An historical name has been passed at the age of 82. Umberto Todero, certainly the longest continuously employed member of the Moto Guzzi family died after a several months illness.
Umberto Todero died yesterday afternoon, the victim of a terrible illness that struck him a few months ago, suddenly causing him to abandon his office and his beloved drawing instruments.
We could write thousands of words to describe Umberto Todero and the 66 years he spent with Moto Guzzi. We could write thousands more to relate the many inspiring moments we spent listening to â??Umbertoâ?? as he charmed us with tales and anecdotes of his life at Moto Guzzi and of his wartime experiences. These tales, packed with love, passion and suffering, taught so much, especially to younger colleagues who through them were able to discover a unique, unrivalled and unrepeatable world. We cannot speak enough of the man with our heavy hearts today. We will recount the history of this great man in an upcoming issue of Aquila, the Moto Guzzi annual magazine.
At Mandello del Lario, we shall never forget the persistence and determination that distinguished Umberto Todero throughout his professional life and private life. We remember him today, and in future his memory shall be kept alive within Moto Guzzi by his achievements in design from the legendary V-8 to the stunning MGSO-1. From the past and present, for Umberto Todero remained active as a designer up until the last moments of his life.
â??I first met Umberto at the Moto Guzzi factory I visited there with co-worker Emily Banks during winter vacation in 1994,â?? says long-time Moto Guzzi North America Parts Manager Shelby Kennard. â??There was no one there, except the guard, we were about to leave when this little man in a grey three-piece suit came by. He offered his name and I excitedly recounted some of the projects he had helped design (the V8 racer, the Daytona (now MGS01) 4-valve heads, and other things). Umberto then gave us a tour of the factory and a personalized tour of the museum. I will never forget him or the experience.â??
Moto Guzzi stands by Umberto Toderoâ??s family in remembering a man who was able, through his uniquely genuine character, to teach so much, especially to those who knew how to listen, and to all who had the honour of knowing and appreciating him. We present some words by the man himself, in a rough translation to honour his voice and his own history with Moto Guzzi.
“MY LIFE IN GUZZI” – Memories of Umberto Todero written in 2004
My Memory still today is one of strong emotion, my first day of job in Moto Guzzi, with my hand shaking when presenting my confirmation of responsibilities.
It was 6 March 1939. From then many years pass, 65 to be exact, and I find myself still present between the walls of Moto Guzzi and Mandello of the Lario, proud of having a legacy associated to the Brand, that has known to support the name of Italy in its entire history, in the field of our sport.
The schools ended, and after to me are given a degree to the School of Art to industrial address in Friuli, where I resided with my family. An offer came for a workplace to me to Lecco, near the Fiat Branch (office). I accepted that offer, and therefore I was forced to transfer to Lecco, where my uncles inhabited.
I accepted that workplace, since it did not preclude the possibility to continue, in private, my studies. It was therefore that, having to submit to a period of residence of three months, obligatory for those times, before obtaining the first responsibility with Fiat, I had the possibility of a talk to the Moto Guzzi company, then introducing to me with a job offer.
The fates favored to me, and after some days my long history tied to the Guzzi Motion had started.
In the course of many years, always operating in technical activities, I always passed to duties and positions of greater responsibility. I began in 1939 with simple jobs of particular design, relating the construction of the motorcycle “Elk”, then in phase of prototype and production; I continued then with the development of the “Trialce” and in order to end, always with military products, I came employed to realize industrial “a fixed” motor to use in order to form electricity-generating or motocompressori groups in use to Military Navy. I made essential part of the activity from Moto Guzzi, before the war.
After the war, I was employed in the modernization and I renewed the of production motorcycles in the pre-war era, participated with studies regarding mainly arrangement of suspension, refraining systems, changes of speed and other area, having at the same time to divide job of office with job of workshop. This turned to the experimentation of how much previously came studied. It was just this, the period in which I asserted myself in the jobs of planning and aid to the Comm. Carlo Guzzi.
In 1948 my career endured and carried on more important. I came, in fact, entrusted to the dependencies of the Ing. Giulio Cesar Carcano, brilliant planner of the Eight Cylinders and the twin-cylinder engine to V of 90°, that it still today represents the symbol of Moto Guzzi.
Ing. Carcano, then Director of the Office Experiments and Studies, was person in charge to manage also the planning and the tests of the motorcycles from racing. I began therefore, under the guide of he who was my the true and great master, the job of planning of new motorcycles for racing, that they carried to the first true comparisons of the Moto Guzzi with the competition, in national and international contests.
In 1951 I became named Head of the racing Unit, and the years that followed were those of my greater responsibility within of the Unit.
Beyond to the planning job, I had to favour the job of direct run manager of the unit, and therefore still more, to use in new duties tied the world of the competitions.
The hard work, the worries and the emotions lived in the arc of those years, are for me unforgettable.
Ended the Racing experience to the Unit, in 1957, I always continued my activity under the direction of the Ing. Carcano, with which I contributed to realize new products, between which I would want to remember the Stornello, in the versions Tourism and Sport, to which followed the V7 and the twin-cylinder engine to V.
After the passing of the Founding Associates, George Parodiin the 1955 and Carlo Guzzi in 1964, the Guzzi Motion passed of ownership in property, with many problems to resolve consequently and with various organizational systems.
With all the working changes, my position remained unchanged and also my tasks as Planning Foreman remained the same ones.
I continued, in particular, to maintain connections with the offices of the Ministry of Transportation and with the Association of the Constructors. With these “work groups” I collaborated in the years the seventies regarding the new norms of atmospheric pollution on topics proposals from the Italian Ministry of Transportation, of the EEC and the UN through the ISO. A job was this a lot important and critical for the research and the experimentation.
Just in seventies, and exactly in 1975, I must remember a great and unexpected acknowledgment that reached me from the Italian Ministry Work, a telegram, then followed from by Presidential decree, announced me the award of the Star to the Merit of the Job, with the title it of Master of the Job.
Through my job, carried out in all these years with an infinite passion and a dedication, I have always obtained satisfactions and acknowledgments, reason for which I indeed feel myself proud to have united contributed to many colleagues to the best fortunes of the Moto Guzzi, and to which I endeavor a continuous growing and rich future in of new successes.
In Moto Guzzi we will not never forget the tenacity and the stubbornness that has defined Umberto Todero, is in its professional life and in his private one.
His memory is present today in all of us, and will remain always alive in Moto Guzzi through its history. It is tied to our early history that to that recent one, a passion that the active protagonist has seen to until the last moment.
Moto Guzzi tightens around the family in the memory of a man who in its “special semplicità“, has taught so much. The family is rich by the experience with the man and we will appreciate it, always and forever.
Goodbye Umberto, we will never forget to you,
Your Moto Guzzi Family.