Short Subjects

Short subjects

ROUNDUP

In anticipation of a flood of new models to be launched at the end of this year by the Italian manufacturers, the upcoming and highly important Milan Show has been prolonged in its duration. The show will now start on Saturday, November 21, and will run for nine days until November 29.. . .

Bimota has recently quadrupled its capitalization in preparation for the launch of several new models in the course of 1987-88. Fifteen replicas of the FZ750 Yamaha-engined TT 1 racer are presently being built in the Rimini factory, ten of which are pre-sold. Vehicle designer Frederico Martini is hard at work on the YB6, a street version of the 750cc, aluminum-beam-framed bike, but powered by the new FZR 1000 engine supplied) directly from Japan by Yamaha. The YB6 prototype should start track tests in May, prior to market launch in September. Meanwhile. Bimota’s hydraulically steered Tesi project bike is being completely redesigned around the FZ750 engine, which will now act as a fully stressed chassis member, eliminating the frame apart

from a couple of alloy plates front and rear. Finally, Bimota has a lovely little problem now: With sales of the new YB5 FJ 1200-engined megabike far exceeding expectation, its original stock of Yamaha engines has run out. Two-hundred versions of the model will now be built, instead of the 80 originally planned. Over 75 percent of Bimota’s projected 1987 production is pre-sold.