The now-defunct Italian manufacturer Motobi is closely related to Benelli. Italy's oldest surviving motorcycle manufacturer, Benelli was founded in Pesaro in 1911 by the six Benelli brothers, starting out as a general engineering firm repairing cars and motorcycles before turning to the manufacture of automotive and aircraft components in WWI. The firm diversified into the field of powered transport immediately after hostilities ceased, offering a two-stroke 'clip-on' power unit for attachment to a bicycle, and it was this 98cc engine, installed in a purpose-built set of cycle parts, which was used for the first proper Benelli motorcycle of 1921. In 1949 the eldest of the six Benelli brothers, Giuseppe, left to found his own company: Moto 'B' Pesaro, later Motobi. The latter's first design was a 98cc single-cylinder two-stroke lightweight with horizontal engine, a layout that would characterise its offerings from then onwards. In the early 1950s a new range of all-aluminium engines was introduced whose profile resembled that of an egg or rugby ball, and this style was deliberately retained when Motobi switched to overhead-valve four-strokes towards the decade's end. The two-stroke Motobi offered here is an older restoration by the Morbidelli Museum's workshop. Offered without documents, the machine currently displays a total of 1,653km on the odometer.