The fabled Tonti frame has formed the backbone of countless Moto Guzzi motorcycles over the years—but some of them wore it better than others. Classics like the Le Mans, V7 Sport, and 850 T3 California are iconic. The 1985 Moto Guzzi SP3 1000? Not quite.
Although the SP3 ticks all the right boxes for a classic Moto Guzzi tourer, it misses the mark, visually. Its jagged bodywork might have been au fait in the 80s, but it’s an aesthetic faux pas by today’s standards.
Luckily, Davide Caforio’s vision for the SP3 didn’t include any of its OEM styling—just its Tonti frame and its best bits.
Davide runs his workshop, Ruote Fiere Motociclette Speciali, out of Monza, Italy. He has a particular affinity for classic Moto Guzzis, combined with a love for turning them into radical specials. The commission for this project came from Agostini Moto Guzzi—a historical Moto Guzzi dealer located in the marque’s hometown, Mandello del Lario.
“The concept was to give new life and a completely original aesthetic to the 1985 Moto Guzzi SP3 1000—a technically solid but aesthetically unbalanced model,” Davide explains. “The idea was to maintain the integrity of the main structural components, while radically transforming its identity into a futuristic café racer with strong Japanese post-apocalyptic influences.”
“The bike is named ‘Hokuto’ as a tribute to the iconic 1980s anime, Fist of the North Star, full of criminal punk gangs with many strange motorcycles.”
The donor bike was in excellent health, which made Davide’s job a lot easier. He stripped it, and then cracked open the engine to make some judicious improvements—like lightening many internal components. The motor also sports reworked twin-spark heads, enlarged and flowed intake ports, and a more aggressive camshaft.
Davide added a pair of custom-tuned Mikuni TMR40 carbs, before ordering a custom-built two-into-one stainless steel exhaust system from Exan Exhaust. The bike was rewired around a Motogadget mo.unit box and treated to a new electric starter, regulator, and high-output coils. It also benefits from a new re-mappable electronic ignition.
Moving to the running gear, Davide retained the SP3’s split-spoke wheels but painted them black. They now wear Continental ContiRoadAttack 3 tires, upgraded brake calipers, and bespoke stainless steel discs. A set of 43 mm adjustable KYB forks prop up the front (also finished in black), with adjustable YSS shocks fitted out back.
Next, Davide designed the Moto Guzzi SP3 1000’s audacious new bodywork. The design called for a hidden aluminum fuel tank and a box to host the electronics, both of which were fabricated by the Italian metal shop MPR.
Laid over the aluminum components are a fiberglass tank cover and tail unit, both shaped by Kompo-Tech in Rome. The deeply sculpted tank is reminiscent of vintage track racers, with quarter-turn fasteners offering quick access to the components hiding underneath it.
The tail section starts with large integrated side covers, before tapering to a more traditional hump at the back. A three-piece seat pad sits up top, with a rectangular LED taillight neatly integrated into the rear.
There’s more classic endurance style up front, where Davide stacked the bike’s oil cooler and a powerful LED headlight in a handmade nacelle. Sharp ‘winglets’ at the bottom of the fairing hint at the modern racing scene’s obsession with aero.
A Motogadget dashboard sits under the headlight cowl’s rear edge. It’s flanked by clip-ons, fitted with Domino grips, Brembo brake and clutch levers, and racing-style switches. Custom rear-sets from Agostini Moto Guzzi round out the control package.
The SP3’s livery is all business—a petrol blue affair with yellow accents. Davide did the forks, frame, and engine in black, and added a smattering of blue and red anodized bits.
With an aggressive silhouette, Hokuto looks like it was pieced together using the best parts from several donor bikes. And yet, everything harmonizes perfectly—something that couldn’t be said about the original Moto Guzzi SP3 1000.
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