The past, the so-called heritage, it always works.
It works in the arts. Just think of the “good old movies of yesteryear”, o alle “beautiful stories that never go away”. It works in design and marketing nonetheless.
An old brand is a friend you have come to trust. Not that we were immediately sure we could trust them, on the contrary, we were pretty suspicious but come on today, come on tomorrow, by dint of seeing it on our tables, alla tv, On the road… become someone in the family.
We are simple animals, we get attached easily come on.
We motorcyclists don't even talk about it. And the more the years go by, the more that brand becomes “mythical”, “emblazoned” and “don't touch me I'll kill you”. A nice brand, a nice story, they are worth more than a thousand researches and technologies. It seems absurd and yet it is so.
For this who has no history, it has no past, he is damned looking for it. Even if there is technology coming out of his ears.
Only those who are braver and stronger seek the difficult alternative path: tell a new story.
But think about literature, it's not an easy stuff to tell a new new new story well well well.
Today we can tell, Tesla is doing it. It took him about ten years, but now he is succeeding.
If we look at the bikes they have taken this road to Zero Motorcycles, Lightning ed Energica. Not so much by choice, but because that was the obligatory way. If they are succeeding we will understand in a few years, my impression to date is that they don't (better, fail to do) how much it would take to get that brand into the basket of our domestic trust.
But right now, new actors are popping up. They are almost always strangers with a good project in their pocket who perhaps in unsuspecting times have managed to bring home an old brand for a short time. They put him in the attic for a while, until the project they had in their pockets took shape it became a concept, something more than a fantasy. So they dusted off the old brand, they put it next to the new thing they had on their hands and went to cash, pardon, to seek funding. With the two ingredients it is certainly easier to make a cake that has a little’ di gusto.
I think about Curtiss the the Sarolea or even the latest arrival Pursang which even separates itself from the original brand Bultaco, also at the center of a recovery and relocation operation between e-bikes. But it is not just a matter of recent times: I think of Garelli, Lambretta, Malaguti, Mondial not to mention projects “more articulated” like Fantic and Benelli.
Others, on the other hand, don't spend on an old brand but make a new one that somehow, thanks to the vintage design, may generate some confusion such as Regent the Veitis (whose first prototype was made on the chassis of an old BSA).
History is so important that sometimes you don't even need to have it: just name it.
But it will always be like this? We will be more and more well prepared for something that is known even if decades have passed since we last heard of it and even if it no longer has anything to do with what it was?
And what other brands the new electric wave will try to bring back? Bets are accepted.
In the meantime, I'll give you one that is already a pulcinella's secret… Cagiva.
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