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/128377
No U.S. Wildcard for MotoCzysz Deports that the American-made MotoCzysz MotoGP bike will I"'make a wildcard debut at this year's U.S. GP were greatly exaggerated. The novel machine, which has two contra-rotating crankshafts in longitudinal inline four format, will only perform a handful of demonstration laps in the race. This was confirmed by -'~-.r~~~~~~;----, former president, and now company patent attorney, Richard Calderwood, who was paying a visit to the Chinese Grand Prix. "That was an error in an earlier report," said Calderwood, who has stepped down as president to let "a better qualified man" take over. "We are not in the race, and we do not have a wildcard entry. Our motorcycle is ridiculously unready at this point. We plan to do three parade laps at the race. Our target is for a wildcard entry in 2006, and a full season in 2007." The machine had been undergoing tests since last October, he said. "We haven't been looking for power or speed - just to validate the engineering principles," Calderwood said. One problem was the limited funding available. "i wish I'd had a shoe-string budget," Calderwood smiled. "What we are doing now is sewing up the second stage of financ- ing. We finished the prototype for $1.5-million. Our next stage is to take the company from one making a prototype to one producing motorcycles." Michoel Scott Aprilia's Revamp Strategy New owner Roberto Colaninno's strategy for Aprilia is found- ed on the company becoming the Piaggio Group's motorcycle division and making fewer small-capacity bikes. Instead, Aprilia will concentrate increasingly on medium- and large- capacity bikes of all types, up to looocc and even 1200cc in engine size, but most important will be midrange capacity models, according to Piaggio CEO Rocco Sabelli. "Look at the sales charts last year," he says. "The two best-selling bikes were the Honda Hornet 600 and Yamaha Fazer FZ6 - together they sold 34,000 units in Italy alone and more than three times that many all through Europe. Aprilia has no comparable model of any kind which appeals to a younger customer, whom we must attract to our products, and we can't afford to go on ignoring such an important sector of the market." This comes in spite of the fact that these are four-cylinder 600cc motorcycles, and Aprilia doesn't presently have such an engine. But rather than buy in a motor from Suzuki or Yamaha, as Aprilia has done in the past, Piaggio intends to develop such a motor itself in-house at its extensively equipped Pontedera R&D center, whose engine plant has the capacity to manufacture up to Soo,ooo power units a year of all types. Sabelli revealed that Piaggio plans to launch its first 600cc model in 2006 - most probably a Hornet/Fazer-type naked roadster that can also be sold with a half-fairing, after which a more track-focused, dedicated, 600cc supersport contender will surely follow. However, Aprilia insiders reveal that, aside from the 600cc four-cylinder project that it has accepted will place the company in direct competition with Japan, the company's The RXV/Enduro range on which work is already well advanced will follow next (interestingly, the rules for the Paris-Dakar and other African rallies have been rewritten to limit twins to a maximum of 45Occ, seemingly tailor-made for the new Aprilia). It is scheduled for a February 2006 showroom introduction in 450/550 guises, while development of the MXY/Motocross version is just beginning, with a singleton rider scheduled to run an R&D program in MX GPs this coming season (the bike has already raced in Italian national MX events), preparatory to a more intensive multirider effort in 2006. "We need to show we have a product worth buying, and that means getting results early on, just as we did in Supermoto," says Aprilia's chief engineer Mariano Roman, who anticipates having a customer MX racer ready for purchase by July 2006, with manufacture of all versions of the SXY Vtwin engine previously scheduled for the Moto Guzzi plant at Mandello del Lario now transferred to that huge Piaggio engine plant at Pontedera. Aprilia produced its first dirt bike back in 1965 (the original SOcc Scarabeo, in fact, a name later transferred to its best-selling big-wheel scooter range) but made its last competition off-roader back in 1994, with the last of the Climber trials bikes that had won the company two World titles. Now, after repeating the title feat in the Supermoto arena, Aprilia is back again doing it in the dirt - and doing it differently, as intended. "Our objective is to develop a family of Aprilia off-road products from SOcc up to S50cc in capaCity, which will return our marque to the original concepts which marked its September, together with both 450cc and 550cc customer creation as a motorcycle brand by Ivano Beggio back in the early 1970.," declares Roman, who confirms Aprilia is hard at work developing a complete range of smaller-capacity offroad and dual-purpose models, sharing the distinctive styling of their V-twin big sisters but powered by SOcci 125cc twostroke motors, plus a 250cc four-stroke single inevitably representing the SXY V-twin engine cut in half. "Other manufacturers might have chosen to start with the single and then double up to produce a V-twin," he says, "but we preferred to start at the top and work down. We realize that the 250cc four-stroke is vital to the long-term success of the Aprilia off-road range, and we'll be sparing no race versions. effort, or resources, to make sure our models in this sector strategy for revitalization will be focused on creating a dis- tinctive family of standalone products quite unlike anything else in the marketplace. Typical of these will be the range of models derived from Aprilia's World Supermoto title-winning SXY450/550, whose fuel-injected SOHC 77-degree Vtwin engine will power a range of models introduced over the next three years, starting with the SXY550 Supermoto Strada race-replica street rod, which will enter production in 10 MAY 11, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS are competitive from the very first." Which leaves only the large-capacity sportbike sector as part of Aprilia's makeover strategy under Piaggio ownership, in which the revamped RSV I000 introduced two years ago continues to sell well. However, it's understood within the company that a conventional (i.e. nondesmo) V-twin would have no chance of being competitive in superbike racing under the new looocc capacity limit for all bikes, irrespective of the number of cylinders. Yet Piaggio is committed to returning Aprilia to World Superbike, where "there is a direct link between going racing and the product we sell, where there's greater visibility for the brand, and where the costs of taking part are considerably lower and directly linked to development of the product," according to Sabelli. "We will develop a new superbike, with either a three- or possibly a four-cylinder engine. We already have a lot of hard-earned experience with the triple, though, through MotoGP!" However, this doesn't mean the RSV I000 engine is destined for the scrap heap, since its unique 60-degree narrowangle character means it will continue to be used for Aprilia's range of sporting niche models, from the Tuono naked bike to the Caponord adventure tourer - and indeed, Aprilia has new versions of those existing products under development, which will appear with improved versions of the RSV Mille motor, including one punched out to nearer 12oocc. First up is expected to be a completely restyled version of the Futura sports tourer - expected to appear at the Milan Show in November - whose controversial Edge styling disguised a very underrated model which, in revamped guise, is likely to prove a stern competitor for the new Triumph Sprint ST 1050 and its BMW and Honda rivals. But Piaggio is looking at adding another layer on top of the existing Aprilia range later in the decade, with a series of multicylinder models headed by the future new superbike, which if as expected turns out to be a triple will retain the Cosworth-designed GP motor's pneumatic valve operation, if only in ISO-off high-end homologation-focused guise. Though Triumph and Benelli may also lay claim to triple traditions, the three-cylinder engine is now part of Aprilia's heritage, allowing an RS3 superbike to follow with pride in the Latin tire tracks of the MV Agusta GP triples which won so many GP World titles more than 30 years ago. Alan Cathcart