You wouldn’t know that the Aprilia Tuono V4 R even existed if you went to Aprilia’s USA website, though the fire sale of the older Tuono 1000 should at least raise an eyebrow. That being said, Aprilia USA is set to bring the new, as in debuted at EICMA last year, Aprilia Tuono V4 R to our American shores. Set to hit dealers in March 2012, Aprilia USA has at least gotten one thing right with the 2012 Aprilia Tuono V4 R, and priced the streetfightered RSV4 with $14,999 MSRP.
That puts the base model Aprilia Tuono V4 R a full $4,000 cheaper than the $18,995 MSRP 2012 Ducati Streetfighter S, and $2,000 more than the $12,995 MSRP Ducati Streetfighter 848. With that price point, Aprilia has aggressively positioned the Tuono V4 R against Ducati, its biggest competition in the performance-oriented street-naked segment. With 167hp on tap, there is plenty to get excited about with the Aprilia Tuono V4 R, and true to its ethos, the Tuono V4 R is basically a de-tuned Aprilia RSV4 R superbike without its fairings.
However like its superbike sibling, we predict that the Aprilia Tuono V4 R will still amount to another disappointment for the Noale brand in the American market. As one major motorcycle OEM CEO told us regarding the Aprilia RSV4 last year, the Aprilia was the best machine on the market for 2010, but flopped at the dealers compared to its competition — that’s not a product problem, that’s a marketing/business problem. With nary a mention of the 2012 Aprilia Tuono V4R on the Aprilia’s website here in the USA, we’d be inclined to agree with that CEO’s assessment.
Still, if given the chance we’d love to ride the new Tuono. With a Ducati Streetfighter 1098 already in this writer’s personal garage, I’d be very curious to see how Noale’s offering stacks up, especially if the APRC version, with its well-touted electronic rider aid package, showed up in our testing queue. Don’t worry though dear readers, Asphalt & Rubber doesn’t plan on changing its “we tell OEMs that send checks with bikes to fuck off” policy.
2011 2012 Aprilia Tuono V4 R Photos:
Source: MotorcycleUSA
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