CarBrandLogos archive · Moto Guzzi · 1976

Moto GuzziMoto Guzzi Le Mans

Shaft drive, linked brakes, and the half-fairing that made Guzzi a sports bike maker.

Photo: Mr.choppers · 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 Le Mans, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Guzzi's answer to the mid-1970s superbike boom was to take the 850cc V-twin, raise the compression, fit larger carburettors, and wrap the front of the bike in a small and aggressive half-fairing with a rectangular headlamp behind it. The 850 Le Mans of 1976 looked meaner than anything else coming out of Italy and backed it up on the road.

Moto Guzzi Le Mans2 · Bryn Pinzgauer · CC BY 2.0

Design and engineering

The chassis was the Tonti frame, a straight-tube design using the engine as a stressed member, and it gave the bike unusually good stability for the period. Braking used Guzzi's integrated system, where the foot pedal operated the rear disc and one front disc together, which worked far better than its reputation suggested and predated linked brakes elsewhere by decades.

Le Mans Mk VNT · KevFoote · CC BY-SA 4.0

In production

Five series followed, growing to just under a litre and gaining fuller fairings, more angular bodywork and, in the later versions, less of the original's clarity. Purists generally hold that the Mk1 is the best-looking motorcycle Guzzi ever made and that everything after it was a negotiation.

Guzzilemans1000mk5 · KevFoote · CC BY-SA 4.0

Legacy

It ended in 1992 with the 1100 Sport taking over. The Le Mans is the bike that established Guzzi as a maker of sports motorcycles rather than tourers and police machines, and good Mk1s now cost several times what the later series do.

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

1976–1992

Technical specification

The Moto Guzzi Le Mans, in detail.

Production: 1976–1992
Engine: 844 cc OHV 2-valve per cyl. air cooled, four-stroke, V-twin, longitudinally mounted
Transmission: 5-speed manual, shaft drive
Manufacturer: Moto Guzzi

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