WALL STREET JOURNAL DISCOVERS MOTORCYCLES

Indicating just how fashionable and chic vintage motorcycles have become in the wider world of design and finance, the Wall Street Journal Magazine ('WSJ' - a blatant aping of the New York Times 'T' quarterly design magazine), in their holiday 'artisan issue', has no less than three photographs of motorcycles, two of which are vintage.

First mention is seen (below), quietly, in a feature on wunderkind industrial designer Yves Behar, whose Mission One electric sportbike was débuted here. The sportbike is pictured in a kaleidescope of Yves' work, which includes the $100 'one laptop per child', which has already sold one million units. (Full disclosure; Yves is a pal of mine and is business HQ is in SF - Fuseproject - his business partner Mitchell Pergola is like family to me.) Seeing the Mission One in the conservative WSJ was an eyebrow raiser.

Mid-magazine shocked me with the top pic of Mario Moretti Polegato and his collection of vintage Moto Guzzis...Polegato happens to be the owner of Geox (the 'breathable shoe') and has a net worth of $1.5 billion (of course the article mentions his wealth - it's the Wall St. Journal!). Polegato's collection began when his father discovered a '27 Guzzi in one of the tunnels beneath thie family home, the 17th Century Villa Sandi (clearly the family had a head start on their current billions). His collection now included eight vintage motorcycles, as well as a modern Honda Gold Wing and a Valkyrie. "I like to drive motorbikes because when I use the helmet nobody knows me." When he spotted a '52 Guzzino in the shed of a local oenologist's estate "My enthusiasm surprised him, and he sold me the bike for a ridiculous price." Obviously Mario is well-bitten by the Vintage bug.

But wait! Theres' more! In their Top 10 artisanal gifts for the holidays, the Riviera Café Racer is available, without a quoted price, from Walt Siegl, who builds custom motorcycles in an 1833 New Hampshire textile mill. The pictured machine was built for Tyler Hays (the artist and furniture maker) - as Hays wanted a Harley engine, the Riviera has a Shovelhead motor with modified bodywork (that tank looks very very much like a re-badged Benelli Riverside). A former motorcycle racer from his native Europe, Siegl was a toolmaker in Austria before becoming a cultural attaché for the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, then sculptor in steel in Long Island. Today his sculptures roll, and roar.