VOL. 54 ISSUE 47 DECEMBER 5, 2017 P55
top 10 finisher in BSB on a privateer
Suzuki GSX-R1000—to race the bike.
Though he'd never before ridden
anything without telescopic forks, Ray
took to the Vyrus immediately, finishing
23rd out of 40 starters in the open-
ing round of the series in Portimao,
improving to 16th in the next race. But
the pressures of trying to go racing
competitively while also earning a living
building customer bikes began to tell,
and by midseason Ray had returned to
England, while Ascanio finally began
working on what he'd had so many
requests from customers to make—a
street version of the Moto2 Vyrus.
"Our customers had seen that our
M2 motorcycle is easy to ride, and
steers fast and easily with great turn
speed—but they all wanted to have an
example with mirrors and lights that
they could ride on the street, not a rac-
er," says Ascanio. "So, we understood
we must obtain homologation, but the
process for this is very long, so it wasn't
until the end of November 2016 that
we achieved this. But now we can sell
the 986 M2 Strada anywhere in Europe
as a fully homologated streetbike, and
this makes it easier to register the bike
overseas, too."
The price for a complete Strada
model with a brand-new stock
CBR600RR donor engine is $44,954
on the road not including tax, fully built
up with the key in your hand, and full EU
homologation, while $33,102 gets you
a complete bike minus engine, but in kit
form. In Corsa race guise but without
a motor the cost rises to $64,008 up-
wards, depending on specification.
"There's a huge list of options, so
these are only guide prices," says As-
canio. "No two Vyrus motorcycles have
ever been the same as one another,
so the list price is just a starting point,
leaving each customer to individualize
his bike."
Vyrus has already constructed and
delivered 28 street-legal examples of
the 986 M2, and is currently working on
another six under deposit, but will cap
production at just 50 bikes, meaning
there are just 16 still available.
"The problem is that Honda is go-
ing to stop making this 600cc motor
quite soon," says Ascanio. "But we are
already investigating other engines to
form the basis of the next evolution of
this model." Which would presumably
account for the MV Agusta 800 triple
motor sitting on top of a workbench in
Vyrus HQ with measuring equipment all
around it. "No comment!" said Ascanio.
Besides the avantgarde hub-center
technology which essentially repre-
sents a Tesi done right, the dramatic,
angular, modernist Vyrus styling entirely
executed in carbon fiber is also the
work of Ascanio himself, with close help
from young Japanese female designer
Yutaka Igarashi www.id-performance.
com and ex-Ducati stylist Sam Mat-
thews, formerly Pierre Terblanche's
right hand at the Bologna factory, who
later worked for Citroën in Paris.
"We finalized the design at long dis-
tance, with Sam making CAD drawings
in France, and me interpreting them into
a full-size clay model, then emailing him
photos of the result!" says Rodorigo.
(Above) Ray's racer.
Not much has been
changed between this
and the production
bike. (Right) Ascanio
may come across as a
bit of a mad scientist,
but his methods have
taken race wins all
over the world.
