Motor Valley - Emilia Romagna MotorValley Official Site

Simonini

The story of Simonini is not so different from that of many other craftsmen of Modena.. Enzo Simonini, son of a baker from Bomporto, a small town in the ‘Bassa modenese’ area, helped with his father’s business and delivered bread to the homes of the customers. He was a goodwilled lad with a great passion for motors, like many others in his town.

He was a shift worker at the Fiat tractor factory in Modena but he was dissatisfied with his working conditions. His dream was to work for himself so he left Fiat and started a business of his own in a room on the ground floor of his house as engineering of small capacity off-road motorcycles. After some initial work on the MiVal and Moto B he had the idea of producing conversion kits which were later to earn him a rather notorious reputation in the field. He then went on to build a 125cc., still using a Sachs motor with a frame similar to those used for smaller engines. In order to meet further obligations (also of a financial nature) he went into business with Mr. Franco Fornetti, the owner of a hydraulic engineering company in Maranello.

The agreement was signed at the beginning of 1975 and the company was relocated to Maranello in sheds previously occupied by a hosiery mill. Simonini later had some disagreements with the administrative management and decided to leave the company but remained owner of the trade name. He did not feel at all defeated, om the contrary, he was ready to get back into business and immediately started producing kits for silencers and exhaust pipes in his "factory" in Torre Maina.