Story and Photographs Courtesy of Ben Ludolphy

The first time that we heard something of the GM engine was back in 1979, when, in an Italian motorcycle magazine we found an article of a brand new speedway engine made by Giuseppe Marzotto. Long ago as 1964, Marzotto started out with Moto-X racing and for some 10 years, he was to race on many different machines such as Greeves, Maico and Husqvarna. But Moto X racing plus hard work on the farm of his parents was simply too much.

The maintenance; tuning and preparation of the Moto X machines together with the long rides to the racetracks took too much of his time. So he stopped with Moto X racing but he found a new hobby - speedway racing.

In 1974 he went to Olle Nygren in Kings Lynn and with his Moto X background he was to learn very quickly indeed. In fact, he was so good that he won the Italian chapionship in 1975, 76,77,78 and again in 1982.

A speedway motor is much easier to keep in good condition in comparison to a Moto-X machine, but he was soon to discover a new problem, for at that time, spare parts for speedway engines were very hard to find in Italy. He started racing with Jawa machines, but very soon switched to Weslake machines, which, in his eyes was a fantastic engine, but the biggest problem was finding good spare parts in Italy. This meant making long trips to England or Germany to buy spares, and then there was another problem - the Italian customs, and very often he found himself waiting many days before all the paperwork was done before finally, the spare part arrived in his workshop.

So in 1979 he made a very important decision. He still wanted to race on speedwaybikes, but NO longer on foreign machines and he planned a speedway of his own design. For this job he contacted engine designer Giuliano Galiazzo and together they built the first prototype in 1979.