The Erzbergrodeo billed as the toughest single-day motorcycle race on the planet – a name the race more than live up to…
The Irish budget airline Ryanair gained something of a reputation for being, shall we say, creative with the names of…
The 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show is just around the corner, and while the event is typically a four-wheeled affair, Honda…
In June, Yamaha officially took the wraps off the Yamaha MT-25 — the naked version of the Yamaha YZF-R25 sport bike. While that bike is destined for many markets abroad, it began the strong speculation as to whether Yamaha would punch-out an MT-03 for developed countries. Today we have that answer, as Yamaha Japan has listed the MT-03, with photos, on its website. Roughly 9lbs lighter than the Yamaha YZF-R3, and good for just over 41hp, there aren’t too many surprises with the new model, though small-displacement bike fans should be rejoicing. Perhaps the biggest news coming with the MT-03 is the speculation as to whether Yamaha USA will call will import the machine, a thus call it the FZ-03, keeping with America’s different naming convention for the brand’s popular budget-focused models.
The spy photographer who sent us these photos calls this mystery motorcycle a “Husqvarna 701 café racer” which honestly is as good of a guess as any when it comes to figuring out what the Swedish brand is doing with this machine, and its 2016 motorcycle lineup. Based off the KTM 690 Duke, as is the Husqvarna 701 Supermoto, this machine promises to have a 70hp thumper at its heart, mixed with a short seat-height, clip-on handlebars, underslung exhaust, and an attractive trellis swingarm. To our eye, the motorcycle in question looks like Husky’s take on the KTM 690 Duke – a naked street bike that’s equally at home in the city as it is in the twisties – more than it does a café racer.
It looks like KTM is getting ready to add another Duke to its street bike line, as spy photos of the above machine have broken cover. Said to be roughly 800cc in displacement, the new Duke would slot in well between the KTM 690 Duke and the KTM 1290 Super Duke R, which is a fairly obvious base to cover. What is interesting about the KTM 800 Duke (our name, not KTM’s) though is that at the heart of the machine is a parallel-twin engine, which breaks from KTM’s general affinity for single-cylinder thumpers, and v-twin monsters. Not much is known about the ~800cc Duke, though we can tell from the photos that it does not share an engine with the now defunct Husqvarna Nuda.