CarBrandLogos archive · Moto Guzzi · 1971

Moto GuzziMoto Guzzi California

Built to a Los Angeles police specification, then sold for fifty years to everyone else.

Photo: Lankyrider · CC BY-SA 3.0

The story

A defining chapter in Moto Guzzi history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Moto Guzzi California, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

In 1969 the Los Angeles Police Department went shopping for motorcycles, and Guzzi built what they asked for: a V7-based machine with a large screen, crash bars, panniers, floorboards and a single saddle. It won the contract, and the civilian version launched in 1971 took both the specification and the state's name.

2006Honda CBR600RR-profile · Rich Niewiroski Jr. · CC BY 2.5

Design and engineering

That gave Guzzi a cruiser before the category had a settled name, and one that worked differently from the American bikes it competed with. Shaft drive rather than belt or chain, a wide-angle transverse V-twin rather than a narrow one, and on many versions a linked braking system in which the foot pedal operated a front disc as well as the rear.

In production

The California ran, with gaps and redesigns, from 1971 to 2021, growing from 750cc through 850, 1000 and 1100 to the 1380cc eight-valve engine of the California 1400, the largest production V-twin Europe has built. Fifty years is a long run for a model line whose original brief was written by a police procurement officer.

At a glance