A Brief History of the Italian Marque
In the early twenties the company Officine Meccaniche SAFIU ( Società Anonima Fabbrica Italiana Utensili), headquartered in Cavaria, manufactured tools and automotive parts for Fiat.
The company had a hundred employees and considerable technical equipment for the time which included workshops with lathes and presses, and a foundry.
In 1927, affected by the economic crisis created under the Fascist state, the company diversified by constructing motorcycles. The first model had a 175cc engine and this was soon followed by a 250.
The two engines are similar single cylinder horizontal OHV units, with a combustion chamber believed to have been designed and engineered by Ing. Giulio Cesare Cappa.
The machines had telescopic forks, very rare in the day.
Production continued until 1931 with output probably totalling about three hundred machines; other sources claim only forty-five motorcycles in all, possibly relying on registration records which showed only forty of that marque.
The plant, until quite recently, was still visible from the Milan-Varese highway near Varese, exit Cavaria; it is apparently very close to the location of Isotta Fraschini.
Ardea motorcycles were raced by Silvio Vailati, Bruno Martelli and Virginio Fieschi.
Vailati, as well as being a good rider was a good salesman, and at his shop in Milan in Via Elvezia imported and sold Sunbeam motorcycles which he imported from Great Britain, along with the Ardea.
Virginio Fieschi went on to build his own Astoria engines and complete motorcycles. His business had offices and factory in Milan at Coni Zugna and later at Via Astesani.
In 1931 S.A.F.I.U., the parent company of Ardea, failed; the complete warehouse with engines, frames, accessories and moulds were purchased by Silvio Crespi and removed to his workshop in Samarate.
Silvio Crespi worked as a senior engineer at Caproni Vizzola Ticino and sees in the purchase of material failure SAFIU the opportunity to start his own business.
Reportedly the sale price was 100,000 lire, a substantial figure at the time.
Thus the construction of Ardea Samarate motorcycles resumed where it produced between 10 and 15 units. In 1934 production ceased and Crespi emigrated to Africa in search of fortune.
After returning to Italy, he continued, with the aid of his son, to supply spare parts to Ardea motorcycle owners until 1948, the year of his death.
The logo on the tank of the bike from Varese is formed from the name of Ardea, in red, which overlooks an elegant and streamlined volatile, precisely un'ardea in flight and from this the motto of SAFIU "Volatility Super Altam Ardea Nubem."
In the tenth edition of the Circuito del Lario, on July 6, 1930, an Ardea was entered in the 250 class with a rider to be designated; it is unknown whether it actually competed in the race.
Source: Moto di Lombardia
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