Cagiva-Ferrari Caught By Spy Camera

CAGIVA-FERRARI CAUGHT BY SPY CAMERA

ROUNDUP

THE CAGIVA-FERRARI 750, a high-performance, high-end, limited-production sportbike under development at the Ducati plant in Bologna, Italy, has been as much-rumored as the Loch Ness Monster, and as elusive as that fanciful beast.

But a brief moment on an Italian autostrada recently pulled aside the veil of secrecy on this motorcycle, which will be built by Cagiva/Ducati around an engine that owes its initial design to Ferrari.

The sighting of the bike was a pure accident, and occurred as the bike mixed with highway

traffic a stone’s throw from the Ducati plant-perhaps one of the test riders on his way home aboard a machine that at first look resembled a Ducati 888.

But details gleaned as the rider waited at a red light at the bottom of an off-ramp indicate something very different. Instead of Ducati’s single, rectangular headlight, this machine sports two round lamps. Its exhaust note gave away its powerplant as an inline-Four, which exhales into a 4-into-l exhaust system. Rumors indicate that the engine is electronically fuel-injected, is liquid-cooled, and uses four valves per cylin-

der arranged radially, with twin cams driven by chain up the centerline of the engine. The 750 engine, extremely narrow thanks to staggered cylinder bores, is said to produce 131 horsepower in street form, but with open exhausts and no air cleaner, on Cagiva’s dyno. Cagiva engineering major domo Massimo Bordi says 120 horsepower in fully street-legal form should result.

The bike is built around an aluminum twin-spar frame, instead of the tubular spaceframe associated with Ducati.

Cagiva’s business liaison with Ferrari dates to 1989, when the Ducati factory began assembling Ferrari V-Eight engines destined for use in the Lancia Thema sedan. Other

projects since then have included the carbon-fiber chassis for Cagiva’s C590 GP bike, and this machine.

Factory sources suggest that the plan to introduce the bike as an MV Agusta is far from certain. They indicate, however, that following the bike’s introduction next year as a 750-class machine, it also may be sold with a 920cc engine.

Alan Cathcart