Once called the ‘Michaelangelo of motorbike design,’ Massimo Tamburini had an indelible influence on motorcycle design for 40 years, creating such iconic models as the Ducati Paso 750, the Ducati 916 and the MV Agusta F4.
He was a founding member of Bimota, which specialized in fitting engines from manufacturers such as Yamaha, Kawasaki and Ducati into brand-new chassis designs to improve the handling. But designing bespoke race bikes with their small production runs didn’t mean that he wasn’t able to create designs with mass appeal. Perhaps unique as a designer in that his creations were almost universally liked, if it wasn’t for Tamburini’s influence, modern sport bikes would very likely not look as they do.
10 Bimota HB1 - 1973
Tamburini, along with heating business partners, Valerio Bianchi and Giuseppe Morri, formed Bimota (the name comes from the first two letters of the partners’ surnames), to satisfy their passion for motorcycles and Tamburini’s skill as a tuner and engineer of motorcycles. The premise was simple: take a powerful Japanese engine - in this case, the engine from the CB750 Honda - and bolt it into a frame of their own design that was light years ahead of what Honda was producing. If it lacked the futuristic styling of later Bimota models, but it was no less significant, even if only ten examples were built. If you find one today, you’ll be paying top dollar.
9 Bimota YB1 - 1974
Fairings were unheard of on production bikes in the early 1970s, even BMW having yet to design their image-creating faired touring models at this point. In racing, of course, it was different and the Yamaha TZ350 was a very successful two-stroke racing motorcycle built between 1973 and ’81.
At that time, the Japanese were known to not fully understand motorcycle chassis design and Bimota set out to marry the engine to a chassis worthy of its power output (60 horsepower). Even though the TZ350 was faired, the Bimota fairing utilized aerodynamic study carefully to create a fairing with a wide nose to push air around the rider and a flipped up trailing edge to the seat unit. But, as always, it was the chassis that made the difference, Johnny Cecotto winning the 1975 350cc World Championship on a Yamaha fitted with the YB1 chassis.
8 Bimota SB2 - 1979
If the YB1 looked different, then that’s nothing compared to the SB2. If you haven’t worked it out by now, Bimota naming incorporates the first letter of the manufacturer that supplied the engine: in this case, Suzuki. You might not call it exactly beautiful, but there’s no doubt it was eye-catching, especially in 1977.
Taking the engine from the GS750 and putting it in a bespoke chassis, however, set new standards in sport bike performance and handling: standards that the Japanese knew they had to achieve on their production models. The impact Bimota had, therefore, was out of all proportion to the numbers of bikes it built. Quite simply, Bimota made possible the bikes that are available via mass production today.
7 Bimota HB2 - 1982
The Bimota HB2, using the Honda CB900 engine, is important because it introduced yet another chassis technology idea that is common nowadays but all-but unknown back in the early 80s. As usual, the chassis was constructed from steel tubes in trellis form, hanging the engine underneath as a stressed member.
What made the HB2 different was that it used a machined aluminum member to form the swing-arm pivot element, rather than extending the steel tubes to do the same job, as then-current chassis technology advocated at the time. The idea was also used on the HB3 (with the Honda CB1100 engine), SB4 and SB5 (Suzuki GSX1100 engine) and KB3 (Kawasaki Z1000 engine). Tamburini also used the idea on the MV Agusta F4 (see below)
6 Ducati 750 Paso - 1986
Important for more than just its looks, the Ducati 750 Paso (named after racer Renzo Pasolini, who died in a crash at the Italian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Monza in 1973, a crash that also claimed the life of Jarno Saarinen) marked the move away from Bimota and the next phase of Tamburini’s career, a phase that would see him hailed as one of the greatest motorcycle designers in history.
In the early 1980s, Ducati was in financial trouble. Cagiva came to the rescue, buying the company. The Pantah V-Twin engine with belt drive to the cylinder head-mounted camshafts had replaced the old bevel-drive V-twin and Cagiva wanted a motorcycle unlike any other that would highlight Ducati’s capabilities. The new model had to take the fight to the Japanese, and while the Paso failed to sell in any great numbers, the arrival of Tamburini set Ducati on a path they never looked back from.
5 Cagiva Mito - 1990
One of Tamburini’s passions was racing, and when he was in his first years at Cagiva, he had designed the bodywork for the Cagiva C189 race bike as ridden by Randy Mamola in the 1989 500cc World Championship. At the same time, small-displacement, fully faired sport bikes were hugely popular in Europe - Italy especially - and Tamburini took the design for the C189 and adapted it for use on the Cagiva Mito 125 in 1990. In that way, Tamburini created a motorcycle that was probably the closest to a Grand Prix replica motorcycle than has ever been seen before or since, despite the diminutive engine which was, at least, still a two-stroke, just like the 500cc GP bike.
4 Ducati 916 - 1993
Quite simply, one of the most influential motorcycles of the modern era, a bike that has styling features that are referenced in so many sport bikes, both from Ducati itself and other manufacturers. If the 916 and the developments of that bike, the 996 and 998, were hugely successful on track, winning the World Superbike Championship six times in eight years in the 1990s, they also put Ducati on the sport bike map in a way that no other model had done before or has done since.
Even if Tamburini did ‘borrow’ elements of the design from the Honda NR, he arguably did them better on the 916, and even today, 30-odd years later, it still looks fresh. Of course, it helps that it was also one of the best-handling bikes of its time but even if it hadn’t been, it would still have been a hugely impressive piece of motorcycle design.
3 MV Agusta F4 - 1997
To have created one defining motorcycle would be more than many designers could hope for: to design two is so beyond any designer’s most distant hopes that it should be impossible and yet, that is exactly what Tamburini did when the first fruits of the revitalized MV Agusta were revealed. As Cagiva owned the MV Agusta brand at that time, it was natural that the design of its first new model for nearly two decades would be entrusted to its chief designer - Tamburini.
Somehow, he managed to take the distinctive style of the 50s and 60s MV Agusta Grand Prix bikes and bring them right up to date without losing an ounce of their character and sportiness. Tamburini himself rates the F4 as one of his best designs, having been able to dictate every single aspect of the design. The fact that today’s F4 is simply an evolution of Tamburini’s design just shows how right it was first time out.
2 MV Agusta Brutale - 2001
If the majority of Tamburini’s designs were models of aesthetic purity that not only moved motorcycle design on by years, but that have also stood the test of time, then the MV Agusta Brutale shows that he could also be dramatic when the occasion demanded it. While other manufacturers might have been content to simply strip off the fairing of a sports bike to create a new model, Tamburini knew that wouldn’t be enough with the F4/Brutale: the resulting naked bike had to be as dramatic as the F4 was sublime.
That was achieved, and if some of the details, such as the ‘melting’ headlight were slightly challenging to the eye back then, the fact that it has been copied so many times since tells you all you need to know about the influence Tamburini has had on motorcycle design.
1 Husqvarna STR650 CC - 2006
Almost uniquely, the vast majority of Tamburini’s designs made it to production. Of course, that is easier when you are designing to order - manufacturers are unwilling to spend money on something that is never likely to see the light of day - but it is still an impressive record. One that got away was the design concept for the Husqvarna STR650, a supermotard that looks both light and aggressive, yet also attractive. The chassis was innovative in that it featured the steel and aluminum mixture as on the Bimota HB2 as well as adjustable geometry, a feature that is rare even today, let alone in 2006.