Yeah, the Italians know how to make nice looking motorcycles... :-)
Over the last few years, Aprilia has joined the ranks of Italian motorcycle manufacturers who are giving the Japs a run for their money. With the RSV Mille, Aprilia had graduated from making hot little 125s and 250s and joined the Top Gun league of 1000cc superbikes. The new 1000 R takes things even further – it’s smaller and slimmer than its predecessor, is more powerful (the mighty, 60-degree V-twin revs to 11,000rpm and produces 139 horsepower), and sports a new 16-bit fuel-injection system. For most punters, the new RSV’s styling takes up from where Ducati’s 998R left off – drop dead gorgeous in the way only Italians do. And it’ll do 280km/h, so there’s performance to back up its good looks.
The bike steers quickly and is nimble, and yet, it’s also extremely stable during high-speed cornering – a difficult engineering feat, which Aprilia wizards have managed to pull off. Remember, Aprilia is not Honda, and the small Italian company doesn’t have the kind of top dollar research budgets which the Japanese giants have. If you find Japanese superbikes too common and can’t live with the Ducati 999’s styling, the RSV 1000R is what you need.
Power: 139bhp
0 to 100kph: 2.68 seconds
Top speed: 280kph
In a line: The other Italian job…
A video of an RSV 1000 being chased by an AC Cobra!
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