Legendary name in motorcycle design Bimota of Italy – now 49.9% owned by Kawasaki – made a return to the news last year with a swingarm front steering bike based on the Kawasaki H2 hyperbike dubbed the Tesi H2. Now, Bimota has released two teaser photos on its social media page, blurry shots of a bike they call the KB4.
Following Bimota’s traditional naming nomenclature, the ‘K’ would stand for Kawasaki, while the ‘B’ is for Bimota and the ‘4’ would be the fourth design in a series. In this case, despite the blurred out teaser photos, it can be seen the engine takes the shape of an inline-four.
The front fairing seems also retro, with definite cafe racer lines and a housing for a round headlight upfront. However, the lines from the tank and onwards to the back resemble a modern sports bike.
No technical specifications were provided in Bimota’s social media post. What can be seen is the front suspension uses telescopic forks and not the swingarm steering from the Tesi.
Rumours in the European press has it the Bimota KB4 will use the inline-four, 1,043 cc mill from the Kawasaki Ninja 1000. At the back, the swingarm looks to be a cast and welded aluminium alloy unit.
For those Malaysian riders who know the name and the legend of Bimota and the genius of Massimo Tamburini, what do you think? It is time for the return of Bimota as purveyor of beautiful handling motorcycles?
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Sadly we will never see a Bimota with a Ducati or Suzuki engines in the future. Some of the greatest Bimotas are powered by those 2 marques.
I wanted a SB8 so badly before, but missed out on one. Hard to track down a Bimota here in Malaysia.
Bimota in fact did produced several Kawasaki-powered road racer replica back in the early 1980s (before switching to Ducati power briefly in 1985 in the shape of achingly beautiful dbr1). So it’s no surprise, this latest incarnation of Bimota retro racer is a fitting tribute to the Bimota-KB models back in 1980-1982..