The Six-Cylinder Sei That Benelli Should Have Built | WILD FILE

Six On Wheels

Italy’s oldest existing motorcycle manufacturer, Pesaro-based Benelli, built plenty of gorgeous motorcycles over its 100-year history. The 250cc four that Kel Carruthers rode to the world championship in 1969, for example, remains one of the most soul-stirring racebikes to ever circulate a road course. The progressive company established its share of firsts, too: first production streetbike with gear-driven cams; first four-cylinder 250cc GP racer; and the firm’s crowning glory, the first six-cylinder streetbike, called the Sei, launched in ’72.

Though the Sei was technically stunning, it could hardly be called stylish with its tragic de Tomaso styling and a dull-looking powerplant that plagiarized Honda’s CB500 Four. Noted Dutch classic racer Joop Berghorst has set out to right this aesthetic oversight by re-imagining his 1981 Benelli Sei 900 as a ’60s-style GP racer. Period bodywork complete with a dolphin-nose half-fairing, covered in lusty Italian racing red, looks a damn sight better than the slabby original plastic, and the flowing, 6-into-6 racing exhaust is much more emblematic than the original, pencil-thin 6-into-2 megaphones. No doubt it sounds the business, too…

Berghorst's phantom racer is the aesthetic equal of any production Benelli, Ducati or MV Agusta from the same timeframe. Bellissimo!

Business end of Joop Berghorst's Benelli Sei racer resembles nothing so much as a Honda 250/6. You can almost see Mike Hailwood dragging his toes...