Moto Parilla Gs250 1957
Giovanni Parrilla (two ‘r’s unlike his motorcycle brand) was born in Spain in 1912 but his family moved to Calabria in Italy where his passion for motorcycles developed during his teenage years.
After military service during the Second World War, he worked as a diesel injection pump repairer and spark plug vendor in Milan but resolved to develop a motorcycle that would improve Italy’s success in competition. He purchased a Norton Manx, dissembled it and studied it, and then reassembled and sold it on. He gave his specifications for a single-cylinder 250cc engine to Giuseppe Salmaggi, who had designed the Gilera Saturno and Rumi racing twins. Only months later in October, 1946, the new motorcycle raced at Lecco in Northern Italy, featuring a bevel-driven overhead camshaft and hairpin valve springs.
Parilla then produced a double overhead camshaft (bialbero) version of the engine that exhibited considerable durability, so much so that, among many high placings, one won the 1950 Milano-Turanto endurance road race. In 1953, the next engine developed was a high-camshaft, 175cc, single-cylinder engine on which the chain-driven camshaft acted on two short pushrods that, in turn, acted on rockers with screw adjusters, offering the advantages of an overhead camshaft engine with the simple adjustment of a push-rod design. It was equipped with an alloy cylinder barrel in 1958 and enlarged to 200cc in 1959 and 250cc in 1961 although, in the meantime, some privateer racing engines were expanded to 239cc and a popular owner modification was the fitment of a second spark plug.
However, the factory developed a racing version of the 175 called the Competizione in 1953 and later, 200cc and 250cc versions were produced exclusively for the North American market where they dominated the 250cc class through into the mid-1960s.
This 1957 racing example was restored in 2006 and has not been raced since then. It was purchased via a US auction house for the NZ Classic Motorcycles collection in January, 2011, from the private museum collection of a motorcycle dealer in Phoenix, Arizona.