Motom, 1951, 12/D

Motom "12/D", 1951,  Italy

The Motom represents a piece of Italian motorcycling history. It's the father of all mopeds, overshadowed too often by the other contemporary mopeds: thanks to it entire generations turned into bikers and discovered the motorcycling world for the first time. It's also the most enduring one: designed in 1947 it was sold until 1970, when the company went bankrupt, after 31 different versions and 600.000 examples produced.
The 1948 12/A model, the first to be called Motom, was offered at a price of 152.000 lire. A sizeable amount back then, even bigger than the price of a Lambretta 125.
The prices went down progressively until they reached 95.000 lire with the last model Codice, one of the most common. Year after year the Motom was improved even though its true nature remained untouched.
From the 1951 12/D model the frame will be made of two halves cut vertically and no longer horizontally, while the 1955 Sport model introduced a different fuel tank as a replacement for the "bath soap" one, closing the hole it needed and giving the frame more strength.