North of HOTlanta Georgia in the later months of 2002, I bought this beaut of a 350cc single from a gent who understands the kinship that machine and being bring together...Jimi and I traveled to see it, exchanged greetings with the owner, road it down a graveled drive, noted that it leaked in all the proper points, spent what seemed to be hours going over it (actually minutes as I knew I HAD TO HAVE IT), and quickly handshaked a deal as one should do with a scoot such as this...then on a brisk soggy Sunday some week later, Rusty brought 'er homeward as he returned from another fab race/track day weekend...details on this scoot will come more in full later, though the following might be the beginnings of the discuss:

well first, it's simply a drop dead gorgeous Italian bred roller from a historical lineage of racing history by those that knew...from a horizontal single 350cc cylinder, out comes a thumper exhaust note between two pipes that draw similar lines...it rides well in a requisite direction, brings a wide toothy grin to my face, and seems to have all the appropriate dimensions of a British cafe racer gone Italian...for the American version (and to appease stuffed shirts who knew little else), two down tubes were added for nothing more than to give weight and perception to stability (never mind that that the bikes were ridden and raced without them quite successfully long before stupidity could be spelled out with a HD logo)...
today unfortunately, the named parent company no longer makes motorcycles (just aeroplanes) as this marquee was unceremoniously killed off in late 1979 with the stroke of a bean counters hand, for Aermacchi had earlier (1973) sold controlling interest and put it's faith and future in an ill managed American motorcycle company who as future proved, could tell little difference between bowling balls and wheels go round...the old Italian factory by the lake where these scoots were made now is home to Cagiva's MV Agusta manufacturing of bikes that are of a similar wonderment in my eyes...thus the Aermacchi's are simply gone but not forgotten like so many of it's brethren in that era...lordy, I could blather on for hours, but I'll pause to say:

Cheers to Dan Spiegel, former owner, a sporting good man with some other beaut Italian bikes, and an all around good guy for selling 'er to me (and for taking some splendid pics)...she'll be in good hands that will restore her to racing heritage luster indeed...