Mondial Sport

1957 F. B. Mondial 200cc Sport

photo by Michael Furman for Radnor Hunt Concours d' Elegance

Looking back now, I still can't believe my good fortune. I got a phone call from from someone who wanted to sell an old Italian motorcycle at my annual Chadds Ford Classic Motorcycle Auction. I asked him what kind of Italian bike and he said" Mondial". But he pronounced it as Mon-dile. I scratched my head, then it hit me: yes, Mondial (sounds like moan-dee-al). Sure, I had heard of Mondial, a famous but little remembered Italian manufacturer here in the United States. They'd won numerous World Championships, with a stunning 125/250cc double championship in 1957. F.B. Mondial (Fratelli Boselli) produced bikes in Italy from the early postwar years until the mid-1960's.

A couple photos of production racing Mondial In Italy 1955-57.

Mondial Sport started in 1948 when Earls Boselli hired Oreste and Alfonso Drusiani

to design twin camshaft engines in Bologna, Italy for the company. Riders Nello Pagani & Carlo Ubbialli brought fame to the marque by recording a string of victories first on the home soil, then venturing abroad.

Note the Crucifix taped to the clutch cable. We've often wondered who put it there and why.

I asked the seller to bring it over and that we'd sell it for him at the auction. It was complete, but very worn. Chrome finish peeling, saddle torn, but all there. I promoted the bike to a number of potential buyers I thought would be perfectly suited for it. Heck, it even ran well.

Come the big day, I decided to throw in a sealed bid just in case it should fall short of my estimated selling price. Much to my surprise, bidding was very light on the bike and the top bidder stop fifty dollars short of my sealed bid. I became the owner of a 1957 F.B. Mondial 200cc Sport model. I think its shabby state of cosmetic condition scared off some potential buyers who wanted something less daunting to restore.

The bike was stored in my garage several months after the auction while I pondered whether to do a 'sympathetic restoration' or take the full-blown wheels-up restoration approach. One day, the bike fell off the workbench, onto my Moto Guzzi Ambassador and several other bikes while I was at work. I was horrified when I opened the garage door that day and surveyed the damage. No choice now, I thought, given the fresh damage, than to press on with a complete restoration.

Most fifty year old bikes would be hard enough to finds parts for, but this bike was never officially imported here in the USA. An Air Force serviceman brought this and another Mondial over to New Jersery many years ago. They ended up at a salvage yard before being sold to man who brought it to auction.

Worn out rubber bits and Mondial decals, (actually transfers) would present some challenges to find. I cannot imagine how hard it would have been in the days of no internet, but I was fortunate enough to have Englishman Mike McGarry offer to do some shopping at an Italian swap meet he'd be attending that spring. As luck would have it, he found a vendor who had just what we needed and soon the parts were on their way. He also turned me on to Classic Transfers in the UK who actually had several designs in stock to choose from.

The winter months flew by as we disassembled, organized and prepped parts for painting.

When the painted bike came back to the shop, we were now ready to build it back up. The engine ran well before we took the bike apart, so we drained the oil, checked the Dell'orto Carb and added new cables and wiring to clean things up further. Most bearings were replaced, seals and gaskets were neccesary as well.

A new Silentium Muffler was fitted to replace the damaged orginal.

Detective Dupont traces some time consuming electrical issues

when wiring the new headlight shell and ignition.

With the bits needed on their way, RBO Racing where Robyn Oswald and John Dupont stripped the bike to down and continued the work. Chrome was sent out for re-plating, polishing sent to a local Brass restoration shop, painting was handled by Doug Summers.

When the Mondial was first started up and tested, the front downpipe was so badly worn that it immediately blistered and we realized a new pipe was needed. More time passed as we turned back to our friends in the UK to produce a new pipe. We sent over my old pipe as a pattern and a short while later a new one was sent back to us. The last item to be address was the tires, which are an obsolete size, but a friend came to the rescue with a set of period tires with the right tread design and size. We had tried a brand new pair while restoring, but they were just too wide and lacked the correct look.

The 200cc Sport is quick, nimble and stylish in the extreme. Some Mondials of this type competed in the famous Giro d'Italia and Milano-Taranto long distance road races in the 1950's with rider Remo Venturi and brothers Franco and Walter Villa. In addition the factory fielded a full Grand Prix effort that resulted in ten World Championships and featured riders like Tarquino Provini and Englishman Cecil Stanford and Sammy Miller.

The 'Dustbin' fairings were functional as well as elegant. They increased top speeds by nearly twenty percent over the un-faired machines. The designs of Mondial very highly regarded then and are much prized collectibles today as well. The racing equipment, in my estimation, is one of the stand-out designs of

it's era, a time filled with stunning achievements in automobiles and motorcycles.

1957 F. B. Mondial 200cc Sport

At the turn of the last century, as doomsday fanatics clamored on about the Y2K bug wreaking havoc, the folks back in Italy were putting together a deal to re-launch the famous FB Mondial brand. This photo shows the sleek, state of the art machine, now powered with a Honda engine demonstrating that the sporting nature of the beast. Very few of these were made and this one belongs to a collector in Califonia.

The Honda deal came together as a repayment of sorts because Mr. Soichiro Honda himself once asked Earls Boselli to sell him a Mondial engine so that the Japanese could study the secrect of its speed. It provided lessons they would put to good use in the 1960's. Sadly, the re-birth was short-lived due to financial difficulties for the new owners of the company. Will this be the last we hear from the great motorcycle builder Mondial?