It was 1951 when Vittorio Minarelli and Franco Morini laid the foundations of what is now known as Motori Minarelli (then FBM-Fabbrica Bolognese Motocicli) and the celebrations celebrated on Friday for the first 70 years could not have been happier.
Because the last year of management of Fantic Motor – the Treviso-based group that acquired 100% of Minarelli last January and brought the historic Bolognese brand back under the tricolor flag after twenty years of Japanese ownership, Yamaha – has blown away, as I remember far away, crisis tables, strikes, trade union struggles that have halved the workforce and brought attention back to development plans, investments, recruitments in the Lippo di Calderara di Reno plant, the first outskirts of Bologna, where today internal combustion engines are produced 4 times and 2 times.
«When I arrived, last January 18th – says Vittorino Filippas, general manager of Motori Minarelli – there were 186 employees (three quarters women), today they are already 300 and we don’t stop here. Because behind us we have 70 years of history and emotions related to two wheels, but ahead of us we have the goal of making Minarelli a center of excellence at European level for the design, development and production of engines, not only thermal but also electric, power units, propulsion systems, for the motorcycle industry and all light mobility. And we want to do things right, focusing on research and innovation. We have 70 years of entrepreneurial skills and tradition, enriched by Yamaha experience, and the critical mass to respond to the market challenge: the new green engines are complicated to build and are capital intensive. Few motoring companies – he underlines – can afford to bear the development costs because it is necessary to work on volumes of at least 10-15 thousand pieces per year ».
Calderara aims to become the production center of innovative and quality 100% Made in Italy engines for all European motor and e-mobility manufacturers, riding the electric revolution in progress. «Most of the manufacturers of motorcycles, e-bikes and cargo bikes are SMEs that need 3,000-5,000 engines a year, just as the large motor manufacturers need niche engines. We will create critical mass for these customers by developing customized clean engines for them, ”concludes the CEO.