Magni MV Agusta Storia | FIRST RIDE

No company is more entitled to produce a retro version of a current MV Agusta model than Moto Magni, whose founder Arturo Magni was the architect of the historic Italian marque's remarkable haul of 75 roadracing World Championships in 26 years. Arturo's youngest son, Giovanni, 55, has created the Magni MV Agusta Storia ("history" in Italian), a striking four-cylinder streetfighter built using any Brutale model from the original 750cc version to the current 1090. The Storia is available either fully built up in the Magni factory north of Milan or via a conversion kit starting at 8,000 euros. (For more information, visit magni.it.)

“I always dreamed of making a modern Magni MV, in the same way as my father did almost 40 years ago when he started the company,” Giovanni says. “And many of our existing customers were asking us to make an MV Agusta that was a blend of today’s engineering with traditional aesthetics—a bike that recalls MV’s glorious history but in a modern context with today’s performance.

“We rejected the idea of making a Magni frame for the Storia firstly because of cost but secondly because the existing Brutale chassis is very good, and it handles very well!” Giovanni continues. “But it’s quite a challenge to produce an authentic classic appearance using such an emphatically modern platform as the Brutale because an air-cooled engine has a certain presence. It’s hard to achieve the same purity of aesthetics when the cylinders are too small, with barely any finning, and fitting a radiator always threatens to destroy any elegance in the lines.”

In meeting that challenge head on, Giovanni has retained the stock Brutale 1090 chassis and powerplant, dressed up with traditional styling headlined by the hand-beaten aluminum fuel tank whose design closely resembles the so-called disco volante (“flying saucer”) styling of the 1973–’76 version of the 750 Sport, with tricolor paintwork that’s however a Gallic red, white, and blue rather than an Italian red, white, and green. A new TIG-welded rear subframe that’s both wider and slightly lower is fitted to support the gorgeous, ’70s-style single seat. The gracefully curved, nickel-plated separate exhausts with gently tapering megaphones are just as much of a statement today as they were back then.

The Storia’s quite spacious riding position is almost identical to the original Brutale’s, with a slightly higher reach to the stock handlebar thanks to the lower seat subframe. The whir of the starter button is the opening chord in the introduction to the MV’s mellifluous aria issuing from those curvaceous megas. Once moving along you can’t help using a gear or two lower than you really need to, just to make the MV sing louder. The Storia is packed with low and midrange muscle, surfing effortlessly into a howling high-revving rush of speed that’s totally intoxicating. A taut, light chassis completes the impression of total modernity—providing precisely what Magni intended: a classically styled, thoroughly modern roadster.