Lot 217 - 1978 MV Agusta Magni 861

Magni and MV Agusta are two names that have always been intertwined in the history of motorcycling. In 1947, Arturo Magni began his legendary career in the Gilera racing department and in 1950, Magni joined a newly formed MV Agusta racing department. Under Magni's management, as chief of the famed MV Reparto Corsa, the team won 75 world championships and over 3,000 races. After MV retired from racing, Magni and his sons set up a factory to build special versions of production motorcycles. The first bikes they redesigned were the 750cc and 788cc MV Sport & MV America road bikes. With all of the engineering experience developed over 25 years of racing, Arturo Magni and his sons performed complete transformations of the street version MV's including chain drives, new frames, tanks and seats. They looked and sounded very much like racing MVs.

The vendor informs us that this fine machine is based on a 750S America before the conversion was carried out. Sold by Bol D'or Motorcycles in the UK to Nick Mason of Pink Floyd in the mid 1980s, it subsequently resided in Southern Spain at the Ascari Race Resort where it was owned by Klaas Zwart from 1988 to 2014 where the bike was maintained by his team of mechanics. Acquired by the vendor in September 2014, it was fully serviced in January 2015 before being put into storage and is currently showing 35,011 kilometres. This is an exceptionally rare and very desirable motorcycle and a true collector's item.