It is of course known: If after years of fruitless searching you find something, then you buy it for the main prize. In fact, you have to hide in a dark cupboard six months later.
Because your dream car, motorcycle, watch or whatever is offered in a better condition for less money immediately after purchase. And sometimes in plural too.
This happened after the adoption of a Moto Guzzi V750 Special enlarged to 7 cc. That machine is now loved, cherished and ridden as much as possible.
And just before the six-month quarantine had expired, advertiser Albert Venema from Drempt called with the happy remark: “I now have just such a Guzzi as you have. But then a beautiful one.
You can have such a joke from good acquaintances.
What's even funnier is that the editorial 700 V7 once grew to 750 cc. The copy in Drempt had gone one step further. He had grown to 850 cc. Moto Guzzies - the lack of money - meant that juggling with cylinder contents was the rule rather than the exception, according to the building system.
It is nicer to look for the detail differences between these two 'identical' machines that do not differ much in terms of calendar age.
There is no other conclusion to be drawn than "those Italians simply assembled what was available".
But Alberts V7 is a clearly earlier example. He does not have an 4 - but an 2 Leading Shoe brake, his crankcase does not yet have reinforcement ribs, the carburetors are of a different model and the rear light also seems to belong to Lucas ...
Yet endearing, two of such old warriors together ...
And the last photo shows, as a shining example, a real, original 850 GT ...
Very beautiful too.
