While more known for its race-purposed V-fours, Italian motorcycle maker might be expanding its sports bike range with the showing of the Aprilia RS 660 Concept at the EICMA show in Italy. The RS 660 was developed with close attention to aerodynamics, premium components and electronics as well as a new engine.
According to Aprilia, the RS 660 Concept is the result of research into aerodynamics including design cues taken from the racing world to produce a bike that is compact and fun to ride. The RS 660 is sculpted to optimise airflow and and produce differing levels of down force according to user needs.
For the chassis, lessons learned by Aprilia is translated into the RS 660 and results in a lightweight aluminium chassis and swingarm. This includes a special mount for the rear suspension that provides optimum response without use of any additional suspension linkage.
Motive power comes from a new two-cylinder engine displacing 660 cc that uses the 1,100 cc V-four mill as a basis, developed in-house by Aprilia. This engine configuration was chosen for being compact, efficient and with lower heat emission as well as giving Aprilia designers a free hand in developing the frame.
Looking toward the future, Aprilia says the RS 660 Concept will form the foundation of a range of middleweight sports machines. It hopes this lead to Aprilia becoming a major player in the motorcycle market not only in Europe, but also in America and Asia.
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Aprilia should have released entry level/middle weight sportsbike models years ago but somehow, the top bosses at Piaggio Group had chosen to forget about Aprilia’s strong history in this segment during the heydays of 2-stroke era (RS125 & RS250 models), and instead trying to catch Ducati in the prestige superbike/big bike segment. Only MV Agusta is at par with Ducati in terms of brand prestige, but lacking deep pockets to invest in new models & new technologies. Maybe Aprilia have finally realized what they have missed, as KTM already make in-roads especially in Asia with the KTM RC & Duke series, not to mention the huge success of Kawasaki’s & Yamaha’s middleweight parallel twin sportsbikes. Better late than never I guess!
Compact and cheap engine for inline 2. IMHO they should re-build 2 stroke engine rs250 (from RGV) put direct injection in the combustion chamber. This is compact, power and cheap.