MASERATI T2 SS 50CC 'ROSPO' COPYRIGHT - Words by Adam Bolton. Photography by Sara Zinelli Toad in the whole What are you supposed to do if you yearn after a bike but you can't find one? The answer to that's easy - you have to make one! This is the situation Ron Murrell found himself in a couple of years ago, and he decided to do something about it. As a collector of 50cc Italian sports mopeds, the object of Ron Murrell's desire wasn't some financially out of reach rare MV works racer or one-off prototype, the kind of thing you might see in a museum or going under the hammer for tens of thousands of pounds. No, the bike Ron wanted was a 50cc 2-stroke tiddler - a Maserati T2 SS 'Rospo'. In case you were wondering, 'Rospo' is Italian for toad. More on that later. Ron lives in Australia, but spent his youth growing up in South Africa, not a nation you might expect would have had an enthusiastic market for Italian 50cc bikes in the 1950s and 1960s, but this wasn't the case. But where does the Maserati come into it, I ask Ron. "On a visit to South Africa In the mid 90s, I heard from a contact who had a Maserati frame and three 50cc motors. I bought them at once, and then noticed that one of the motors had the prefix SS on the number." The SS prefix meant that the motor came from a rare Maserati 50 T2 SS model, otherwise known as the 'Rospo'. Legend has it that back in 1957, the wife of Bologna Maserati dealer and racer Guido Borri saw the first 50cc bikes arrive at the showroom, and exclaimed "What is this ugly toad?” The woman obviously had no taste, but the nickname stuck, cemented in punters' minds by the decals depicting a toad that Signor Borri decided to affix to each 50 T2 SS he sold. In production from 1957 to 1960, the Rospo represented the high performance 50cc bike from the range. Light, compact and fast back then for a 50cc, it was drop dead gorgeous, and was a genuine race replica of its day. Race number boards and exposed fork springs came as standard on what was a production model built in limited numbers, hence its rarity today, but at the time was a commercial success. Although Maserati didn't have a genuine race department in a period when Italian machines were at their peak of competition dominance, the factory were happy to prepare bikes for paying (read wealthy) customers, and the Rospo was seen competing in events like the Giro d'Italia and the Milano-Taranto. PLEASE EMAIL TO READ THE REST OF THE FEATURE
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