Ferruccio Codutti: the genius beyond the sheet metal worker
Codutti’s professional career began early, at the age of 15, in a car body shop. But this job doesn’t satisfy him, he can’t satisfy his creative stimuli and his needs. It will be a trip to Africa in the footsteps of the Paris Dakar to change his whole life. The new experience, getting to know a world that is in continuous challenge with the everyday life of making ends meet, changes every perspective and leads him to reflect on freedom. As, at the age of 40, and supported by his family, he abandoned a secure job and founded CF Costruzioni Meccaniche: “They were tough years, but I was full of enthusiasm and the weather was a gentleman. You have to learn to do one thing well, possibly the one you like best”. Ferruccio is a man of few words, shy, decisive. He is a Friulian as tough as his land, with a creative spirit and an imagination that lead him to invent absolutely original solutions of style and “beautiful mechanics”.
In this review we present three of his creations that have found space on the pages of Motociclismo. The first is based on a Ducati 600 SS e engine draws inspiration from a horse saddle and the Concorde, the supersonic aircraft built by the Anglo-French consortium. It is a decidedly daring mix, but amalgamated with great skill. The work of the “battelastra” (published in number 3-1999 and exhibited at the Chopper & Custom Show in Padua) overturns the very concept of the naked.
The second is called FC2 (Motociclismo 2-2006) and has the three-cylinder engine of a 1996 Triumph Speed Triple from which the instruments, rims and swingarm were also taken. It literally has a double face because Ferruccio conceived it as a naked on the right side and as a faired on the opposite side. A total asymmetry that is found even in the smallest details. The inspiration comes from a dream, from a vision of a woman who embraces this bike, a continuous and sensual transport.
The third still has a Ducati in its heart and even in its bones, the trellis frame. (Motorcycling 2-2008). It starts from the Monster S4 with an image of an F-117 Nighthawk on its head, a ground-attack aircraft with stealth characteristics, from minimal tracking to radars. A highly technological motorcycle was born, which required a year of work, and has an articulated front single-arm where the radial brake calipers become directly part of the front end structure. It really is the case to say: “That great genius Codutti…”
