Axel Budde: It’s that mix you don’t find anywhere else. Italians don’t just build things so they work; they build them to have an attitude. A Guzzi is structurally stubborn, almost obstinate: the longitudinal engine, the cardan shaft, this whole layout is special. But precisely from this stubbornness arises a character that you immediately recognize, with your eyes closed by the sound. For me, that’s real design: not decoration, but an honest technical decision that also happens to look beautiful in the end.

The Power Pit: Are there any Italian designers who serve as role models for you?

Axel Budde: I’m less the type to focus on a single big name. I’m more interested in this whole Italian school of reduction, this sense of when a component is finished, not because you can’t add anything more, but because you can’t take anything more away. This runs like a common thread through Italian automotive and motorcycle history, from the great coachbuilders to the Guzzi designers who worked in the sixties and seventies. This attitude is my real role model, more than a single signature.

The Power Pit: And then you build this pure Italian passion in Hamburg, probably the maximum conceivable distance one can have from Italy in Germany.

Axel Budde: (grins) You can hardly go further north, that’s true. But maybe that’s precisely the point. If you’re sitting right on Lake Garda, Italy is everyday life. Up here, between harbor cranes and North Sea weather, Italy becomes a longing. And more interesting things arise from longing than from everyday life. Besides: good coffee can be brewed anywhere if you have the right machine.

The Power Pit: Let’s talk about technology. Your conversions involve an incredible amount of development work in details that aren’t even visible at first glance. Sleek, light, a “riding machine” instead of a show bike, a riding experience that almost seems aerodynamically elegant. How are these machines created? Do you sit down and design them freely, or do customers come to you with an idea and you develop it together?

Axel Budde: Both, but in the end, the line always decides, not compromise. A customer comes with a longing, with a base, sometimes with a photo they’ve carried on their phone for years. From that, we develop a concept together. But the actual shaping, the interplay of tank, seat, frame line, that happens in my head, over weeks, sometimes months, before any sheet metal is cut. Light and sleek isn’t a style gimmick; it’s a technical decision. Every gram you leave out is a gram you don’t have to accelerate, brake, or carry around a corner later. You feel that immediately on the road: the machines feel like they carry themselves.