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While still maintaining the product line’s general aesthetic from its previous generations, Zero Motorcycles has refined and polished its electric motorcycles for 2012. This is primarily due to the Zero’s limited amount of time to further develop its 2011 models for the 2012 model year (roughly nine months says the Californian company), but still Zero has been able to revise most of the Zero S’s components to warrant this year’s models to be visually and functionally set apart from its predecessors.

This bodes well for Zero Motorcycles, because bluntly, the startup has had extremely unrefined and unpolished motorcycles from its inception to the 2011 model year (if you heard otherwise from somewhere else, they were trying to sell you something). Walking up to the 2012 Zero S, it is immediately clear that the electric motorcycle has been touched by people who understand motorcycles. Gone are the on/off switches marked in Sharpie (I wish I was making this up), though you’d be hard-pressed to find top-shelf components on the Zero line. This makes for a mixed response regarding the bike, from a visual perspective.

Frog Design is better known for its work designing computer cases for Apple, but  in 1985 Frog Design’s Founder Hartmut Esslinger designed the Frog FZ750. A two-wheeled concept vehicle that was a Yamaha FZ750 underneath the skin, the Frog FZ750 actually helped give birth to the venerable Honda Hurricane.

Conceived just a few years after Frog Design opened its California office, the now iconic Frog FZ750 was a reaction to increasing pressure for safer motorcycles (the Yamaha FZ750 was outlawed in the Golden State at the time), and set the standard for a generation of motorcycle design to come.

Ducati has been hogging the news the past few weeks, thanks in large part to the debut of the most important motorcycle the Italian motorcycle manufacturer has ever released. With Ducati up for sale and being valued at €1 billion, the Ducati 1199 Panigale sets the record straight that Bologna has not strayed from its sport bike and racing heritage with the release of bikes like the Hypermotard, Multistrada 1200, and Diavel. With Ducati hosting the Panigale’s international press launch in Abu Dhabi at the Yas Marina Circuit (click here to let Ducati know that you wish A&R had been invited to this launch), the initial reports from the assembled press is that all the concerns about Ducati, its frameless chassis design, and its future can be laid to rest.

With a hybrid chain/gear-driven camshaft, titanium valves, a wet slipper clutch, a ride-by-wire throttle, rider-selectable “riding mode” system, and 15,000 mile major service intervals, the Superquadro v-twin motor alone is a major step for Ducati with its Superbike engine design. And, if you add in the first full-LED headlight on a produciton motorcycle, the first electronically-adjustable suspension on a sport bike, the first motorcycle engine braking control system, as well as the first GPS-assisted data acquisition system for a production motorcycle, the total package of the 1199 redefines the word “superbike” and takes the next logical technological step forward in this market segment…and we’ve got over 160 images of the Ducati 1199 Panigale waiting for you after the jump.

Teased, delayed, and dismayed, fans of the Empulse should be able finally to get their hands on the Brammo Empulse in 2012, as the Oregonian company has been busy finalizing the Empulse’s design and technical specifications for its street bike release. Rumored to incorporate the six-speed SMRE-designed integrated electric transmission (IET) found on the Brammo Engage and Brammo Encite, a video has cropped-up that shows a test mule Brammo Empulse with the IET gearbox fitted to it. Naturally one of the testing requirements is a fat parking lot burnout.

Tracing back to when Ducati made the SS line, Luca Bar has put pen to pad again, rendering a modern-day version of the Ducati Supersport. Envisioning a motorcycle based off Ducati’s popular Monster 1100 EVO platform, the Supersport would feature the same 1,078cc air-cooled two-valve v-twin motor of the Monster, which should provide plenty of power and take some design cues from the top-spec naked bike. Bar also points out that using the Monster as the basis for the Supersport could help keep costs down as well, and keep the MSRP close to the Monster 1100 EVO (we’d imagine pricing would have the SS as slightly pricier than the Monster).

Along with the “don’t call them spy shost” photos that Husqvarna released yesterday, the Swedish brand owned by a German company that’s based in Italy has also released a video that elaborates on the design of the new Husqvarna 900 street bike. As we’ve seen already from the concept sketches, and affirmed in the photos, the new street-going Husky is a super-sized supermotard that features BMW’s F800 series parallel twin motor, albeit slightly revised to 900cc. Find the design philosophy of the new Husqvarna 900 according to Head of Husqvarna Design Raffaele Zaccagnini after the jump.

Out of all of the industrial design firms that dabble in the motorcycle industry, it has to be the angularly inclined folks at Kiska who we admire the most. Responsible for more than their fair share of “Ready to Race” motorcycles and cars, the Austrian firm has brought us favorites like the KTM RC8 Superbike, KTM Crossbow track car, and the recently debuted KTM 125 Duke street bike.

Helping KTM spruce up its 2012 line of dirt machines, we’re digging the chrome on white color scheme…and we’re not even dirt bike guys. To describe the work in the words of Paris Hilton: “that’s hot” and you can check out more of the 2012 after the jump.

In case you haven’t notice, we really like the work of Luca Bar. The young Italian designer has an eye for motorcycles we like to own, so it seemed fitting that we show off one of Bar-Design’s older works, the Moto Morini Corsaro Veloce.

With the fabled Italian company set to go up on the auction block again this summer, we thought perhaps some inspiration from Maestro Bar would help pull some buyers out of the woodwork. At the very least, it’s an excuse to show off some more drool-worthy motorcycle eyecandy.

Tomorrow Asphalt & Rubber must make the trek down from perfect Northern California, to SoCal and the pits of Los Angeles, where dreams go to die. As we descend down through the lower rings of Dante’s ladder and into hell that is the perpetually sunny and warm Los Angeles, our final destination will in fact bring us face-to-face with The Devil himself. Riding the latest creation from Bologna, the American motorcycle press will get its first chance at the highly anticipated Ducati Diavel.

Since we’ll be bringing you live coverage from the event, and writing a few pieces on Ducati’s stab at the performance cruiser segment throughout the rest of the week, we thought it best to start with a primer on the motorcycle. Find after the jump the 2011 Ducati Diavel‘s technical specs, photographs, and design synthesis, and features.

There must be a new rule in the tourer market segment where “all new bikes” consist of minor revisions to existing machines, as Honda has apparently taken a page out of Harley-Davidson’s playbook, and done an exciting upgrade to the 2012 Honda Goldwing. While rumors were overly-hyped that an all-new Goldwing would be making an American appearance, it appears instead that the Honda engineers have gone on to further improve upon their design of the legendary touring motorcycle.

No longer built in America at Honda’s now defunct Marysville, Ohio plant, the Japanese produced 2012 Honda Goldwing comes with a slightly larger price tag, but boasts some improvements to justify the cost. Revamped bodywork, larger capacity luggage pieces, improved built-in GPS with iPod/MP3 player support, and revised suspension complete the changes for the new Goldwing. It’s hard to impress sport bike guys with a big bike like the Honda Goldwing, but if you’re interested in buying the gold standard (no pun intended) of motorcycle touring, things just got a bit more appealing we imagine.

This has to be the most impractical motorcycle ever conceived…but we absolutely have to have one. A mixture of the KTM Dakar 450 & KTM Freeride concept, and the Vyrus 987 C3 4V, this Frankenbike not only grabs our attention for its outrageous design, but for its handy work in Photoshop as well. You’d think with the combined forces of KTM‘s proven Dakar winner, Ducati’s stout 1198cc v-twin power plant, and Vyrus‘ hub-center steering chassis design, this would be the last word on all things two wheeled, but as its creator points out, that’s likely not to be the case.