Cool Rumors, Almost True

COOL RUMORS, ALMOST TRUE

AHUSQVARNA-POW ERED Ducati Single and Yamaha-powered Bimota Twin are set to debut later this year, if you believe reports in England’s Motor Cycle News.

Trouble is, neither rumor is true. Not completely, anyway. Here’s the real deal: Cagiva is indeed working on a Husqvarna-powered Single, but it uses the chassis from the 125cc Mito rather than the Ducati Supermono as MCN suggests, and will be badged as a Cagiva, not a Ducati. Furthermore, Cagiva is waiting for final development on a new 650cc electric-start engine before deciding w hether to launch a budget-priced, partsbin street Single to compete w ith the Italian-built Yamaha SZR660. Five Husky 610-powered prototypes-not to mention the factory-backed racer that won the Italian Sound of Singles title in 1994-have been built for evaluation and are presently running round the streets of Italy.

Meanwhile, Ducati management has decided to go ahead with development of a desmo street Single closely based on the Supermono, complete with fuel injection and drop-dead styling by Pierre Terblanche. There's a strong probability the new bike will be ready for the Cologne Show' in October, but given the fact that Ducati is planning to re-launch much of its twin-cylinder range, the Single’s debut could be postponed until ’97. As for the rumored Yamaha TRX850-powered Bimota YB12, a company executive says this

also is untrue. “I told the paper when they asked about this that we dropped all plans for such a bike several months ago,” he said. Bimota designer Pierluigi Marconi has long wanted to build a sportbike around Yamaha’s slant-block parallel-Twin, using a beefed-up version of the Bimota Supermono’s oval-section, alloy-tube chassis. Instead, it was decided by management that a sport standard like the Mantra would have more appeal, and that a Ducati engine would be most suitable for such a bike. (Marconi still plans to build a TRX-powered Mantra, but that’s another story.)

So when Bimota was approached by Over Racing boss Kensei Sato last year to discuss putting his acclaimed TDMengined OV15A into production at a more affordable cost than would be possible in Japan, the idea appealed to both parties.

But. sadly, it all came to naught: The cost of putting a limited batch of bikes into production was too high for Bimota’s tastes, and the project was shelved. The OV15A won’t be built in Italy, and the YB12 has still to be built. For now.

-Alan Cathcart