Mike Hailwood and the MV Agusta Dynasty

Between 1958 and 1974, one small factory in the Italian town of Cascina Costa won the premier class of motorcycle Grand Prix racing seventeen years running. No other manufacturer has come close to that streak before or since. Mike Hailwood’s four consecutive 500cc World Championships sat right in the middle of it, the peak years of a partnership between one extraordinarily gifted rider and one relentlessly ambitious company. Neither the man nor the factory ever quite reached those heights again once they went their separate ways.

Building a Dynasty

MV Agusta came out of an aviation family. Count Domenico Agusta took over his father’s aircraft manufacturing business in 1927, then founded the motorcycle side of the company, Meccanica Verghera, in 1945. Success came almost immediately once the world championship began in 1949, with riders like Carlo Ubbiali and later John Surtees carrying the factory to a string of titles through the 1950s.