Moto Guzzi V7 Sport

The bike that turned a tall touring V-twin into a long, low sports machine, and the clearest example here of a single packaging decision changing a whole silhouette. Lino Tonti moved the generator off the top of the engine, which let him run a lower backbone of straight, triangulated tubes and tuck the transverse V-twin down into the frame. The first batch for Moto Guzzi's 50th anniversary year, 1971, was built to meet production-racing rules, and those bikes are known as Telaio Rosso for their red chrome-moly frames. They are the collector's choice, but the shape itself is the lesson, and any early V7 Sport shows it.