Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

in the wake of the armed holdup of more than 50 competitors and 20 support vehicles by bandits in Mauritania last year, and it may well have been a factor in the decision to alter the route of the rally so drastically in the future. Paris-Dakar-Cairo 2000: sounds like a long way! Goodyear back to bikes? Tire giant Goodyear - the company that invented the racing-motorcycle slick tire more than a quarter-century ago is set to regain the number-one position in global tire sales (including both car and bike rubber) that it lost in the 1980s, by effectively taking over Sumitomo Rubber of Japan, owners of the - Dunlop tire brand. Under the guise of a "global alliance," Goodyear is undertaking the biggest-ever investment in Japan by an American company by acquiring a 10percent holding. in Sumitomo/Dunlop and forming six joint ventures in EtiIope, North America and Japan, four of which Goodyear will control. This will boost Goodyear's global market share from 17 percent to 21 percent, ahead of current market leaders Bridgestone and Michelin, each with 18 percent, and far ahead of Germany's Continental, next up with 6 percent, and the Pirelli/Metzeler combine with 4 percent. , Financial analysts are already predictinK further consolidation, with a Pirelli link with Continental the most likely scenario. Goodyear, founded in Ohio in 1898 and named after the iriventor of the vulcaniza tion process, Charles Goodyear, became the world's largest tire manufacturer in 1916 and went on to rack up 50 consecutive years of profits before plunging into loss in 1990 coincidentally, not long after pulling out of the motorcycle tire market! But new management has turned the company around, with profits rising to $682 mil)ion in 1998 - a marked contrast with debt-ridden Dunlop, currently $2:8 billion in the red, compared to a market capitalization of only $1 billion. This is a takeover by any other name. However, this 'may not immediately make any significant impact on the motorcycle-tire market - except in one possible way. For two decades, until this year, Goodyear supported Formula One car racing - for most of thaUime as the sole tire supplier to all the teams taking part in the series. As part of the com pa n y' s profit-driven corporate reorganization, G.oodyear pulled out of Formula One this season, leaving Bridgestone (who only joined in two years ago) to carry the burden alone. There's a strong suspicion tha t the same policy may be inflicted by Goodyear management on Dunlop's current activities in motorcycle Grand Prix and Superbike racing, as part of the much-needed economizing needed to turn Sumitomo around. This would significantly impact on both 250cc and 125cc GP racing, and on the works Suzuki, Kawasaki and Aprilia teams in World Superbike - and may also perhaps explain Yamaha's surprise decision to switch to Michelin tires for the new R7' s d ebu t season in 1999. Watch this space. Bimota's Vdue stock One company intending to concentrate more on ironing out the bugs in its existing model range and maximizing production is Bimota, where manufacture of the good-selling SB8R is in full flow, with the first batch of 250cc bikes No Morbidelli Bimota One engine project Bimota won't be pursuing is th", Morbidelli V-eight now owned by Tognon's minority partners SCM. "We took a long look at adapting it to our product range," says Tognon, "but the problem is the .engine capacity. It's impossible to punch it out to a full l000cc, which we determined was crucial to marketing it successfully - customers for a 70 million lire (about $42,000 ... Editor) motorcycle don't want to buy an 850cc machine, only a full one-liter one. So, regretfully because I admire the engineering and especially the V-eight's appear:ance - I'm afraid it's the end of the road for this illustrious project, at least as far as Birnota is concerned." After some time examining the design of the Morbldelll V:eight pow8I'pIant, Bimota haa decided it WOUld be Impractical (I) to adopt it to power a new model. What a shame•.. on their way to customers around the world by the end of April. New boss Francesco Tognon still has one problem to overcome, though: What to do with the hundreds of recalled 500cc Vdue fuel-injected twostrokes currently eating' up storage charges in a Rimini warehouse? Contrary to reports in a British newspaper, says Tognon, there are no intentions whatsoever to relaunch the Vdue in a Tesi hub-center frame. "This is completely untrue, and has never even been considered - not least because it would not make economic sense to do so, by scrapping all the frames already manufactured," he says. "In fact, the Vdue chassis is very possibly the best-handling bike Bimota has ever built - it would be crazy to junk it! However, I can say that, in the midst of getting the company back on its feet again, we haven't forgotten the Vdue and we have a development team hard at work on a revised version of the engine, which is showing a great deal of promise." , Tognon won't reveal the nature of the changes tha t Bimota' is working on, but informed speculation centers on junking the TDD direct fuel-injection in favor of - a pair of power-jet flat-slide carbs! Now that would be a motorcycle worth hankering after - anywhere that the resultant GP-racer-with-lights wouldn't have to pass too stringent an emissions test. Aermacchi party One takeover too far was HarleyDavidson's acquisition of Italy's Aermacchi motorcycle marque from the aircraft manufacturer that had founded it in 1951, buying first a 50-percent partnership in the company in 1960 and then in 1972 com pleting the deal by acquiring Aermacchi's remaining 50percent shareholding. Four 250/350cc Grand Prix World Championships courtesy of Walter Villa in the mid-70s failed to spark commercial success, and in 1978 Harley sold the Varese-based company to a wealthy local pair of bike-crazy brothers named Castiglioni, who rechristened the company... Cagiva! The rest is history - but this year, to mark the reopening of the lakeside' factory after 18 months of short-time working, the fifth International Aer- macchi RalLy will be held on June 13 at Schiranna, the lakeside town of Varese, where the Cagiva (formerly Aermacchi) factory is loca ted. Cagiva boss Claudio Castiglioni is throwing open the factory to all participants, who will have a chance to visit the MV Agusta F4 production line and to see many of the historic Aermacchi/ H-D/Cagiva works racers and prototypes kept under wraps there, as well as meet the famous engineers and former riders - such as Ezio Mascheroni, Gilberto Milani and MY engine guru Andrea Goggi - who still work on the bikes. If you'd like to register to take part, phone any of these Italian phone. numbers for more details (prefix +39, but keep the zero): 0360/445298, 02/89400619 or 0332/284628. Sounds like a good way for future MY Agusta owners to check on the production status of Tamburini's toy! launch in the Canary Islands in October. Here again, there's an Australian connection - though this time only a possible one, rather than confirmed, as with the Buell - because according to a reputable source, about two weeks before the Harley/Ford link was officially announced in early March at Daytona, several full-faired V-twin sports motorcycles attended by a group of American engineers were spotted at Ford's You Yangs proving ground outside Melbourne, lapping the large banked oval track there at what are d.escribed as "fairly impressive speeds." Another new-generation Harley engine just a year after the debut of the Twin-Cam 88? Given the huge investment Harley has made in its extensive new R&D facilities, which must surely generate a dramatic flow of new models, could be. BuelUAermacchi Sprint soon? Rumors circulating in Europe insist tha t Harley's Buell sportbike subsidiary is about to launch a modern-day equiValent of the Aermacchi-built H-D Sprint - a street single, albeit one to be built in Wisconsin at the Buell factory, rather than offshore in Italy. The bike will be launched as a year2000 model, so it will make its public debut later this year, and while original conjecture was that it would use an engine manufactured in Austria by Rotax (which already supplies engines for Harley's short-track race team and the company's military-motorcycle production), it now seems likely that it's fitted with an all-new motor manufactured in-house by Harley itself. The Buell single has been spotted undergoing hot-wea ther testing in Australia's central New South Wales, so it seems set for an autumn launch, as projected. Interestingly, one of Harley's alleged interests in talking to KTM was to obtain supplies of the LC4 motor for future niche-market models. Was this one of them? Harley water-eooler? Also believed. to be on the horizon is an all-new liquid-cooled V-twin engine from Harley-Davidson (known inhouse as "the small motor"), which is understood to be' scheduled to make its debut in July, prior to a world press Wanted: car killer Francesco Tognon's grueling schedule since he took over Bimota in October - last y'ear has been underlined by the fact that he's "killed" no less than four Mercedes-Benz saloons/sedans performing the 250-mile round-trip commute from his Padova home to Bimota's Rimini factory four days a week - he allows himself just one sleepover there, so as to retain better contact with his family. "The Mercedes dealer I buy my cars from is a friend of mine," explains Tognon, "but after the fourth one broke under warranty, he gave me my money back - on condition I bought another brand of car! But my first BMW - an M5 - broke the engine after just 800 kilometers, so already I'm on my second one!" The suspicion is that the bearded Tognon - for eight years a player on the Italian national rugby team, and before that a member of the VCLA football squad during his days at college in California - drives cars like he played football: hard! The Bimota staff is already running a sweepstakes on which make he'll transfer to next. Will it be a Jaguar, like his friend Giancarlo Morbidelli's - or another German make, in the form of an Audi? Or should he go Japanese like Bimota! - with a Lexus? Place your bets - and try not to buy a used car from this man. ell en en en -

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