Within the seaside metropolis of Pescara, nestled inside Italy’s rugged Abruzzo area, Filippo Barbacane has been enjoying an extended sport. When he began his craft in 1993, the Italian ‘{custom}’ scene was a ghost city, largely restricted to mimicking American cruisers by grainy journal images. There was no web to lean on, solely the sluggish, trustworthy training of trial and error.
Filippo ultimately discovered his North Star within the Eagle of Mandello. He could not perceive why the world was ignoring Moto Guzzi’s high-personality, longitudinal V-twins as a platform for customizing. That curiosity birthed Officine Rossopuro (ORP), a workshop now globally synonymous with Guzzi excellence. For Filippo, a motorcycle isn’t a static sculpture; it’s a life-style meant to be ridden onerous and saved perpetually.
The Moto Guzzi V9 Bobber is an attention-grabbing, if barely confused, machine from the manufacturing unit. With its chunky 16-inch tires and blacked-out 850cc transverse twin, it sits in a purgatory between a cruiser and a basic commonplace. It has loads of ‘robust’ attraction, however for a purist like Filippo, it lacked a definitive soul.
“The V9 has all the time been a superb base, however I by no means notably favored the unique bike as a result of it was a hybrid,” Filippo explains. “The Bobber model gave it a robust look, however it did not fairly match a particular model.” His mission was clear: extract a ‘Sport/Bobber’ from the V9’s DNA, lean into that iconic blacked-out engine, and most significantly, put the bike on a severe weight loss plan.
Many fashionable bikes are notoriously heavy, shackled by the burden of budget-friendly metal and complicated electronics. Filippo’s antidote to this downside is aluminum. Each piece of the V9’s new pores and skin is a one-off, handmade within the ORP workshop. The brand new gasoline tank is the centerpiece; whereas it utterly reimagines the V9’s silhouette, it stays surprisingly roomy. Its deep seat recess permits the rider to really feel contained in the machine fairly than perched atop it. Extra importantly, it sheds important weight in comparison with the inventory metal unit.
On the sharp finish, Filippo saved the OEM headlight, a uncommon transfer for a {custom} builder, however a calculated one. He finds the built-in Guzzi eagle contained in the glass to be a masterstroke of design, so he merely framed it in a custom-fabricated cowl.
To show the ‘lumbering’ bobber right into a ‘Sporting’ machine, the ergonomics needed to change. The inventory bars had been binned in favor of straight, slender trackers. This creates a extra aggressive, tucked-in profile with out sacrificing the leverage wanted to manhandle these fats 16-inch tires by Abruzzo’s mountain passes.
The solo seat is one other ORP signature. It cleans up the rear subframe traces and emphasizes the bike’s mechanical coronary heart. To make sure the experience matched the seems, Filippo turned to his long-term companions at Bitubo. The upgraded rear shocks present the Italian-made plushness and adjustability the manufacturing unit items lacked.
The V-twin now breathes by an exhaust system by MASS, a Sicilian outfit that is aware of precisely how you can make a Guzzi sing. The chrome steel pipes circulation tightly towards the engine, ending in a crisp slash lower.
Filippo did not cease on the huge metallic. The rear lighting began as an aftermarket unit however was closely modified with a road-legal LED insert to suit the ORP aesthetic. Tiny, high-intensity LED indicators hold the bike street-legal with out cluttering the ‘smooth and slender’ objective.
The completed product is a V9 that feels basically totally different, agile, light-weight, and draped within the type of subtle {custom} end that solely 30 years of expertise can produce. For Filippo, the V9 represents a machine designed to be lived in, not simply checked out. In a world of over-styled present ponies, Filippo Barbacane has as soon as once more confirmed that one of the simplest ways to maneuver ahead is to simplify, lighten, and experience.
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