Bruno Spaggiari

Bruno Spaggiari was born on 11 January 1933 in Reggio Emilia, in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy. He recalled that he grew up in a poor family and that as a boy he had two passions, the bicycle and the motorcycle. He tried bicycle racing first: "I was fast uphill, but then I lost out on the descents because I was scared," he said.

According to Ducati's heritage history, he decided to become a racer the first time he watched a motorcycle competition. His first motorcycle was a Cucciolo, and at twenty, in 1953, he bought a Gitane with a two stroke engine, which he rode in his first race. The following year he won the first race of his career and moved up to a Gitane 175.

Ducati signed him in 1955 to race the Marianna, and that year he scored his first win, at the Cosenza circuit. From 1956 he was an official factory rider, competing in the great Italian long distance road races such as the Milano Taranto and the Motogiro. In 1957 he won the Montjuic 24 Hours in Barcelona, sharing the bike with Alberto Gandossi.

In 1958 he was promoted to the senior class and had the best season of his career. Riding the 125 Desmo, he won the Italian 125cc championship and also the 125cc Nations Grand Prix at Monza, his first world championship race, leading home a row of five Ducatis ahead of an MV Agusta. It remained his only Grand Prix win.

With Ducati in difficulty at the end of the 1950s, he joined MV Agusta, and in 1960 he finished fourth in the 125cc world championship. When MV withdrew from the smaller classes he moved to Benelli, then raced in Spain for Ducati Mototrans. Back in Italy he won the Italian 125cc title again in 1964, for MV Agusta.

He later returned to Ducati as a rider and official test rider. In 1972 he took third place in the 500cc Nations Grand Prix at Imola behind the MV Agustas of Giacomo Agostini and Alberto Pagani, the only podium ever scored by the Ducati 500 V twin in the world championship. That April, at the first Imola 200 Miles, he led for about 320 kilometres on one of the two silver Ducati 750s before running short of fuel on the last lap and finishing second to his teammate Paul Smart, a race that made Ducati's name on big bikes. He was second again at Imola in 1973, this time behind Jarno Saarinen on a Yamaha. The 1974 season was his last.

After retiring he ran a Ducati racing team. In 1975 its yellow Ducati 750 Super Sports won race after race with a young Franco Uncini, whom Spaggiari had spotted and brought in. Uncini, later 500cc world champion, recalled that when MV Agusta asked for him that year, Spaggiari said no because Franco was not yet ready and had to grow, a decision Uncini later called the right one. Spaggiari then became a motorcycle and car dealer and later worked as a building contractor.

Spaggiari lived in Reggio Emilia all his life. He was married to Loredana and had two daughters, Elisabetta and Emanuela, and three grandchildren, Giada, Giacomo and Miranda. Friends in motorcycling remembered him as kind and open, with an ironic but affectionate smile. He appeared as a character in the 2020 Italian film Rose Island, played by Marco Pancrazi.

Bruno Spaggiari died aged 93 in Reggio Emilia. His death was announced on 24 October 2026, when the journalist and former racer Nico Cereghini wrote a tribute on Moto.it. The exact date and the cause of death were not given in the first reports. A blessing was arranged for Monday 26 October 2026 at 5pm at the Reverberi funeral home in Rubbianino di Quattro Castella, near Reggio Emilia. He was survived by his wife Loredana, his daughters Elisabetta and Emanuela, his son in law Giorgio and his grandchildren.

Spaggiari belongs to the generation of Italian riders who made Ducati's racing name, from the Desmo 125 of the late 1950s to the 750 V twins of the early 1970s. His second place at the first Imola 200 Miles, lost for a few drops of fuel, became one of the best remembered stories in Ducati history, and Ducati lists him among the great figures of its heritage. Through his own team he also helped launch the career of Franco Uncini.