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Taglioni-designed Grand Prix bike wins 2009 Concours d'Elegance

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Five were made. One remains. It was that bike, a Ceccato 75, that won the 2009 Concours d'Elegance, presented by FOX Racing Shox.

An extremely rare 75cc Grand Prix race bike wowed the crowd at the eighth annual bike show, held at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas the morning before the 2009 AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.

The bike is owned by well-known Italian motorcycle collector Guy Webster. It was brought to the show by Webster's friend Ron Mousouris.

"It was a styling exercise by Fabio Taglioni," Mousouris said. "You might recall (Taglioni's) name as the designer of most modern-day Ducati engines. The bike you see behind me was really an engineering excercise when he was attending the University of Bologna as part of his master's thesis.

"The engine design was taken by the company Ceccato and built into this little 75cc double overhead cam race engine," Mousouris continued. "It was campigned in Europe in the mid- to late-'50s very successfully."

Mousouris said that Ceccato restored the bike in the late '70s and displayed it in the company museum until Webster bought the bike.

"He bought the bike fair and square, but there was some contingent that he not take it out of the country," Mousouris said. "Somehow, it ended up here today anyhow."