VOL. 54 ISSUE 38 SEPTEMBER 26, 2017 P103
gear roundabout on the outskirts
of Trivolzio, it has way more
meaty a midrange than either of
my Euro 3 bikes. Massimo Gus-
tato and his team have pulled
off quite a trick here, which he
modestly puts down to a switch
in ECU suppliers from Magneti
Marelli to Athena, while also de-
veloping an all-new exhaust sys-
tem courtesy of Zard. Whichever
way he did it, it's a real technical
tour de force.
Indeed, the secret of how to
combine a claimed seven bhp
increase in top-end power with
a wider, 3Nm fatter spread of
torque is something I'm sure
Ducati and Aprilia engineers, not
to mention Triumph's, would like
the Gustato gang to share with
them. Because in every case of
meeting Euro 4 with their exist-
ing models, it's meant sacrificing
outright performance in favor of
increased torque, either that, or
cubing up the motor to increase
capacity in order to compensate
for lost peak power. But as I was
perfectly positioned to compare
and contrast with my older Euro
3 bikes with identical engine
architecture, there's a really no-
ticeable improvement on the ZZ
when actually riding it, not just
on paper.
So you can gas the ZZ's
CorsaCorta engine wide open
in sixth gear at 2200 rpm,
and it'll pull hard and strong in
completely linear mode all the
way through to the fierce-action
9300 rpm revlimiter without a
trace of transmission snatch.
This is quite unexpected for
such a format, which you'd
normally figure to have to rev
quite hard to obtain this kind
So you can gas the ZZ's CorsaCorta engine wide open in sixth gear at
2200 rpm, and it'll pull hard and strong in completely linear mode.
of performance, but while the
motor apparently has a serious
appetite for revs (designer Lam-
bertini has claimed it runs safely
to 13,000 rpm) it's also content
to lug along off the cam in traf-
fic, then report for duty ready
for immediate action when you
simply twist the wrist, and ask
