Long Way Before Ewan And Charley

Two Fifties thrill seekers went on the world’s first corporate-sponsored global adventure.

- Hamish Cooper

Fourteen years ago Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman gave adventure riding its biggest boost when they rode from London across Northern Europe to New York on BMW R1150 GS motorcycles.

Their bikes were provided by BMW and became a best-seller for the German company after their ratings-winning, seven-episode TV series Long Way Round was released in 2005. But Ewan and Charley weren’t the first ‘corporate adventure riders’, whose efforts boosted sales of a particular model motorcycle.

That honour falls on Leopoldo Tartarini and Giorgio Monetti, who 60 years ago rode across 42 countries and five continents to promote Ducati’s new 175 Tourismo model. Like Ewan and Charley, they filmed their epic adventure, but on 16mm cameras with no sound. Now, belatedly, a film and book are finally being released.

Also like Ewan and Charley, Leopoldo and Giorgio had factory support (from Ducati), professional assistance in planning their route and a list of dealers in some of the countries they travelled through if they needed help. Unlike Ewan and Charley, they rode without back-up vehicles, did their own filming, took a year and covered over 60,000km, not four months and 30,000km. This is their story.

WHO ARE THEY?

Two young lions of Italian youth culture of the 1950s, at first glance Tartarini and Monetti appear to be polar opposites.

Tartarini was a popular Ducati works racer, forced into premature retirement with a serious leg injury that had left him with a limp. Born into a Bologna motorcycling family, he had first ridden a mini-bike-sidecar outfit built by his father when he was just four years old. During the Second World War Tartarini combined his schooling with working as a mechanic at his father’s business. When his father died in a motorcycle race after the war, Tartarini took over the business.