Mondial
FB-Mondial (Manufactured by Fratelli Boselli) was a motorcycle manufacturer of Milan Italy from 1948 to 1979, known for its Grand Prix motorcycle racing successes during the 1950s. Prior to World War II they manufactured delivery tricycles. The firm produced some of the most advanced and successful Grand Prix road racers of its time, winning 5 World Championships. After the 1957 Grand Prix season, the major Italian motorcycle manufacturers including Gilera, Moto Guzzi, MV Agusta and Mondial announced that they would pull out of Grand Prix competition citing increasing costs and diminishing sales (MV Agusta would later reconsider and continued racing). Mondial had readied a bike with desmodromic valve actuation (before Ducati) but did not produce it. In 1999 Roberto Ziletti attempted to revive the marque.
Honda
In 1957, Soichiro Honda approached Italian nobleman Count Boselli for purchase of a Mondial racebike, with which the firm had just won the 125 cc and 250 cc world titles. Honda would use this bike as a standard to which he would need to live up to in order to compete on a world-scale. They also examined it well.
An original Mondial 125 cc racebike is the first bike on display when entering Honda’s Motegi Collection Hall.
Revival
The rights to Mondial were purchased by newspress tycoon Roberto Ziletti in 1999 from the Boselli family who had founded Mondial before World War II. Ziletti was an avid motorcyclist in his youth, and his dream was to own a prestigious motorcycle company.
In 2000 Ziletti asked Honda to supply engines for the new Mondial (the Piega) from their race-winning RC51 superbikes. The deal went through, allowed because Mondial had supplied Soichiro Honda with that 1957 racebike. This represents the first time Honda has ever allowed a firm to use its engines for their production vehicles.
The end
Ziletti's father died, leaving him in charge of Lastra Group. Mondial's difficulties occurred when Lastra acquired Mitsubishi Corp.’s worldwide graphic arts division, leaving Roberto Ziletti insufficient time to resolve Mondial’s problems. He had spent more than euro 11 million into the company, and after failing to farm Mondial out to a Swiss company, the Arcore factory was placed in the hands of the Monza bankruptcy court in July 2004, with around 35 Mondial Piegas in various states of completion. To place this in perspective, Lastra Group had a turnover exceeding 500 million Euros in 2004.
Andrew Wright gave interviews in March 2005 stating that the courts had arranged to sell Mondial to his American firm, Superbike Racing, on February 28 2005, and they would continue the marque, but the Monza courts sold Mondial Moto SPA to a different buyer on July 27, 2005. Andrew Wright claimed his deposit had been seized, and the company sold to asset strippers. The Monza court version of events is unavailable.
In March 2006, Andrew Wright, south Georgia motorcycle dealer, was convicted of smuggling, mail fraud, wire fraud and false statements. These charges related to the smuggling of two motorcycles into the United States, falsely labeling them as being approved by the US EPA and DOT regulatory agencies, and selling them. He had previous convictions for the same offence. He was sentenced to 27 months in prison, but on December 7 2006, instead of reporting to prison, he fled. When his flight from prosecution began, he emailed several news outlets stating, in part, "You will never take me alive to be tortured in you(r) death chambers."
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