The news is not always as good as we would like it to be, and although yesterday we talked about MV Agusta It will have a sub-brand that will reappear the mythical name of Cagiva, today we are going to talk about something sadder. It is well known that Varese's firm has not been at its best for a long time. The Italian dream of Giovanni castiglioni It has become half Russian and now that they have healthy accounts it is time to increase sales.
MV Agusta has postulated itself as a halo brand, with exquisitely designed premium bikes, which by definition means limited sales. But motorcycle brands live off, precisely, selling motorcycles, and that is what MV Agusta needs now. To achieve this, it will launch a new liter platform, although the renewal will begin with the naked ones, with greater sales potential, and sports will remain for a medium term that puts the survival of the sports project at risk Of the brand.
For some time now, in Varese they have known that their best-selling model is the Brutale, their family of muscular naked men. With the 800cc range recently remodeled, the next step has to be taken with the liter engines, which is why they are working on a new propellant to push to its top of the range.
When this new engine is ready to go on the market, the first model to equip it will be the 1,000cc Brutale (or higher displacement), a model that news is expected shortly to break into the market in 2019 and begin its journey as a lifesaver for the currently battered Italian brand.
According to statements by Castiglioni to Asphalt and Rubber, a year later a neo-retro version of the Brutale will be presented. Only then, the MV Agusta F4 1000, the sports car of the house by Lake Como, will be able to receive an update that it needs like May water. That the next F4 will not arrive until 2020 at the earliest It is bad, very bad, especially when it comes to MV Agusta's sports program and for the interests of Jordi Torres. And what does Torres paint in all this ?, you ask. Well, a lot.
This year the friendly Jordi Torres makes his debut as an official MV Agusta driver, his first year in the bosom of a brand with its own development program, and he also does it alone, without a teammate.
MV Agusta's resources as a factory within the World Superbike Championship are limited. As limited as it is the brand with an unofficial presence with the lowest budget. As limited as that your sports project is limited by your product policy as for street models.
East 2018 MV Agusta will be able to race in WSBK because it continues to take advantage of the moratorium on the Euro 4 regulations to sell the MV Agusta F4 RC (Euro 3), the basis on which the motorcycle that Torres will ride this season is developed. Let us remember that in order to race in Superbike, a certain number of street bikes of the motorcycle approved for racing must be sold.
For 2019 the situation changes. If the street F4s can no longer be sold, you cannot race with them next year, and if there is no motorcycle to race with, Jordi Torres will be left without a saddle. Perhaps that is why Torres has not signed a contract beyond 2018 with MV Agusta.
The solution to this mess is only possible through two different ways. Either MV Agusta launches an update to the current four-cylinder engine to make it comply with Euro4 regulations, predictably losing part of its performance, or the renewal of the F4 is advanced. This second does not look like it will happen. The first thing … neither.
The sport bikes have become a niche unprofitable for brands. We have already seen how the queens among the road Supersports, the Honda CBR600RR and Suzuki GSX-R600 for example, have passed away, and that they were motorcycles that sold infinitely better than the MV Agusta.
In the words of Castiglioni himself, "although they are a niche, we will have sports cars because they are our banner, but the F4 will stop selling in 2018. This is the last year of the F4. We will not have sports in 2019 or possibly in 2020. We want to do something different."
The brand itself calls into question their continuity in the Superbike World Championship, but they even doubt that having a sports car in the near future they will take part in the WSBK again. " We do not know if it is interesting to continue in the championship. We do not think it is too popular and we are still evaluating how much you earn and how much you sell for participating, "said Castiglioni.
Invaded by the commercial vision and denying his spirit of competition, the Italian magnate added that it is not necessary to be in a competition to have a good road product, and on this Castiglioni left a ray of hope.
"We want to do something technologically new, without being tied to the restrictions of a championship ", he declared, pointing out the possibility that the MV Agusta liter sports cars are something more similar to the current Kawasaki H2, sports unleashed without adhering to any regulation.
"We're developing something unconventional", said Castiglioni." It may be something criticized but we don't want to create a superbike thinking about the championship regulations, we want something very cool. "Among the boss's words," hybrid "came to appear as a way to improve the performance of a motorcycle, with a system similar to the KERS used in Formula 1.
As icing on the cake, every story must have an ending, and Castiglioni announced that the current F4s will have a special farewell edition. It will be the most exclusive F4 ever made and it will basically be the bike with which Leon Camier finished the 2017 season. It will be named after Claudio, in tribute to Claudio Castiglioni, Giovanni's father.
