Giancarlo Morbidelli established his business in Pesaro in 1959 as Morbidelli Woodworking Machines, initially building furniture and wooden coach bodies for automobiles. The company evolved into a leading designer and manufacturer of precision woodworking machine tools with a workforce exceeding 300 employees. While this industrial business grew, Morbidelli's personal passion remained motorcycle sport, and he used the woodworking division's income to finance motorcycle design, development, and racing through the 1960s and 1970s. In 1987 the woodworking business was acquired by the Italian SCM Group.
Morbidelli entered Grand Prix competition in 1969 with a 50 cc machine in the Italian championship. In 1971 he commissioned a water-cooled disc-valve 125 cc two-stroke to a Ringhini design, the engine inspired by an ex-works Suzuki 125 cc unit. The team won two 125 cc Grand Prix races in 1972 with Italian rider Gilberto Parlotti, but tragedy ended the season when Parlotti was killed during the Isle of Man TT race.
Despite this loss, Morbidelli continued his racing effort. From 1974 the engineering direction was taken by Jörg Möller, who had previously worked as designer for Van Veen Kreidler. The collaboration produced results immediately. In 1975 Paolo Pileri won the 125 cc World Championship on a Morbidelli, with teammate Pier Paolo Bianchi finishing second. Bianchi won the 125 cc title a year later in 1976. The 1977 season marked the height of the team's achievement: Pier Paolo Bianchi took the 125 cc championship and Mario Lega won the 250 cc crown, giving Morbidelli both titles in the same year.
Until 1976 Morbidelli machines were available only to the team's own works riders and were not sold to private competitors. To enable broader production, a new factory was built with assistance from Benelli Armi in Pesaro, operating as MBA (Morbidelli-Benelli-Armi). The MBA facility produced 123 cc and 248 cc racing machines in quantity. MBA carried the Morbidelli engineering legacy forward: Eugenio Lazzarini won the 125 cc World Championship in 1978 on an MBA, and Pier Paolo Bianchi took a third 125 cc title for the lineage in 1980. Morbidelli continued in Grand Prix competition through the 1982 season.
In 1994, Morbidelli constructed a radically different machine: a 847 cc 90-degree V8 sport-touring motorcycle with shaft drive, five-speed gearbox, 32 valves, and liquid cooling. The engineering was innovative but the production cost made commercial viability impossible. The Guinness Book of World Records listed it in 2001 as the world's most expensive motorcycle. The V8 was displayed in The Art of the Motorcycle exhibition at the Guggenheim Museums in New York, Bilbao, and Las Vegas. An example is held at the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Alabama.
Morbidelli's racing record — four 125 cc World Championships (three via the works team, one via MBA) and one 250 cc championship in a single decade of serious competition — represents one of the most concentrated bursts of small-capacity racing success in Grand Prix history. The team's model of using industrial profits to fund a serious works racing effort, without the backing of a major automotive group, was unusual for the era and the results it achieved were disproportionate to the scale of the enterprise.
The former Morbidelli factory in Pesaro now houses a classic motorcycle museum preserving the company's complete world championship history alongside a collection of antique motorcycles. Giancarlo Morbidelli's son Gianni became a successful racing driver who reached Formula One and achieved a podium finish, continuing the family's connection to motorsport at the highest level.