Benelli Q.J. is an Italian company, based in the city of Pesaro in the Marche region, that produces motorcycles and scooters.
In 2005 Benelli was acquired by Qianjiang Motorcycle, a Chinese company owned by the Geely Holding Group. Originally founded in 1911 in Pesaro, Benelli is the second oldest Italian motorcycle company still in business.
Design, development and marketing activities are carried out at the Benelli QJ headquarters in Pesaro, Italy, in synergy with the parent company of Wenling China where motorcycles are produced.
History
From founding to World War II
Benelli was established in Pesaro, Italy in 1911, which possibly makes it the oldest of Italian motorcycle factories in operation. (Moto Guzzi—the oldest motorcycle factory in non-stop operation—was established in 1921, and Peugeot is the world's oldest and still producing motorcycle factory due to establishing in 1898.) After losing her husband, the widow Teresa Boni Benelli invested all of the family capital into the business in the hope that it would offer stable work for her six sons: Giuseppe, Giovanni, Francesco, Filippo, Domenico and Antonio ("Tonino"). She also sent Giuseppe and Giovanni to study Engineering in Switzerland. Initially the business had 6 employees in addition to the 5 brothers working (Tonino didn't work because he was too young.)
In the beginning, it was just the Benelli Garage, which repaired bicycles and motorcycles, but was already able to produce all of the spare parts needed for repairs.[1] During World War I, Benelli worked hard fixing parts for the Italian machines in the war and in 1919 the first motorcycle was presented to the public. In 1920 the company built its first complete engine in-house, a single-cylinder two-stroke 75 cc model, immediately adapted to a bicycle frame. A year later in 1921, Benelli built its first motorcycle, using their own engine which had by then become a 98 cc model.
But the most successful engine, which made Benelli known in the national and international field, was the 175 cm3 4-stroke with "cascade" distribution and overhead camshaft of 1927, a bold and sophisticated solution that soon became the "trademark" of the Pesaro house. Giuseppe Benelli was inspired by a theoretical study of an engine by Edward Turner published in 1925 in the French magazine Moto Revue. Giuseppe, in order to beat the competition, did not waste time and completely reinterpreted that project introducing an ingenious simple solution to eliminate the negative effects of thermal expansion that afflicted these applications.
The five cylindrical gears with straight teeth of the distribution (one of the crankshaft, three idle, one of the camshaft) were inserted (cascade) in a thin aluminum folder placed on the right side of the engine, on the top of which was mounted the "castelletto" of the distribution with the camshaft and barbells annexed. The whole was fixed to the engine head not rigidly, but leaving the coupling with a degree of freedom. The solution consisted in inserting two screws with the stem partially threaded (columns) in two holes in the castle and screwed on two of the four prisoners of the thermal head. The threaded part joined firmly to the head, while the part of the threaded screw created a free, but very precise coupling with the two holes in the castle. The screws were tightened so as not to "crush" the castle, but so that they could leave a play of a few tenths of a millimeter sufficient to the two "blocks" (folder-castle/ cylinder-head) to flow over each other in the phase of expansion by the effect of heat, without interfering and creating those deformations that would have made the system unreliable. This solution was patented in 1927 and began the commercial and sporting success of Benelli, which lasted until the outbreak of World War II. (Patent No. 255634 of 29 Oct. 1927 "Arrangement for forming and fixing the transmission box for controlling the distribution shaft at the head in combustion engines")
Two years after that, using a version specially designed for competitions, Tonino "the terrible" took to the track. He displayed an extraordinary natural talent as a rider and embarked on a very successful career which confirmed the company's exceptional capacity for development and production. Riding a Benelli 175, Tonino Benelli won four Italian championship titles in five years: in 1927, 1928 and 1930 with engine single overhead camshaft (SOHC) version, and in 1931 with the double overhead camshaft (DOHC) version. Unfortunately, a bad crash in the GP of the Tigullio in 1932 put an end to his short and brilliant career; on 27 September 1937 Tonino died following a road accident.
As World War II loomed, the Benelli company debuted with a motorcycles with engine four-cylinder in line supercharged 250cc designed for racing with double overhead camshaft, liquid cooled and with a vane compressor, credited with a maximum power of 52 hp at 10,000 rev/min and a maximum speed of 230 km/h. This motorcycle was intended to compete in the 1940 season to try to bissare the Benelli's success in the 1939 Isle of Man TT Lightweight 250 cc race, but the outbreak of the Second World War will frustrate all efforts and this solution (banned in the post-war period) will never be used in official competitions.
After World War II
At the end of the conflict, much of the factory was destroyed, the equipment dispersed or damaged and it took three or four years to restart the business in a situation of precariousness and misery. To replenish the scarce financial resources, the Benelli acquired a thousand motorcycles abandoned by the belligerent armies on the battlefields to refurbish them for civil use.
Giuseppe Benelli, after irreconcilable disputes with his brothers about productive strategies, split from the company to found first the BBC Automobili in 1946 and after MotoBi in 1952. The management of Benelli factory will pass to the second brother Giovanni who, although not having the design talents of his older brother, had great organizational skills having always managed the productive apparatus of the company. Under his direction Giovanni provides designers with the guidelines of the model of rebirth: the new motorcycle must be light, reliable and cheap. This is how the Letizia model was born, equipped with a two-stroke engine (cheaper than 4-stroke) of 98 cm3 with four bench bearings, mounted on an essential frame, but elastic on both axes. ″Letizia″ will be the motorcycle forerunner of the most famous model of the Benelli postwar: the ″Leoncino″ (little lion). It was produced from 1950 to 1960 in about 45,000 units, the most common motorization was the 125 cm3 2 stroke, but also 150 cm3 for the version "three wheel" and 125 cm3 4 stroke with distribution to "cascade of gears", immediately abandoned solution for reliability problems.
Since the 1960s, at a time of major market crisis in Italy, Benelli has been saving its balance with exports to the US. In the sixties he chose two different routes to sell overseas: via the importer Cosmopolitan and with the Montgomery Ward and presented the following models:
- Tornado 650: the twin-cylinder maxi was marketed first in the US and then in Europe. The superstructures are completely different, but the peculiarity is the chassis type Metisse, wanted by
The management of Alejandro de Tomaso
Towards the end of the 1960s, the arrival of Japanese manufacturers caused a crisis in the European motorcycle industry. The original Benelli company was heavily involved in the American motorcycle market, selling motorcycles under 350cc through Montgomery Ward. The advent of competition from Japan led to Benelli products (still largely of single cylinder pushrod design) losing popularity as they were perceived as old-fashioned in comparison to Hondas of the era which sported overhead cam engines with electric starters, in much the same way as the British motorcycle manufacturers such as Norton, BSA and Triumph were affected in the larger capacity sector.
The Benelli, in obvious economic difficulty, will be purchased by the Italian-Argentine industrialist Alejandro de Tomaso, who was undoubtedly one of the most discussed and powerful figures in Italy in the '60s, '70s and '80s. In 1959 he founded De Tomaso automobili in Modena and made his own series of road and racing cars. He then acquired a number of Italian companies such as Maserati, Innocenti, Ghia and Vignale and then, in 1971, Benelli and the competitor Moto Guzzi in 1973.
The management of Andrea Merloni
After a failed attempt of rebirth in 1989 supported by the Pesaro industrialist Giancarlo Selci, operating in the field of woodworking machinery and ex machine operator in the Benelli factory, in December 1995 there was the decisive turning point: the young Andrea Merloni, at only 28 years old, scion of family of the famous Marche dynasty of household appliances and passionate motorcyclist, has decided to take over the Benelli brand to relaunch it on the world market, first by opening a new factory in Strada della Fornace Vecchia, where Benelli itself is still based today, then entered the most difficult sectors, using young and dynamic designers, launching a series of scooters and maximoto to give immediate oxygen to the crates and organize the sales network and assistance.
So, in just over a year from the acquisition, were placed on the market the first new products such as models Adiva (in the displacement 125 and 150) equipped with rigid canopy foldable in the trunk (first scooter in the world to be equipped with this mechanism, then copied by the competition), the Velvet (in the displacement 125, 150, 250, 400) which remained in the list until 2012, the 491, very popular among fourteen-year-olds of the time, that mounted a rare horizontal Morini engine of 50 cm3 at 2 times with liquid cooling and that made it one of the most performing of the lot, the K2 (50 and 100 cm3) and the Pepe (of 50 cm3 then became the best-selling Benelli scooter in recent years); the latter, powered by a Minarelli engine, had a good commercial success.
In 1999 was hired the technician Riccardo Rosa (ex Cagiva) and was then presented the new Tornado Tre, a sports bike (900 cm3, then brought to 1130 cm3), with interesting technological innovations. It was in fact a pure sports bike, equipped with a 3-cylinder engine in-line that presented a new arrangement of the cooling radiator positioned under the rear tail and equipped with two forced air extraction fans of spectacular effect and a new "mixed" frame consists of a die-cast aluminium and steel tubes joined with a technology of aeronautical origin.
Current Qianjiang ownership
In 2005, Benelli was acquired by Qianjiang Motor Group, a Chinese company which has been controlled by the Geely Holding Group since 2015.[4]
The Qianjiang Group is a Chinese manufacturer of small motorcycles and engines, which already owns the Keeway and Generic brands. Qianjiang decided to maintain production and engineering in Pesaro, entrusting the company to sole administrator Yan Haimei. The production of motorcycles started almost immediately with the assembly of 3-cylinder engines (previously performed by Franco Morini Motori) brought back to the marque. The scooter range also restarted with engines of Chinese origin.
For 12 years Benelli QJ carried out the projects and production of the previous management. 2016 was a breakthrough year, with coincided with the acquisition of Qianjiang Group by the Geely Holding Group[5]. The Leoncino 500 and the TRK 500 are made in Wenling, China. Both motorcycles have the same 500 cc twin-cylinder 4 valve, double camshaft engine. The Leoncino is a "naked" bike with historic reference to past models. It comes in two versions, a roadster with 17" cast wheels, and a scrambler with longer suspension and spoked wheels. The TRK 500 is an "Adventure Bike" made for long-distance touring. It also comes in two models, the base model with cast 17" rims is a road touring machine, and the TRK502X is a more dirt-oriented machine. It has more suspension travel, spoked wheels, and a 2" higher seat height. In general, the success of TRK has been overwhelming. In 2020 it was by far the best-selling model in Italy. Benelli currently offers a very wide range of models from 125 single cylinder (135cc in some markets) to 300, 500, 750 twin cylinder and 600 four cylinder models.
Current products
The Benelli and MotoBi Museum
The Benelli and MotoBi museum is located in Pesaro, in Viale Mameli 22, right in the former workshops of the original factory, in use until the end of the 80s.
Of the original plant was "saved" only a building of just over a thousand square meters, the only example of industrial archeology of the city, which became the seat of the Officine Benelli Museum, managed by the Moto Club "Tonino Benelli" and the Benelli Historical Register (R.S.B.). The "survivor" building of the old Benelli factory, at the time used as a warehouse, was perfectly restored with the supervision of the Superintendence of Fine Arts in the 2000s. In its rooms there are about 200 Benelli, MotoBi and more motorcycles on permanent display and from spring 2021 you can admire the prestigious ASI-Morbidelli collection.
The itinerary starts from the room dedicated to Dr. Paolo Prosperi (co-founder and historical president of the Historic Benelli Register dead in 2020) in which you can admire some motorbikes "symbol" of the over 100-year history of the Pesarese house, photographs of riders, technicians and characters who gave lustre and glory to Benelli and MotoBi, trophies of every era and Benelli, MotoBi and Molaroni engines.
It continues in the large room dedicated to Ing. Giuseppe Benelli in which, in addition to the first motorcycle that passed through Pesaro in 1897, a tricycle De Dion Bouton and motorcycles with engine of all kinds, two very rare Molaroni specimens of the twenties, there are the Benelli motorbikes built before the Second World War and a wide range of MotoBi from 1950 to 1970.
In the third hall two examples of Letizia, all types of the Leoncino model, the two cylinders two stroke, the four cylinders and six cylinders four stroke of the De Tomaso period, some models for the US market and a large series of high and low wheel mopeds.
Palmares
Tonino Benelli, the younger of the six brothers, graduated as Italian Champion in 1927, 1928, 1930 and 1931, driving in the first three cases the Benelli 175 super sport monoalbero and in 1931 the bialbero. With the latter bike in 1932 will also conquer the square of honor in the European Championship, behind his teammate Carlo Baschieri. The Benelli motorcycles without Tonino, which had to interrupt his brilliant career as a driver in 1932 due to a serious accident occurred in the circuit of Tigullio, continued to reap successes and came to win again the European Title FICM in 1934 of the class "175" with the Belgian centaur Yvan Goor; in 1935 the world speed record of category of the Mile and the Km launched with the milanese rider Raffaele Alberti riding the "250" bialbero sport with 182.500 km/h; in 1939 the Tourist Trophy with the English Ted Mellors always with a "250" bialbero sport.
After the war Benelli won two world titles in the 250 class with the Italian Dario Ambrosini in the 1950 World Championship and with the Australian Kelvin Carruthers in the 1969 World Championship; has also established itself in five Italian Speed Championships in the 250 class with Dario Ambrosini (1950), with the Emilian Tarquinio Provini (1965, 1966), with the Rimini Renzo Pasolini (1968, 1969); in three Italian Speed Championships in the 350 class with Pesaro driver Silvio Grassetti (1967) and again with Pasolini (1968, 1969). Numerous were the affirmations and the placings in the classic of great bottom of the epoch, the Milan-Taranto and the Motogiro d'Italia, with the Leoncino 125, decidedly the most iconic motorbike of Benelli of the years 50/60.
The Trofeo Pesaro Mobili, held at Villa Fastiggi in Pesaro, was attended by the greatest names in world motorcycling of the time as Giacomo Agostini, Mike Hailwood, Jarno Saarinen and Renzo Pasolini.
See also
External links
References
- Benelli Motorcycles retrieved 2007-05-30^
- James Adam Bolton. 1973 Benelli 650S Tornado Motorcycle Classics, November–December 2009, retrieved 2009-10-08^
- Bike EXIF. Benelli Sei 6 October 2011, retrieved 2012-05-10^