Having helped a friend find his switches in a country road after they fell off one noght, I understand why the old joke Benelli switches being brightly coloured was relavent.
When laughing at Italian electrics, the finger usually is pointing at Benelli. Yep, I've been asked to correct a few Italian bike's charging systems with acr or Japanese components. It is the regulating system that usually burns out the alternator.
During the 1970's the only Italian bike that could run at night in the rain was the Aprillia 125, 150 and 175 singles plus their 250 and 350 twins, the latter I of which I have a well thrashed 79,000 mile version sat in the garage.
A lot of people don't realise that Aprillia started in 1969 making their own version foreign bikes, under licence, in order to avoid the then 60% import tax Italy had in force. These bike had to have a considerable percentage of Italian manufactured parts.
Yes, not all 1970's Italian bikes had bad electrics.
They learnt a lot from this and it shows in their design.
It isn't that difficult to rewire and re-equip an Italian bike with more reliable non-Italian electrical parts.
