Italian Update: News From Cagiva, Aprilia And Ferrari

Italian Update: News From Cagiva, Aprilia and Ferrari

ROUNDUP

Italy discovers standards: It’s been some time since the Italians copied Japanese styling trends, but two of Italy’s leading manufacturers recently introduced new, unfaired 125cc street bikes as a direct result of the unexpected sales success of the standard-style Honda NSR125.

Cagiva’s I25cc Mito features an aluminum, twin-spar chassis, laydown shock, banana swingarm, twin front headlamps and a curved, alloy radiator. Strangely, the Marzocchi fork is conventional rather than the now-fashionable upside-down variety. Price is a very competitive 5, l 80,000 lire, including 18 percent tax—the rough equivalent of $4100.

The slightly more expensive Aprilia Europa does use an upsidedown fork, as well as a redesigned, alloy chassis and the same singlesided swingarm fitted to previous Aprilia 125s.

Singing songs of Singles: Aprilia recently gave a low-key introduction to the engine scheduled to power its upcoming enduro and explorer bikes. The 107-pound Single, designed and built by Rotax, is liquidcooled and measures 100x83mm, for a total capacity of 652cc. Its twin-overhead camshafts are chaindriven. and there’s a gear-driven balance shaft. A flat-top piston runs in a Nikasil chrome liner and gives a 9.6: l compression ratio, while five valves are disposed radially in the cylinder head, with a centrifugal compression-release system fitted which holds one valve open at low revs (800-1000 rpm) to aid starting, which is electric. Twin 33mm Mikuni carburetors breathe into separate inlet tracts which combine into a single induction passage. The engine employs dry-sump lubrication with twin oil pumps. A fivespeed gearbox is fitted.

It seems certain that this highly sophisticated and very good-looking engine, for which neither company has released horsepower figures, must eventually find its way into a road-going chassis.

Ferrari-Cagiva tidbits: In spite of unusually tight security surrounding the superbike under development by Ferrari and Cagiva, CXV has learned that the compact, inline-Four will use four valves per cylinder, arranged radially, as on the current Ferrari F-l car-racing engine. Twin overhead camshafts will be chaindriven, the original plan to feature gear drive to the cams having been scrapped as too noisy and too costly. A six-speed gearbox will be used and the engine will be a fully stressed chassis member.

It’s understood the engine has a very short stroke, and is capable of revving to no less than 15,000 rpm safely in racing form. The street version is likely to be less of a screamer. —Alan Cathcart