Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

customer acceptance in their number one target market, with reaction to th e unfaired 700 and 900 Trident threecylinder roadsters universall y the most favora ble. , By cleverl y mixing engine speci fications, bod y.styles a nd color schemes, T riu m ph ha s created an instant range with impressive depth in the most profitable sector of the market: 750cc and over. They've also done so witho ut mo re than a passin g reference to th eir past, the tot al of six di fferen t mod els on displ ay bea ring so me famili ar names like Daytona and Trophy. T he -lau er em ploys the long-stroke version 'of the modular chai n-drive DOH C engi nes, with the 1180cc Trophy sports tourer yielding 141 hp a t 9000 rpm from the 76x65mm four-cylinder 998cc form , and 90 hp as a 749cc triple same as the unfaired Trident roadsters. Styling and graphics are completely mod ern, and the quality of finish on th e show bik es, shod with a varie ty of tir es from Dunlop, Michelin, Avon and most popularly Metzeler (four out of the nine) was excellent. Hopefully, these impressive newcomers with distinctl y Ori ental appearan ce a nd build qua lit y - o n th e o uts ide at least - will prove as adept o n th e road as th ey did o n th ei r G erman la un ch . Welcom e ba ck , Triumph. Triumph 's British co u nterp art's Nort on surprised everyo ne by ca ncel ing thei r stand a t the last moment, citing the recent diff icu lti es of hom ol - Not much else new in the rest of the Cagi va Group's offerings, the fullyfaired version of the 125 Mito ha ving been launched in Ital y during the summer but here making its Show debut th e week after being tested at 107 mph in standard form by an ' Italian magazine! The fuel-inj ected 900 EleIan t end uro now wear s a town sui t in discreet grey for the excu tive comrnu- (Left) Kawasaki's main new model displayed at Cologne was a redesigned version of the lXR750, in essence a street-legal road racer . with a fuel-injected versio n of th e bi g Le Mans engine. The Quota has now been substant ia ll y revised with mu ch more svelte styling as well as lowered so that even taller riders won't need a stepladder to climb aboard, whi le similar revamping has taken place on the 1000 Daytona 8-valve which Guzzi still refuses to call the Dr. John Replica although everyone else does . This must surely ho ld some sort of record for a tten ua ted development even amongst Italian factories, but production of the belt-driven SOHC V-twin is all egedly du e to start in J anuary, in fuel-inj ected form on ly. The rear sectio n of the bod ywork has been restyled, there are new can- type silencers, and altogether a more fin ished look to th is mu chawa ited model in IFMA form . An alterna tive to the factory 8-valve (Above) The Moto Guzzi 1000 Daytona is called the Dr. John Replica by everyon e but Guzzi. Production of th e eight-valve SORC V-twin will allegedly start in January. (Left) Ml displayed the 250 "Prototyp" as well as a catalytic converter exhaust system for two -stroke engines. ogating their rotary engine in German y as the reason for their nonappearnce. " We can't sell the FI in Germany . yet," said Norton boss Philippe LeRoux, spotted walking through the displays of rival manufacturers, " so we preferred to save on budget and wait till ,we're ready for the local market." Similarly absent, and also at th e last moment, was Laverda: rumors of the legendary Italian marque's demise were rife at Cologne after the y canceled their stand five days before the show, but all may not yet be lost, if rumors of a new buy er for the troubled factory are true. Completing the li st of notab le absentees was Jawa/CZ, the Czech company also in the throes of major reorganization after the momentous events of the past year in Eastern Europe. (They w ere represented, though, by Motokov, the Czech firm that markets CZ and ]awa motorcycles outside of Czechoslo vakia . . . Editor.) Already invo lved in the form er Communist bloc, with the decision announced at Cologne to build a new factory in Hungary, is Moto Guzzi , who displayed the final production version of the 1000 Quota Enduro first shown at Milan a year ago and fitted offering was displayed at the nearby Magni stand, with the Guzzi SOHC engine fitted to a Magni chasses with parallelogram rear suspension and nco -classic styling based on the existing Sfida range. Deliveries of this will start once Guzzi get their act together engine-wise. Likely to appeal to more traditional Guzzi customers are the two co mpl etely new pushrod V-twins launched at Cologne, a 750cc version of th e Nevada custom bike , and the California Classic, representing Guzzi's entry in the currently fashionable 'n ude bike' stakes (wh ich some would say th ey invented, simply by never changing their design concepts !). This comprises an unfaired version of the on e-lit er fuel-injected Cali III tourer, available like all the 1000cc pushrod Guzzis with three-way catalyst and running on un leaded fuel ,' in honor of which the 1000s so equipped at IFMA bore green stripes and chassis instead of the previous orange. . . I Defiantly bucking the gr eening trend, Ducati's all-red range of bikes has yet to discover catalyst exhaust. systems. Instead, Ducati launched a completely new version of the bestselling 9OOSS, now filled with 38mm Mikuni carbs to replace the trouble- some Webers, hithert o used o n the twovalve desmo range. Further evidence of Ducati designer Massimo Bordi 's increasingly O riental leanings are provided by the Showa upside down forks filled to the new bike, which has a lso been ,completely restyled and is available with ei ther a full fairing or more traditional half-fairing. Strangel y, ' the latter version was not displayed at Cologne even though it's likely to be the better seller of the two among committed Ducatisti, but a press kit photo showed a h ornylooking bike that recaptures the desmo V-twin allure of yesteryear. Alongside the Iully-faired 900SS therefore sat the new 907, i.e., a Paso by any other name but now fitted with Weber /Marelli fuel inj ection to replace the troublesome Weber carb, on the water-cooled twovalve engine. Styling is also revamped, a nd running gear uprated with a thankful farewell to 16-inch wheels, ech oed throughout the Ducati range. , Th e 851 8-valve continues unchanged in street form , but the 1991 versi on of the 85ISP, with production versi on of the 888cc engine which seems likely to win this year' s World Superbike title, debuted at Cologne with a likely 'price tag of around 50 million lir e and claimed to be the closest thing feasible to a Roche Replica. And for that money, th ey don 't even paint the wh eels - but you do get a claimed 128bhp at 10,500 rpm, and new, stronger cran kcases across the whole V-twin range, which on the 900SS at least are left in their bare metal state externall y: maybe they'll stop painting the rest of the engine black before too long. ter, ma king it a diametrically opposed concept to urban tra nspo rta tio n from Ap r i lia' s major new of fer ing at Co logne, the 50cc Amico scooter, in which th e company which now lead s Ita lia n ma nufactureres in term s of sheer volume (and proba bly profitability too ) has in vested no less tha n 8 billion lire in development costs. " We believe that the two -wheeler has a n exci ting fu ture ahea d as traffi c gets worse a nd mo re ci ties close their cen ters to cars," says April ia boss Ivano Beggi o. "A chic and elega n t scoo ter like th e Amico will ' become more commo n in use in the 1990s, not o nly in terms of conven ience but a lso to assist in pres erving th e enviro nment and as a practi cal fashion accessory." Su ch is the im po rtance that Ap rilia pl ace on th e Amico that th ey held back the debut of th eir 650cc Pega so tra il bike , powered by the 5-valve Rotaxbuilt engine di splayed in public for the first time at Cologne in bare motor , form only, until the Bologna Show in December, as well as the V-twin 250cc AFIV race replica sports bike which would have sa t uneasil y with th e co m p a ny 's environm entall y-aware IFMA image. A new range of color s, with mor e earth and metallic ton es, appeared on th e rest of th e existing range, heralding a new departure for th e trend-selling color artists of th e two-wh eeled world which is sure to be echoe d soo ne r rather than later in Japan. Striking out in new directions bu t with rather less certa inty inasmuch as many o f th ei r designs a re sti ll at prototype stage wer e th e P iaggio group, whose Gilera marque is Aprilia 's main rival among Italian makers. Gi lera paraded four proj ect bik es well, ma chines - alongside th e revised version of the RC600 enduro, now revamped to offer a softe r, mor e streetorientated ride along Aprilia Pegaso lines, a cha nge hardl y em p has ised by its dramatic new pa int job. But mo re avant-ga rde wa s th e 125cc Futuro scooter, a clear copy of Honda 's CN2 50 foot -forw ard machine whi ch ' by no co i n ci den ce numbers among its 19

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