W/E 24th June 2019

I first met Cor in 2003 at Montlhery when I had the extraordinary experience of going to bed and waking up in the morning to see his Spaceframe on a trailer outside my tent! LCN had featured the bike in their calendar which I had pinned to my office wall. I was like a kid at Christmas and soon struck up conversation with Cor who was happy to chat. I didn’t realise, and he didn’t tell me, how well connected he was with all things Laverda.

We came across each other over the following years and when the time came to ride the little 100’s down to Italy as part of LaverdaforHealth and the Laverda 60th Anniversary he was a key member of the team. I remember taking our little engines to Lisse to have them assembled and working alongside various V6 components that he was machining up…unbelievable when I look back on it now.

Cor was a leader – anything went wrong with the bikes and he had a solution. Cor also had quite a few funny tales to tell round the dinner table each evening! He was an ace networker and arranged all the fanfare that awaited us when we rolled in to Breganze addressing the Mayor and conducting an interview for Italian TV (in self-taught Italian)! The trip also showed his dedication to his family – wife Angelien, his children Mels and Aris who came along in the support van.

2017 and the news of Cors illness and the closure of his museum. As usual Cor was in the thick of it and many people travelled to pay respects to all his many achievements. And so it takes us today, a sad day in Lisse where I am sure many a tear will be shed but hopefully many a smile as people reflect on how he enriched our lives.

God bless Cor I’m sure you’re having a blast in Heaven.

Nick