Bob,
There are a multitude of interesting aspects to the Masi saga in the USA. I have noticed one misconception in the last few posts that I would like to clear up; mainly because it explains how the very beginning of Masi in America came to be. I will ask Ted Kirkbride to correct or ammend what I'm about to write because he was there. Ted was the second person to become involved in the Masi America project even before Faliero Masi. Roland Sahm is of course the first; the man with the money. How is this possible? Easy, it wasn't Faliero Masi who decided to "set up production" in the USA for any reason. As a matter of fact. Faliero had been retired from the business for quite a while as I understand and Alberto Masi had been steering the boat for some time. I'm sure Ted can give more details on this, but from what I understand Roland Sahm enlisted Ted to find a "big name" Italian bike maker to come to the US and build bikes under an agreement for sales rights. The yanks approached at least three Italian companies to my knowledge. Cinelli and Colnago were approached in addition to Masi. The other two saw the idea as folly I think, but Faliero saw big money dangeling in front of him and probably was somewhat anxious to be doing something even at age 65. The deal was made for I think somewhere in the neighborhood of $175,000 for the sales rights to the western hemisphere. A royality of $5 per bike was also part of the deal if I'm not mistaken. Faliero was to come over here and oversee that the shop and the bikes produced were up to his standards.
I understand that originally they wanted the operation to be staffed with all Italian workers, but it proved to be impossible to get that many visas etc. to make it happen. Apparently reluctantly, they were forced to begin looking for Americans to work along side Faliero (whenever he was here; he could only stay 6 months at a time) and a shop foreman (that would be Mario). The first American hired was Ron Smith, the original painter. I am seeking him out as we speak for an interview related to our construction of the "Masi Family Tree".
Mario held a visa also, but was allowed to stay in the US as long as he was working in the capacity of "Master Framebuilder" and his job couldn't be performed by an American. Keep track of this fact folks, it will resurface later in the saga and will help explain a certain key event in the story later on. One will find that all of the little details as they come up will untimately explain every one of the "odd" happenings that pepper the Masi saga from start to finish.
So I hope that clears up the matter of why Faliero chose Carlsbad, CA as the location of the factory. The answer is, he didn't, Roland Sahm did. All of the people associated with Masi in America were employees of Roland Sahm, period. No special arrangenents or special treatment beyond respect and courtesy, strictly a business deal handed to Faliero Masi on a platter. Another fact to store away. Everyone was an employee. Not Masi nor Mario nor anyone else had any "partnership" with Roland Sahm. Roland bought and paid for everything and without him Masi in America would never have happened.
Enough for now. This whole story will be presented in the form of the Masi time line. There will be text included giving details of the key events in the Masi history which will clarify to everyone how and why things went the way they did. Stay tuned.
Brian Baylis La Mesa, CA
P.S. Regarding "fake" Masis; the CA Masis are for real all right. Just
compare an Italian built Masi from that same period side by side to a CA
Masi, and you will see immediately which is superior. To say that CA
Masis are fake is to say that only Italians can build "real" bikes. I
suspect most of us would disagree with that, no? Luckily for the rest of
us, Roland Sahm and Ted Kirkbride sought not to just "buy a name" but to
actually recreate the marquee in the US. There's a big difference, and
Roland went all the way trying to make it happen in the beginning. Like
I said, originally they were planning on having the bikes built
completely by Italian workers.
>
> The use of the word fake implies a deception or the intent to deceive.
> Clealry as there was a contract between Falerio & Mario to produce Masi's in
> the USA there was no deception intended. I mean there are clear differences
> between the Californian and Italian built Masi's - right ? Even if they were
> identical in all aspects, the link between the original Italian company and
> Mario was legal one.
>
> Now had Mario fled to the U.S. and without the Italian company's approval,
> begun producing Masi's and tried to pass them off as being by Falerio, then
> they would be considered fakes.
>
> Perhaps the only "deception" could be that the non-Italian bikes were no
> more than just a cynical attempt to cash in, on the Italian bike image
> portrayed in Breaking Away...............
>
> What I'd be interested to know, is why Falerio chose to set up production in
> the U.S. ? Was it just a straightforward case of the need to avoid U.S.
> importation duty on foreign goods to maximise profit / minimise costs or was
> there more to it than that. In the Post WWII era, few British manufacturers
> broke into the export market to mainland Europe due to, for example, the
> high level of duty imposed by the French government but there did not appear
> to be the same problems exporting to the U.S. and Canada. Clearly though
> this was well before the American bike boom era.
>
> Bob Reid
> Stonehaven
> Scotland