Five Questions With Head Of Piaggio Design Center Miguel Galluzzi

Of all the places for Miguel Galluzzi to end up after surviving motocross racing as a teen and military service in 1970s Argentina, it was the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, where he landed with a dream to draw cars and motorcycles. Following stints working for Opel in Germany and Honda in Italy, Galluzzi spent years trying to get his dream for a naked Ducati off the ground. His Monster finally succeeded. Galluzzi is responsible for decades of motorcycles, including Aprilia's successful RSV4 superbike and Moto Guzzi's MGX-21—the "unbagger," as he calls it. Now, 25 years after the world fell in love with the Monster, Galluzzi is still sketching happily—you guessed it—in Pasadena.

What was your first bike?
My brother and I are less than a year apart, so even though he was smaller we were really close. I think I was seven, and I wanted to be a drummer. For my seventh birthday, I wanted a drum set. I don't know… Somehow we got a bike. The Kreidler Florett. We didn't know what to do with it, but from that moment on we started motorcycling and we never stopped.

You've been around since before 3-D modeling and CAD design. Has it been hard to adapt over the years?
A computer is like any tool—you have to know how to use it. It's like a wood file. If you know how to file, then you can create what you want. It sounds stupid, but a computer is the same. If you have the idea in your head, then you can create it anyway. Even with paper. But you have to have clear ideas here [points to his temple], you know, have a picture in your mind of what you're going to do.

You said the motorcycle industry needs to know what a 15-year-old is dreaming about. When you were 15, what were you dreaming about?
When I was 15 I was racing motocross in Argentina, and we wanted the bikes we couldn't have in Argentina. My family are roadracing people. And we, with my brother, we were racing on dirt. So, my father, my uncle, my grandfather, they all said, "Bahhh!" You were supposed to be a roadracer if you were a motorcyclist. But we were not; we were racing on the dirt.

I saw the movie On Any Sunday in Argentina. I think when I was 12. I kept on going so many times, the guy from the movie theater said, "Do you have a problem or something? How many times have you been here?" But that was the way to be connected to something that was our dream. To be able to go in the dirt, in the desert. The images of riding in the desert—with Malcolm Smith and Steve McQueen—it was like…going to heaven. But we couldn't do it. We didn't have the machines to do it. For me, that was the dream. The thing that we couldn't have.

What's more interesting to you: motorcycles as artwork or transportation?
Well… Go to Hanoi, Vietnam, and you will see why people still use two wheels. Now, in Vietnam, the middle class is in a condition where nearly anyone could buy a car. But people don't buy a car because it's impossible to own—to have in traffic, to park, stuff like that. Or, if you go to Buenos Aires… The Argentinian motorcycle market this year is going to be 600,000 pieces. Traffic is impossible there too. Just like Sao Paolo, just like Milan. So people understand that a motorcycle is a solution. To me, those two things are the same important thing. The mobility—understanding what people need—or the art of the motorcycle are two things, together. The one that is able to mix these two, then you've got something you're going to sell for the next 50 years. There are moments in which things align. The two things don't necessarily need to be separated.

What about someone who isn't interested in the transportation, or the art, or the design? What if they just like motorcycles because they're cool?
There is no right way or wrong way. I talked to some people on a ride the other day at an event in California. Sure, they started riding because it was cool, but once you start enjoying it, then you're hooked for life. That's it. Doesn't matter. That's what motorcycles give you. If you experience it once in a lifetime, that's it.