You'd Really Rather Have A V-Eight?

YOU’D REALLY RATHER HAVE A V-EIGHT?

THE ULTIMATE MOTORCYcle engine? That would have to be the V-Eight. So far, the best known and most successful of them has been the fabled Moto Guzzi 500cc GP racer of the mid 1950s. But if Giancarlo Morbidelli has his way, there soon will be another V-Eight-powered motorcycle, one with his own name on the gas tank.

Morbidelli’s dreambike, long talked about and now increasingly close to reality, will displace 848cc, with bore and stroke of 55.0mm x 44.6mm. Compression will be 10.5:1, and the engine will be fed by electronic fuel injection and have dual overhead cams operating 32 valves. Morbidelli says the engine easily will produce 100 horsepower and will rev safely to 10,500 rpm.

And, yes, the engine is tiny-less than 15 inches long, and about 17 inches wide.

Morbidelli, who in the early 1980s fielded a 500cc V-Four grand prix engine that failed to prove competitive, confirms that he will, with the help of Japanese financing, produce this motorcycle, complete with the shaft-drive system expected of refined Italian grand-touring bikes. No firm production schedule has yet been established, though Morbidelli is using some BMW components to speed testing programs.

Bruno de Prato