Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127842
EUROFILE BY ALAN CATHCART Wiking turns anew leaf Until Gilera conceived the transverse in-line format in the mid-1930s, all fourcylinder motorcycles built since Belgium's FN produced the first one back in 1904 featured an in-line engine set lengthwise in the frame - particularly the series of American fours built by Henderson, Ace, Excelsior and Indian between the wars. The last of the line was the final Indian OHV four built in 1942; since then only BMW has attempted a similar format for the street, but with the engine canted on its side, as on the K-series Flying Bricks. But now the longitudinally mounted in-line four is back - courtesy not of one of the growing number of U.S. manufacturers seeking to cash in on Harley's success, but thanks to a trio of Swedish engineers working under the slightly unlikely name of Wiking Motorcycles. This differentiates the manufacturing company they've established in Europe from Colorado-based Viking'Motorcycles, whose boss Lars Iggsten will market the Swedish-built bikes in their number-one target market, the United States, when production begins at the end of this year. Iggsten says he plans u.s. certification for the Viking/Wiking - take your pick! - this fall, with a target price of $40,000 for each of the ,first 100 bikes built. "Hopefully, after that, some assembly will be made in the United States, which will lower the price here," Iggsten says - but production will be based in Sweden, to satisfy other projected Wiking markets as well. Two examples presently exist of the unique four-cylinder cruiser that is Wiking's planned debut model: a red-and-cream prototype which has already covered thousands of miles in testing, and a silver-and-black preproduction version. Designed by Wiking boss Sture Torngren and his colleagues Bjorn Johansson and Mikael Jonsson, work on the prototype in-line motor was begun three years ago, using the bottom end of a Volvo car engine, VW Beetle cylinders, and a specially made cylinder head, to create a hybrid power unit aimed at proving whether the layout would work. Tests proved it did, leading Wiking to design its own 1845cc air/ oil-cooled in-line four-cylinder OHV engine with a bore and stroke of 85.7 x 80mm, with extensive finning on the specially cast cylinder block and cylinder hea'd, which has two stainless-steel valves per cylinder worked by a Volvo camshaft. Volvo will also supply the crankshaft, connecting rods, oil pump and cam drive, but the crankcase is now a special Wiking casting, while the shaft-drive transmission comes courtesy of BMW, but with new ratios for the four-speed gearbox, with a 1:1 top gear. Designed and built by Wiking in Sweden, the cruiser's steel chassis has a kickedout 67.3-inch wheelbase, with Showa forks and twin-shock rear suspension, and Harley brakes: a single disc at the front, and a drum rear. Weight is Harleyesque, too - 682 pounds wet in production guise. "After displaying both bikes at Daytona's Cycle Week in March, the reactions they produced were so positive, we think we have to go into production as soon as possible," Torngren says. "We're going to continue testing this summer all over Europe and North Africa, until August or September, then incorporate the lessons in our first batch of customer bikes. But we know now there's a demand out there: The Wiking is a unique product in today's market that recalls the spirit of America's most traditional and distinctive classic motorcycles." Rumi goes GP/singles racing, and naked Both versions of the fuel-injected par- . allel-twin Rurnl 1000 Bicilindrica exclusively revealed in Euro File two months 0\ ago are now being styled ready for their ...... launch at the Milan Show - one a fully~' faired Superbike, the other a MonsterQJ type Naked roadster. More details have come to light about the engine, which is >-. understood to feature a 180-degree crankshaft (so one-up, one-down, pistonwise), and twin inlet ports per big b\ § 4 102mm-diame~er cylinder - hence the fact the Rurnl is now being tested with a total of four throttle bodies for the Weber /Marelli EFl, with twin injectors per cylinder; previously the engine used a single 54mm throttle body per cylinder. The six-speed gearbox indeed features an extractable cassette-type cluster, and the engine is apparently a dry-sump design, with the oil tank carried above the gearbox. Still no horsepower figures available - yet! Meanwhile, Rumi boss Stefano Rumi has revived the 125cc GP project tha t was his late son Donino's baby before his tragic death three years ago. The Jan Thiel-designed two-stroke single was uncompetitive in the hands of Stefano 'Caracchi in the 1993 GP season, and work stopped on it after Donlno's death; but now Rumi has entrusted the whole project to the father-and-son Pattoni team, whose quixotic 500cc Paton Vfour was so controversially axed from the 500cc GP lineup this season by IRTA bosses - after scoring a World Championship point in its last-ever GP in Australia last year. Paton is working on getting the Rumi )25 back in contention, initially in the European Championship, but with plans to return to the GP world very soon. The success of the European Su permono series, run alongside the World Superbike Championship again this season, has prompted Donlno's cousin, Oscar Rumi to intensify work on his own fuel-injected RM701 super-single, comprising a Honda bottom end with a gear-driven DOHC four-valve head and liquid-cooled 700cc cylinder. This now has a six- peed close-ratio gearbox ~o replace the Dominator-derived trail-bike cluster which was the Rumi supermono's biggest handicap, arid a revised cylinder head delivering better flow and more power - to match the' 80-bhp-plus now produced by the fivevalve Yamaha engines in the Japanese Over and German MuZ title contenders. Oscar Rumi plans to race the bike in a couple of races at the end of the season, to be ready for a title challenge in 1998. A limited-edition, handbuilt street version will also be produced, as well as a· customer supermono road racer. Guzzi and Aprilia to marry? A major change in management has just been announced at Moto Guzzi, where, after three years on the job, managing director ArnoHo Sacchi has ,----------------------------'" § '" z ~ ~ z U) Q ~ l!: Another hot Beemer V-twin motorcycles are all the go right now - but still nobody besides BMW makes a Boxer twin! However, the aggressive model strategy propounded by BMW's youthful new boss Michael Ganal, which sees the launch of the 1200C Cruiser this summer, is strongly rumored to herald the arrival of a new R1200RS Super Boxer for the 1998 model year, alongside the K1200RS now in production which is, of course, the first BMW motorcycle with over 100 bhp. However, the Super Brick will soon have company, because BMW is understood to be working on a March 1998 production debut for the R1200RS, complete with six-speed gearbox and just over 100 hI' at the rear wheel from the 102 x 70.5mm fuel-injected flat-twin engine - by coincidence, practically identical engine measurements to the Ducati Supermono's! Though obviously based on the existing RllOORS - but with completely new, more aggressive, full-fairing styling - the R12 is understood to feature a revised version of the Telelever front suspension aimed at improving handling and suspension response in a sporting context. However, though BMW engineers are believed to be working on a liquid-cooled 1000cc superbike version of the eight-valve Boxer engine,the R1200RS will still be air/oil-eooled, like the current models. Launch date of the new BMW Supersport bike? The Paris Show in September, perhaps - or perhaps, like the 1200C Custom, maybe not at a show at all. March is the date that German sources give for the kickoff of production, though. Your twincylinder sportbike choice just became harder still!