A TEST REPORT OF THE 1973 BENELLI PHANTOM!!!
Reprinted from Cycle Magazine, November 1973)
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This 70s-era advertisement for The Benelli Phantom combines the best and worst of Madison Avenue promise and hype. The best is the "Benelli solution to look-alike pollution" theme; distinctiveness being the one authentic, unassailable, inarguable attraction (now and then) to Italian motorcycles in general, and Benellis in particular.
The worst is the "Eat your heart out, Japan," an unfortunate statement given subsequent motorcycle industry history (viz, it is Benelli's heart that got eaten out, not Hondas!). Did Pennsylvania-based Cosmopolitan Motors really think it was going to defeat Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha, et al., in the ruthlessly Darwinian motorcycle market, based solely on the output of the Benelli works in Pesaro, Italy?
I don't think so!
