Italian Update: Spicy News From Across the Sea

Italian Update: Spicy News From Across the Sea

ROUNDUP

THERE MUST BE SOMETHING IN the wine; or maybe it’s the pasta. How else to explain the fact that Italy, as usual, provides most of the hot gossip—some of it good, some less so—circulating in European motorcycle circles these days. Here’s the latest:

Ferrari Motorcycle: This one is confirmed! Cagiva has signed an agreement with the world’s mostillustrious car maker, Ferrari, to jointly develop a four-cylinder bike engine that will be housed in a Cagiva-built chassis. Billed as a “Cagiva by Ferrari,” the bike is scheduled to be launched in 1990.

The Cagiva-Ferrari engine will be a 16-valve, liquid-cooled, fourstroke inline-Four, with gear-driven, double-overhead camshafts. Derived from the Ferrari 3.5-liter, V-12 grand prix engine, with a fourvalves-per-cylinder layout and a very flat included valve angle, the engine is likely to be fuel-injected and will be a 750 first, with a 903cc version to follow.

Benelli Demise: Benelli, one of Italy’s historic marques, which has recently lived very much in the shadow of its sister-company Moto Guzzi, may be coming to an end. The company’s Jarno 125 streetbike, hoped to have revitalized the Benelli name, has been a total

flop, and all 135 workers at the Pesaro factory are scheduled to be laid-ofif. The city is trying to keep the factory open under Italy’s bankruptcy laws, but their efforts don’t seem likely to be successful.

Bimota Tesi Lives Again: When it first appeared at the 1983 Milan Show, powered by a 400cc Honda V-Four engine, the prototype Bimota Tesi stunned the bike world with its radical design and hydraulically activated, hub-center steering. Now, after battling back from bankruptcy, Bimota has a new-andimproved Tesi.

Fitted with the same Bimotamodified Yamaha FZR750 engine that powers the works world Superbike YB4s, the new Tesi is undergoing tests and differs from the original in that the controversial hydraulic steering has been jettisoned in favor of a mechanical system, though the original, twin opposed front swingarms are retained.

Bigger news is that when a street Tesi is ready for sale, it won’t have a Yamaha engine, but rather an Italian V-Twin, as company boss Giuseppe Morri has finally persuaded Cagiva’s Castiglioni brothers to provide Bimota with supplies of the eight-valve, 851 Ducati engine.

—Alan Cathcart