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Moto Guzzi 1400 Audace and Moto Guzzi 1400 Eldorado in the driving report

Movement – mechanical and emotional

Moto Guzzi enriches the family of the 1400 Californias with two more models: Moto Guzzi 1400 Audace and Moto Guzzi 1400 Eldorado. Once again, your drive provided a pleasant driving experience. Even in bad weather.

The 1380-V2 from M.oto Guzzi is great. It pulls out of the lower rev range as powerfully as one can expect from a large-volume engine, but revs up much more agile than one has to fear given the individual displacement of 690 cm³. It not only drives forward, but moves the entire unit of driver and motorcycle with gentle but powerful impulses to the rhythm of its ignition and cradles it at the tilting moment of its crankshaft. This creates an emotional movement parallel to the mechanical movement of the driver.

Moto Guzzi 1400 Audace and Moto Guzzi 1400 Eldorado in the driving report

Movement – mechanical and emotional

Audace and Moto Guzzi 1400 Eldorado are the names of the two new models that were recently presented at their Mandello production site on Lake Como. Audace means “bold” or “brave”, Eldorado is reminiscent of a fabulous gold city in South America. The motorcycles are designed according to their names; the Audace looks like the epitome of the powerful and bold fighter or the macho who wants to be one, the Eldorado is not adorned with gold, but a lot of chrome, decorative stripes and whitewall tires.

Footrests instead of running boards

“Asterix” readers know the Latin saying that luck favors the brave (“audaces”), but this was not the case with the presentation. It rained sometimes harder, sometimes less, but the roads around Lake Como, which offer little grip anyway, stayed wet all day. The Moto Guzzi 1400 Audace could not prove its increased sportiness compared to the California Custom. We don’t know whether the footrests, which it has instead of the running boards, actually provide more lean angle or the narrower, far forward-mounted handlebars promote steering precision. In the rain on these roads the lean angle was sufficient.

From the test drive, the heartwarming game with the friendly rumble of the engine and the robust, precisely switchable gearbox was remembered. In accordance with the obligation, but rather incidentally, the tester registered that the brakes worked respectably, almost too well for the grip conditions, which in turn proved the function of the ABS. The Moto Guzzi 1400 Audace’s traction control system also worked, as was occasionally seen when driving straight ahead. But due to a lack of grip, that all came too quickly and too early to make any real statements about the control behavior.

MOTORCYCLE Market: Used Moto Guzzi California 1400 Custom

It wasn’t about sporty driving and heating

The Dunlop D 251 of the Moto Guzzi 1400 Audace proved to be the better tire in the wet. The neat whitewall tire of the Moto Guzzi 1400 Eldorado – Dunlop American Elite, on the front wheel with a 16 inch diameter – clearly falls below a lower limit, which still marks a certain safety for driving in the rain. In order to avoid false assumptions: It was not about driving sporty or even heating.

The rolling, sliding, blocking, breaking of the wheels happened while fearfully groping forward at the subsistence level of any movement. The seductive driving photos shown in the picture gallery were taken at the absolute limit. If the Moto Guzzi brand cares about their customers, they should choose a different type of tire. It may well be that the Moto Guzzi 1400 Audace and the 1400 Eldorado are mainly intended for the USA, where “mileage” is paramount, but we are here in Europe. There are occasional bends here and sometimes it starts raining during a tour that started in sunny weather.

Audace and Eldorado are not free from defects in workmanship

At 18,500 euros, the Moto Guzzi 1400 Audace and Moto Guzzi 1400 Eldorado are exactly 510 euros more expensive than the “base model” California Custom, which largely corresponds to the Audace in terms of chassis technology. In return, the buyer receives mechanically very solid motorcycles, but they are not free from defects in workmanship. So the idiosyncratic headlights of every Eldorado were fogged up after driving in the rain. Moto Guzzi would like to improve this point as well.

As usual, Moto Guzzi also offers many accessories for the newcomers. In terms of electronics, there is even a so-called "media platform" that integrates an iPhone 5 or other smartphones into the on-board electronics, on which certain functions of the motorcycle are then displayed and which act as a navigation device or data logger. The tester admits to being suspicious of such things. You could distract him from the punch of the V2.

Technical specifications

36 Pictures

Pictures: Moto Guzzi 1400 Audace and Moto Guzzi 1400 Eldorado in the driving report

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