Zagato might not be a name with deep motorcycle associations but it’s one of the most famous names in car design. Now the Italian design house has been chosen to create a special MV Agusta model to be revealed next month.
Details of the bike are sketchy – both figuratively and literally. All that’s been revealed so far is a single image, and even that is just a computer-enhanced drawing. It appears to show the front end of a heavily faired, streamliner-style bike. There are no visible bars and the screen appears to arch right over the rider. That suggests it’s an all-enclosed design like a Peraves Monotracer or the Lit C1. Alternatively, only the front might be heavily enclosed, creating something more like the Akira bike of comic book fame.
There have also been suggestions that the image could be showing the rear of an all-enclosed bike, although this seems unlikely. The visible wheel looks too slim to be a rear, and the mudguard looks much more like a front fender.
The chances are that the Zagato design will be a concept bike rather than a real production machine. MV Agusta is already struggling financially and earlier this year asked Italian court for legal protection from its creditors. Whether the design will be a conventional, petrol-engined machine is also questionable – it could well turn out to be an electric bike.
The Zagato link doesn’t necessarily guarantee stunning good looks. The firm has been responsible for some amazing cars in the past. Classics like the Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato of the early 1960s. It’s also made some horrors, like the 1988 Nissan Autech Stelvio Zagato.
The firm has little or no heritage in motorcycle design. Previous attempts by car design houses to create two-wheelers have often been less than successful. Pininfarina’s Morbidelli V8 back in 1994 proved that the ability to design beautiful Ferrari’s was no guarantee of pretty motorcycles. It was redesigned in an attempt to improve interest. Similarly, the Giugiaro-styled Ducati 860GT and Suzuki RE5 were both swiftly redesigned after their launches in the mid-70s.
There’s just one hard fact given on the teaser image – a date. It reveals that we’ll find out more on the 4th September.
