revolutionary and strange at the time that most publications wrote the GT500 off before it even went on sale.

This irked Carlo Guzzi to no end, so to prove the critics wrong, he asked his brother, Guiseppe Guzzi, to ride from Italy to the Arctic Circle, a 2,300 mile trek. Riding through France, Germany, and Denmark, Guzzi arrived safely at Norway's North Cape region without a single mechanical failure and in immense comfort. The GT500 was renamed to the GT500 Norge, and the trek inspired many other companies to seriously consider the sprung cantilever system, which directly led to the swingarms almost every motorcycle uses today.

That is why the GT500 Norge is important in the history of motorcycles: The first grand tourer, and the first mass produced motorcycle with a rear suspension system that we now call a swingarm.

Why We Picked It:

By the 1950s, Moto Guzzi had been racing for almost a quarter of a century, which had driven the evolution of its bikes to be very sport-oriented by this era. The Falcone is the last bike to carry the 500cc aluminum casing horizontal single, which by now was producing 33 HP in race form, and 23 HP in street form.

The racing version was called the Dondolino ("rocking horse"), and had a special piston, camshaft, and carburetor. For the Falcone, the engine was detuned and fitted with appropriate kit, yet it could still reach a very respectable 85 MPH. What Moto Guzzi did, however, was allow for customers to somehow, someway, "accidentally" find the racing piston, camshaft, and carburetor in the parts catalog.

When fitted with the racing parts, the Falcone could reach a pretty staggering 105 MPH. It also feature a streamlined tank, very few fairings, and had low, almost clip-on height handlebars. It was well received by both Italian and world wide motoring press, but it was also extremely expensive for the time as the Lira had been devalued quite a lot via World War 2, and despite being sold for 18 years, only about 20,000 were ever made.

Why We Picked It:

The 1950s were a very competitive time in Italian and global motorcycle racing. MV Agusta had come onto the scene, as had Gilera, with Ducati already well established. 500cc Grand Prix racing was king, and while all the others had transverse four cylinder engines, Moto Guzzi threw the rulebook out the window and made a transverse V8.

It was an engineering triumph. Liquid cooled, 499cc, dual overhead cams, 8 Dell'Orto 20mm carburetors, with a power output of damned near 80 HP with high tech racing drum brakes front and rear. It was wrapped in an ultra-lightweight frame with very slippery fairings over top, and could reach 170 MPH. In 1955.

The Otto Cilindri was almost 20 years ahead of the times, which also proved to be its downfall. The tires, brakes, and even the riders weren't able to keep up with the enormous speed, and despite it being raced for a few years, there were several spectacular crashes that made Moto Guzzi's factory riders eventually refuse to ride it. With the economic downturn in Italy in 1957, all the Italian companies withdrew from racing for a time, and today the only two Otto Cilindri race bikes built are in Moto Guzzi's archive/museum collection.

Why We Picked It:

The early 1960s were a rough period for the Italian economy, with Moto Guzzi selling so few bikes that they started to explore making cars. They were commissioned by Fiat to create a small displacement engine for their tiny urban 500-series cars, and engineer Giulio Cesare Carcano came up with a 500cc, 90-degree V-twin that was compact and powerful enough for the little Fiats. However, Moto Guzzi didn't have the production capacity to be able to keep up with Fiat's demand for quantity, so that deal fell through.

However, the Carabinieri highway division was looking for proposals for police bikes to shore up their aging fleet. The winning entry would be given to the manufacturer whose motorcycle incurred the least maintenance hours and cost over 10,000 KM. Moto Guzzi bored out the V-twin to 703cc, placed it transversely across the bike, and attached it to a shaft drive. The bike was compact, agile, but also stable at speed, and the company easily secured the contract from the Carabinieri.

The V7 700 proved to be so popular that Moto Guzzi received interest from as far away as the LAPD in California. The bike put out 40 HP and could maintain 100 MPH fairly easily, but it was much more famous for its riding comfort and unrivalled reliability. It was soon released to the public in 1967, and the rest is history.

Why We Picked It:

Before the term supersport and superbike started to be applied to motorcycles, Moto Guzzi produced one of the single best sport bikes of the 1970s. It was inspired by the cafe racer aesthetic of the 1950s and 1960s, then married it to Moto Guzzi's racing experience, creating a V-twin powered supersport that was insanely fast, angular and angry, and very distinctly Italian.

While the Le Mans series of bikes were made from 1976 to 1993, its the first three years, 1976 to 1978, when the best of the bunch, the Mk I, was produced. Powered by an 844cc air cooled V-twin that powered out a very decent 71 HP, the 850 Le Mans had an impressive top speed of 130 MPH.

The engine was mated to a 5 speed transmission that output via a shaft drive, still a relative rarity in the sport bike scene of the mid 1970s. Another significant milestone for the 850 Le Mans is that it was the first use of disc brakes on a Moto Guzzi street model. Today, an original Mk I version of the bike is highly sought after by collectors and can go for over $30k to $40k at auction

Why We Picked It:

Despite the success of the 850 Le Mans as well as the V7 series of bikes, in 1980 Moto Guzzi was losing money and looked to be on the path to bankruptcy. Owned at the time by Alejandro De Tomaso (who created the DeTomaso automobile brand), the decision was made to offer a more affordable, economical to produce, but still sporty bike with smaller displacement than the supersport Le Mans.

Two bikes were made, the V35 Imola and the V50 Monza. The smaller 350cc Imola was made to circumvent Italian motorcycle tax laws of the time, but the V50 Monza was where the real emphasis was put. It came with a 490cc transverse V-twin, a body style that was heavily based on the 850 Le Mans, and put out 48 HP.

With its five speed transmission, shaft drive, and light 370 lbs wet weight, it was a superbly agile sport bike that could hit 110 MPH and was comfortable enough to ride all day long. It received rave reviews and massive praise from reviewers and motorcycle media, and was a big hit in Europe. It didn't fare so well in the USA simply as it was more expensive than the Japanese sport bikes that started to arrive in the early 1980s, despite even American media giving it glowing reviews.

Why We Picked It:

While Moto Guzzi is not a name thought of today as being a well known racing company, they proved in 2004 that they still had the capacity to make a tarmac shredding racer. To make it, Moto Guzzi brought in some gigantic industry names to make it the absolute best thing they had made up to that point.

The V-twin was brought over to the UK and fiddled with by engine wizards Cosworth, which pushed the output of the 1,225cc beast to 121 HP and 83 lbs-ft of torque. Ohlins were brought in to make a bespoke, fully adjustable front fork and rear monoshock suspension. Brembo provided dual 320mm front discs and a massive 282mm rear disc with high performance calipers and pads.

This was all wrapped up in a tubular steel racing frame, with some extremely elegant fairings where needed. The result was a motorcycle that would easily hit over 150 MPH, and would corner like it was a laser defying the laws of physics. Only 150 units were ever made, and at $23,000 per, they were not cheap.

Why We Picked It:

The 2005 Moto Guzzi Griso 1100 came about as a result of fellow Italians Ducati putting out the Monster series of motorcycles. It was also a bit of an odd name for a bike, as Griso translates as "Goose." However, it was one hell of a statement bike from Moto Guzzi, and earned them a lot of respect for it actually being a very good sport naked.

Armed with a 1,064 transverse V-twin, it produced 87 HP and 66 lbs-ft of torque. It also flexed its muscles and lines because of the wide engine, giving it an almost streetfighter look from the front. According to many reviews when it came out, it was also more comfortable to ride than the Ducati Monster, although it didn't quite match the full agility and performance of its counterpart.

However, for many, the Goose was a mature alternative to the "LOOK AT ME!" Monster, and despite being relatively heavy, long, and even laid back in comparison, it would still carve a corner with enthusiasm. This is down to Moto Guzzi's engineers working magic with the suspension, as it will aggressively attack and apex, but also comfortably cruise the coastline of California.

Why We Picked It:

The 2017 MGX-21 is quite simply one of the meanest bikes that Moto Guzzi has ever made. Based on the California 1400 cruiser, the only thing that really comes across is the base frame and the massive 1,380cc V-twin, with 95 HP and 89 lbs-ft of torque.

Everything else was designed around this being the biggest, baddest bagger this side of Rome. It was a very gutsy move to plant a bagger down in between Indian and Harley-Davidson, but when it arrived in 2017, it was seen as a viable alternative. It has multiple ride modes, mid-mount sport cruiser pegs, pulled back bars behind a big cowl that looks like it won't do much but is surprisingly affective, and a low, scalloped saddle that hugs one's posterior in an enthusiastic "let's ride!" type of way.

The other thing about the MGX-21 is its name. It was named after the B-17 bomber, because it is a big, heavy piece of kit that wants to carpet bomb the cruiser landscape and make its own road. it is not what you would call nimble, and at just over 750 lbs it isn't light in the slightest. However, because the California 1400 model line opened the door a little, it gave the MGX-21 the opportunity to take a running kick at it and knock it completely off its hinges, and very successfully at that.

It only lasted to 2020, when the California line was ended, but in those four years of sales, it definitely made its statement and showed that Moto Guzzi has no qualms about fighting for its place in almost any market segment.