One of my favorite motorcycles, when I was a child I used to read about them in the magazines my father had laying about. It is called a Capriolo and it was made by Aero Caproni, a company that was famous for aircraft manufacture from the Wright Brother's era through WWII. After the war they tried making motorcycles and I heard they only made about 12,000 total, with one-tenth that imported to the USA where I live. The unique feature of this little 100cc bike is that it has a tower-shaft drive to an overhead camshaft, but the camshaft is what is called a "face cam", where it is a horizontal plate spinning like a phonograph record with two bumps on it to activate the intake and exhaust rockers as they come around. Apparently only two or three engines in history used this method of valve actuation. This bike was in the local paper's classifieds ad for a garage-sale. I recognized the name of the bike, showed up a half-hour early at the address and there was the widow of the original owner setting things up. I told her I was there to look at the bike and asked what the price was, she said make an offer and I said $100 and she said fine so I loaded it up in my van. it cost me $130 to transfer the title into my name !!! Not much to look at but the engine turns over, it is all original except for a bad paint job, and someday it will make a nice bike for someone to restore.
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