Our champion of motorcycling exotica, and ever one for the ladies, Steven Myatt eyes up a gorgeous Italian filly – in Warrington

Leaving aside Lambrettas – and we had better, hadn’t we? – I’ve got something of a blind spot when it comes to Italian motorcycles. I’ve never owned one and I’m not sure I’ve ever even ridden one. That’s a terrible admission, come to think of it.
I’ve got chums who swear by Ducatis and Guzzis, but all those makes have rather passed me by. Which is surprising, because I’m something of an Italophile; I love Italian culture in general, and their food, wine, architecture and a fair number of their cars in particular.
What had brought all this to mind was the discovery that an FB Mondial was living just down the A49 from Chateau Myatt, here in verdant Cheshire. An FB, I hear you say. A Francis Barnet? Er, no. In this case the letters stand for Fratelli Boselli, which was the company started by the four Boselli brothers in 1936 (Fratelli meaning brothers). Based in Bologna, the quartet – Carlo, Luigi, Ettore and Guiseppe – decided to specialise in small capacity, high-revving machines.

The youngest brother, Guiseppe, was a very keen bike racing fan, and he worked hard to convince the others that investing in a really competitive race team would give their machines a sales edge. It wasn’t a novel approach, but as they were largely making commuting bikes his elder siblings weren’t so sure.
The onset of WWII interrupted their ambitions, and the company wasn’t large enough or well-known enough to receive orders from the military; they all went to Benelli, Gilera and Guzzi. The brothers resumed bike production as soon as they could when peace was declared, and in 1948 Guiseppe was finally able to put a race team together. With the help of engineer Alfonso Drusiana they developed a dohc 125 single, and called it the FB Mondial.
It was enormously successful almost right from the start; ’48 was what would nowadays be called a steep learning curve. The team’s first outing was at the Gran Premio delle Nazioni in Faenza. Their one and only bike was ridden by Francesco Lama, and the bike broke – but not before Francesco had utterly delighted the crowd and hugely impressed the other riders by smashing the course record. The following year the team won the world championship, and got the manufacturers’ award. They did so again in 1950, and in 1951.