T
he call was from Alberto Stra-
da, the chief engineer of Bimo-
ta. And I was glad I answered.
"Ciao, Alan," Strada said,
"come vai? I'm on my way
back to Rimini from Mugello with the proto-
type DB5R - we were testing it there yes-
terday, and now we have it set up, ready
for production. I knew you were riding at
Santamonica today - so why don't I stop
by and let you take it out for a while to
see what you think of it?"
Born-again Bimota now seems to be
settled on the comeback trail, with
demand for the acclaimed DB6 Delirio
naked bike fueling a lift in production in the
company's Rimini factory to 20 bikes a
week, and 210 examples of the slower sell-
ing, but still successful, new DB5 Mille
introduced last year and is now built and
sold - 180 to Europe, Australasia and Japan,
plus 30 in the United States. The favorable
public response, even from those who'd
never buy one, to the two very different
new Bimota models (each with radical
styling by Sergio Robbiano and powered by
Ducati's air/oil-cooled 1000DS desmodue
motor), has earned the 40-year-old Turin-
based designer who created them the gig
of designing Aprilia's forthcoming 1000cc
RS4 Superbike. That bike, with its 72-
degree DOHC 16-valve V-four engine, is
scheduled to make its debut at the Milan
Show in November 2007.
The success of the two bikes that has
called timeout on the specialist Italian man-
ufacturer's latest dance with death, has
allowed Strada's team to turn its attention
to developing the DB5R - a more extreme
version of the DB5, and is about to enter
production on a limited basis, essentially,
on demand. So, after the first 10 examples
are manufactured in September, bearing a
stratospheric price tag of $34,500 plus tax
(compared to "just" $29,300 for the stock
DB5), further bikes will only be built to
special order, says Strada, who expects no
more than 50 examples of the model to be
built in any one year.
"It's a modern equivalent of the DB1R
we manufactured in limited quantities with
the Ducati Pantah desmodue engine 20
years ago, and which provided the basis for
our successful TT2 race bike," Strada says.
"It's an evolution of the standard DB5, with
more aggressive performance and
improved materials."
So that distinctively painted bodywork -
though customers can choose to have any
color scheme they like at no extra cost,
says Strada - is completely made from car-
bon fiber, as are the front fender, seat, side
panels and clutch cover, while the trick big-
bore exhaust system with dB-killer made
AUGUST 16, 2006 •
C Y C L E N E W S
50
Bimota DB5R Mille
