New off road bikes

[jon]

I was a bit surprised to see that Bimota are releasing a 300cc 2-stroke off roader and using their own engine. I also saw some pictures of the new Ossa 250 and 300 2-stroke enduro models which seem very innovative.

 

[MastaMax]

Never heard of this brand before (Bimota). They look nice, any idea on the price?

2stroke 300cc model:

4stroke model:

Edit: Was pretty enthusiastic at first, but I read the post too fast, it's very probably not for the Thai market...

 

[FrankT]

Bimota is Italian and has been around for many years, they started with building frames for Jap bikes as the early Jap bikes had great engines but lousy frames.
The 'ta' at the end of Bimota stands for Tamborini, the famous designer who later went to Ducati and designed the 916 amongst others.
He left when Ducati was sold to investment bankers and moved to MV Agusta to design the F4, so this guy knows how to design nice things...
Both Ducati and MV Agusta are now part again of the Cagiva group.

 

[Hassman]

Correction there mate, Ducati is not owned by the Cagiva group, MV Agusta was bought by Harley Davidson about 3 years ago but I think the flogged it off again a year ago as the economy took a hit, not sure if it was sold to Cagiva.

On another note; Aprilia has been owned by Piaggio for years and Benelli was sold to a Chinese company about 7-8 years ago.

Sad really.....

 

[FrankT]

I stand corrected, you are right, this is what happened with Ducti (from Wikipedia):
In 1996, Texas Pacific Group bought a 51% stake in the company for US$325 million; then, in 1998, bought most of the remaining 49% to become the sole owner of Ducati. In 1999, TPG issued an IPO of Ducati stock and renamed the company Ducati Motor Holding SpA. TPG sold over 65% of its shares in Ducati, leaving TPG the majority shareholder. In December 2005, Ducati returned to Italian ownership with the sale of Texas Pacific's stake (minus one share) to Investindustrial Holdings, the investment fund of Carlo and Andrea Bonomi.

And this is the latest on MV Agusta, again from Wikipedia:

In July 2007 MV Agusta Motor S.p.A, sold the Husqvarna motorcycle brand to BMW for an undisclosed amount.[3] According to MV Agusta president Claudio Castiglioni, the sale was a strategic step to concentrate all of the company's resources in order to expand MV Agusta and Cagiva presence in the international markets having more financial resources for new model development.[3]

Following years of stalled ownership, the Guggenheim's "Art of the Motorcycle" icon, the F4 model, was ready for a refresh, but the financial status of the company did not allow it. On July 11, 2008, Harley-Davidson announced they had signed a definitive agreement to acquire the MV Agusta Group for US$109 million (€70m),[4][5] completing the acquisition on August 8, 2008.[6]

On October 15, 2009, Harley-Davidson announced that it would divest its interest in MV Agusta;[7] on August 6, 2010, Harley-Davidson announced that it had concluded the sale of MV Agusta to Claudio Castiglioni and his wholly owned holding company, MV Agusta Motor Holding, S.r.l.

MV Agusta announced that for the first three months of 2010 bike sales increased by 50%.[8]