• Genuine ex-factory works machine
• Reputedly ridden by Angel Nieto in the Spanish Championship
• Restored condition

The name 'Derbi' first appeared in the early 1950s on a motorcycle built by Nacional Motor SA of Barcelona, Spain. The latter company was an offshoot of Bicicletas Rabasa, one of Spain's largest cycle manufacturers, which had been founded by Simeon Rabasa Singla in the early 1920s. Its first powered two-wheelers were marketed as 'SRS' (the founder's initials) but soon took the name 'Derbi' (from the phrase, 'derivados de bicicletas'). Derbi began racing in Spanish national events in the early 1960s, graduating to the international scene in 1962 coincidentally with the introduction of a 50cc class at World Championship level.

In 1968 Barry Smith achieved Derbi's first Grand Prix victory (albeit in a non-Championship event) and in '69 scored the marque's first World Championship success, taking the 50cc TT in the Isle of Man. Nevertheless, Derbi remained little known outside Spain until Angel Nieto took the World 50cc Championship in 1969, a feat he repeated for the Spanish marque in 1970 and '72 in addition to taking the 125cc title for them in 1971 and '72. (Lightweight motorcycles and mopeds, particularly the 50cc category, had always accounted for the bulk of Derbi's business, hence its concentration on these classes in road racing.) After the '72 season the factory took a sabbatical from Grands Prix, returning in the mid-1980s to provide Jorge Martinez with four World Championships that included his 80cc/125cc double in 1988.
The fascinating machine offered here is one of Derbi's rarest racing motorcycles: the 125cc v-twin campaigned by the factory between 1967 and 1970. Designed by engineer and race chief, Francisco Tombas, the man responsible for Derbi's highly successful 50cc racers, the air-cooled twin-crankshaft v-twin consisted of two engines mounted horizontally one above the other on a common crankcase at a narrow-included angle. There were eight speeds in the gearbox, and by its final season the 125 twin was producing 32bhp. Despite its advanced specification, Derbi's first 125 was a disappointment with only one Grand Prix top-six placing to its credit. It was replaced with an all-new water-cooled parallel twin in 1970.

This restored Derbi 125 is reputed to have been ridden by Angel Nieto in the Spanish Championship and has been signed by him on the fairing. The machine is offered with a selection of photographs of Derbi racing motorcycles and copies of correspondence between Giancarlo Morbidelli and the Derbi factory.