Italy First, And Then the World

Italy first, and then the world

LETTER FROM Europe

Japan considers the world its personal motorcycle market. But if the Italian motorcycle manufacturers have any say in the matter, this may not be the case for long. The Italians have already prevented the onslaught of Japanese imports into their own country, and now they are

looking to turn the tables and step up their volume of exports to the U.S. and Japan. Whether or not

they’ll have much success remains to be seen. But one thing’s for certain: The majority of these new Italian bikes will continue that country’s tradition of technical innovation linked with sportbike styling and performance.

Aprilia is a perfect example. That company has taken over second place behind Cagiva on the Italian home market, and owner Ivano Beggio is banking heavily on new models to maintain the company’s upward swing. Aprilia is already the largest customer of the Austrian Rotax engine firm, and now it does most of the design work on new powerplants in-house, leaving the manufacturing process to Rotax.

Aprilia has three new models projected for 1987 to supplement its existing range of small-capacity, two-stroke streetbikes and fourstroke enduro models. The first is a 250cc two-stroke Twin built along the sporting lines of the RZ Yamaha. The Aprilia street racer will also be available in 350cc form, and is expected to have a twin-spar aluminum chassis closely resembling that of Loris Reggiani’s GP machine-one of the few European bikes to pose a serious challenge to the might of Honda and Yamaha in 250cc GP racing.

engine designer now that Dr. Taglioni is involved mostly on a consulting basis, is working on liquid-cooling and four-valve desmo heads for Ducati’s Pantah engine. Also under review is the longmooted, four-cylinder Ducati engine. It’s still a V-Four, but with major revisions compared to Taglioni’s oil-cooled design, which has now been definitely set aside. Also in the wings, this time under the Cagiva nameplate, is a liquidcooled, four-valve, four-stroke Single, of either 350, 500 or 600cc.

Clearing up some of the confusion surrounding Cagiva’s purchase of Husqvarna, it’s now been confirmed that the Swedish company’s name will continue to be used on its motorcycles. In addition, the model line will be expanded to include all of Cagiva’s off-road products. In other words, there will be no more Cagiva motocross and enduro bikes as of 1987. Instead, they’ll be painted white and yellow and marketed as Husqvarnas. First new model will be a 250cc motocrosser based on the factory Cagiva prototype on which British rider Jem Whatley has won two recent races in the world MX series. —Alan Cathcart

Designers at Aprilia are also working on two V-Twin, four-stroke engines, one a lOOOcc unit and the other in either 500cc or 750cc form. Reputed to have twin overhead camshafts and four-valve heads, these engines will be manufactured by Rotax for use in both sporting and touring road machines. At the same time, the rumor mill has it that a single-cylinder 500cc roadster, basically one-half of the lOOOcc VTwin engine, will be marketed in enduro and street-racer form.

While things have been going well with Aprilia, there has been some question about Laverda’s commitment to motorcycles in spite of management’s claims to the contrary. The company has set November as a likely launch date for production models of a three-cyl-

inder, two-stroke Lesmo roadster. Also, a svelte Laverda apparently built around an RGS1000 was spotted at an Italian gas station in early summer. The bike had all the earmarks of a factory prototype. The three-cylinder Laverda four-stroke had up-to-date styling, and the same deluxe Oscam wheels as used on the Ducati Paso.

Speaking of Ducati, Massimo Bordi, who is that company’s main