A Brief History of the Marque
Located at Via Torricelli, 14, between 1952 and 1958 this small factory in Milano produced some surprisingly fast motorcycles with engines of their own construction.
They built four-strokes of up to 246cc capacity including the very fast Razzo 175. Introduced in 1955, the Razzo (Rocket) could achieve 150 km/h.
Other machines included the two-stroke 175cc Gran Sport 175, 160cc Super Sport and Turismo Sport, and mopeds of 49cc.
At the end of World War II, Aldo Cavalleri (b. 1907) and Umberto Preti (b. 1921) began a business trading in war surplus materials, particularly motorcycles.
A born entrepreneur, Cavalleri had run a motorcycle repair shop in Milan which he started in 1925 at the age of 18.
The Milan premises became the base for the Aldbert company, a name derived from those of the two partners.
Preti, after attending a school of mechanical design, worked briefly at Isotta Fraschini before the outbreak of war. Like so many other Italians his war was brief. He was captured in North Africa by the forces of General Montgomery, and was well-treated by all accounts.
During his captivity he learned to repair British motorcycles and on repatriation with his friend Cavalleri purchased and restored mainly BSA and Triumph military motorcycles.
The two partners also bought Guzzino and Vespa machines for a rental business.
In 1951 Aldbert began producing a motorcycle with a 160cc two-stroke engine. The frames were built by Gino Tappella, a well known bicycle manufacturer who also built mopeds and light motorcycles sold under the brand name Schneller Fuchs.
The new Aldbert 160 Sport was joined by a 175 Super Sport which had a larger bore, an improved cylinder head and higher compression.
Shortly thereafter Vincenzo Clerici joined the company as technical director and began a four-stroke project which produced a 175cc 4T engine which bore a striking resemblance to the Morini (as did the Moto Aldbert logo). A production racer version was offered, the Razzo (Rocket), in eye-catching red, white and green livery. It is believed that some 30 of the 300 175cc machines produced were of the Razzo variety.
In 1954 at the 32nd edition of the EICMA in Milan, Aldbert presented three examples of the Razzo model, the only ones built with an OHC and aluminum cylinder, two in conventional frames and one in a 125 Super Sport chassis. The chain-driven SOHC engine did not achieve the desired performance and the project was abandonded, and none of these machines appear to have survived.
Also in 1954, a 125-stroke two-stroke machine equipped with the an engine from Arcelli-Tarditi of Borgomanero is was produced; this is a rare model of which only a few dozen were built in the turismo version, and just one supersport.
This is not the first 125 built by Aldbert - in 1952 at the Milan Motor Show they displayed a 125 equipped with an Astoria engine.
In order to be present in every sector there are also mopeds in the catalogue of the Milanese company offered in tursimo and sports versions powered by two-stroke MAV engines. Some 50 of these were built, none of which survive.
The Milanese company, which never had more than five employees, fell into an inevitable decline that led to closure in 1958 after building a total of some two thousand machines.
Competition
Aldbert was always well represented in road-racing. Many riders employed his motorcycles, including: Tino Brambilla, Giorgio Castelli, Giancarlo Dobelli, Luciano Dondi, Salvatore Falcini, Gilberto Milani, Raoul Mondini, Osvaldo Perfetti, Romolo Rossi, Otello Spadoni and Giampiero Zubani.
In 1956 Giorgio Mazzilli of Milan built a batch of five off-road machines using an Aldbert 175cc 4 stroke engine delivered by Umberto Preti himself. Mazzilli rode this motorcycle in many off-road racing competitions and also at the Valli Bergamasche.
Sources: Moto di Lombardia, Tragatsch p72.
Models include:
48 48cc 1955-1960
125 Turismo 125cc Astoria 1952
125 Turismo 125cc Arcellis & Tarditi 2T 1954
160cc Turismo and SS 2T 1952-1957
175cc Gran Sport 2T 1953-1957
125cc Razzo SOHC 1954 (and possibly 175)
