Rocco Lopardo is the head of the Italian Motorcycle Federation's motorcycling activities. In those capacities we saw him in full action, for example, in and during the gigantic FIM Rally, starring Italy in every sense this year. But Rocco Lopardo is also the coordinator of the FMI Historic Register. And when he hears himself referred to in this way, his eyes shine. It is an exciting sign, an immediate contagion for enthusiasts.

But what is the FMI Historic Register? What numbers does it produce and what are these numbers? What are its aims and objectives? Lopardo's words are ‘solid emotion’, not only for the ‘addicted’, because they represent the cultural evolution of a passion. The numbers also become Quality. One discovers, for example, that out of one hundred desires for a Certificate of Historic Significance, only twenty are ‘fulfilled’, but also and above all that those eighty in suspension cultivate the culture of the Epoch, of motorcycling history.

And then, what ‘Historic’ means, or can mean. Are there motorbikes that belong to an ‘Absolute Historic’ and others that belong, no less respectable, to a ‘Personal History’? What criteria have been formulated to settle the question, or to unify it where possible? Interesting, all very interesting, compelling, isn't it? Yes, and when the interlocutor's eyes sparkle, it is even more so, because you know you can trust him.