Top 10 facts about the Italian Marzocchi and its active suspension

Marzocchi is one of the oldest motorcycle suspension OEMs today, along with WP and Showa. 

If you make a list of every bike with Marzocchi forks, it will be longer than any other brand listed. 

Founded in 1949 in Bologna, Italy, by Guglielmo Marzocchi and Stefano Marzocchi. Marzocchi began producing industrial hydraulic pumps. 

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It wasn’t until 1960 that Marzocchi started making motorcycle forks exclusively, which they still do to this day.

Marzocchi’s first primary export market was the United States.Where they were OEM for several premier motorcycle brands, including Harley-Davidson, Indian, BMW, Triumph, CZ, and Benelli. 

Their oil shocks were fitted to numerous American cruiser models from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. 

This success may be partly attributed to their patented ‘Twin-Tube’ design.Which improved oil flow by limiting disturbance of the fluid when the shock is compressed or extended. 

Starting mainly as an OEM manufacturer of suspension components for other factories. They gradually began producing complete bikes of exceptional merit from the mid-1980s. 

In 1986, Marzocchi overtook Harley Davidson as BMW’s leading motorcycle supplier in the USA.

With so much history, let us talk about the Top 10 facts about Marzocchi.

1. In 2008 Marzocchi was acquired by Tenneco. They acquired Tenneco’s assumption of the debt associated with Marzocchi’s suspension business.Approximately $15 million as of April 30, 2008.
2. Later in 2015, Marzocchi was saved from liquidation and was brought by Italian firm VRM. It was, of course, when Tenneco decided to sell Marzocchi.
3. With an employee strength of 80, today Marzocchi makes around 34 million Euro as turnover.
4. Today Marzocchi also flaunts their clients as BMW, Moto Morini, Ducati, Triumph and Benelli.
5. Marzocchi is one of the brands that produce an active suspension. Active suspensions generally provide a supplementary or enhanced suspension system to the passive rest to improve handling and ride quality. Nevertheless. The goal is to make the active and passive systems work together as a single unit. Since active suspensions control wheel movement independently of other components (suspension, drive axle, chassis).It is sometimes necessary to incorporate features like traction control or anti-lock brakes into these systems.
6. They have developed high-quality standards and has a robust internal R&D unit to test and validate their products.
7. The active suspensions by Marzocchi entirely replace the hydraulic components with an electromagnetic system. 
8. These active suspensions are developed in-house by Marzocchi, so they had much freedom on their design aspects.
9. Of course, these suspensions comes developed with the collaboration of their parent company. 
10. With the help of the University of Bologna, Marzocchi plans to develop a visual system that will help identify the road’s roughness. It will also help them to create a robust performance-oriented safe suspension.

via Motociclismo