OK, so like, there is always a story with restoration project. This one goes something like this...
I have a buddy Ralph who let me ride his 1979 Laverda Jarama a couple years back. I had always wanted a Laverda and lusted after an early 3c, solely based on their style. After riding one... it was over. I had to have one. The experience of riding these triples is just a raw, purpose driven experience that you never forget. So, of course I set about the business of finding one that needed a fair amount of work so that it would be at a price I could afford and I could tailor it to my liking. Another good friend of mine, Eric with an RGS Executive hooked me up with a solid guy who had a couple for sale. So... I had me a 1974 3c within a month or two and proceeded with a partial but extensive restoration of that machine.
Having now been bit HARD by the Laverda bug... I mentioned to Ralph that I would love to have a twin. He has a few and I got to examine them in the garage and on the road. I was smitten with them immediately as well. Ralph immediately saw the level of addiction with my new found drug of choice, Laverdas... and hustled in with the deft slide of an experience narcotics dealer. He had given me my first 'taste', and now had me right where he wanted me. He mentioned that he had a "parts bike", an early American Eagle for a couple hundred bucks. "Dude, it's about all there... just a little bit of work and it'll be down the road in no time". Ralph makes this short speech a lot. A lot. He mentioned it a few more times, sliding it casually into conversations that usually involved him helping me with some advice on my triple, as well as the occasional phone messages. "Dude... like, so... you know that Laverda twin could really be a sweet cafe bike dude... ", or the ubiquitous "Dude... you really outta think about it... those twins are really sweet motorbikes". LIKE I needed some sort of encouragement. I mean, come on. Moth to the flame I am.
Now, I *know*... KNOW, not to buy basket cases. They are more often than not, heartbreakers of the worst kind that drag on and on and never get completed. They get moved from house to house, job to job, relationship to relationship. Hundreds of pounds of albatross.. hanging 'round 'yer neck... reminding you of things left undone, missed deadlines and your fleeting youth. Fun, they are. "But"... I said to myself, "I know what I am doing... I am motivated and resourceful and... AND, I do this all the time"!
Right. Or as Ralph would say, "Whhaatever, Dude".
So, the Laverda came to me as shown here. I did some reasearch and got hold of the gentleman who keeps some registry records on the Laverdas, and he comfirmed that I have a 1969 Laverda 750s frame and engine. The numbers do not match, and they belonged to a couple people in Europe. However, it seems that one motor got blown, one frame got wrecked... and I have the surviving frame and motor of those two incidents. Both machines were in Holland, apparently, so this makes some kind of sense. I am not a bolt-spotting-numbers-freak with my own machines that I intend to ride, but I *will* be trying to keep this bike fairly true to it's year, make and model as they are very very thin on the ground, "Dude".
