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Walking around the halls of the 2011 EICMA show, I saw this concept for an MV Agusta tourer sitting in the Motociclismo booth, and wondered what was the story behind the bike. Luckily the internet has answers for such questions, and it turns out that the MV Agusta Tricruiser is the brainchild of students at Istituto Europeo di Design of Turin (IED).

Using the MV Agusta F3 as a starting point, the graduate students at IED set out to envision the next iteration in MV Agusta’s smaller-displacement platform. With the Italian company under tremendous pressure to become profitable, MV Agusta must increase its volume by a factor greater than 10x if it wants to see blank ink on its balance sheet.

Accordingly, the company from Varese has been making a bevy of variations of its F4-based models, showing three new Brutale street-nakeds at EICMA (Brutale 920, Brutale R 1090, & Brutale RR 1090) at ECIMA, along with two F4 superbikes (F4R & F4RR).

Slotting in a smaller-displacement and cheaper-price point model series that is based off a 675cc three-cylinder motor, MV Agusta also showed its F3 supersport and its corresponding Brutale 675 street-naked at EIMCA this year. While compelling pieces, MV Agusta will surely need more models in its arsenal if it wants to achieve its financial goals, and the next MV Agusta is heavily rumored to be a sport-touring/adventure model.

Students at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) of Turin had the opportunity to finish their studies by undertaking a thesis in transportation design that was done in collaboration with Ducati Motor Holdings. 10 students submitted 10 designs to Ducati, for a motorcycle that would enter new market segments and reach a younger demographic.

Five concept were then chosen, and made into 1:4 concepts, with the top concept then being picked and made into a full-size concept. Anchored in production reality, students had to keep an eye on the Ducati parts bin, and stay within the realms of practicability for the company (done with varying degrees of success).

With some very strong concepts coming from the collaboration, it seems almost a shame that Ducati could only pick one winner, but TWINS by Simone Buonpensiere and Daniele Mazzon (shown as the title graphic) was ultimately chosen. Mouthwatering delicious, we sincerely hope Ducati puts this dream into reality.