Here’s some EV news for yah: Brammo has announced a guaranteed trade-in program for its electric motorcycle offerings, which basically says that if you buy a new Brammo motorcycle between now and the end of September 2013, the Ashland, Oregon company will guarantee that bike’s trade-in price (for another Brammo motorcycle of course) to be at the original MSRP for the next 12 months.
Just the other day we were wondering what was going on with Horex, as we haven’t heard from the German brand in nearly nine months. Finally shipping its first bike, the Horex VR6 Roadster, Horex has now announced a second model that is geared more towards mass consumption, the Horex VR6 Classic.
A re-styled, and apparently de-tuned version of the Roadster model, from what we can gather from Horex’s press release, the big changes for the Classic are its new aesthetic and reworked motor, which produces 124hp compared to the roadster’s 161hp peak figure.
MV Agusta may have its line of “affordable” three-cylinder machines, but the Italian company continues to produce exclusive and exquisite four-cylinders as well, and today is no different.
Debuting the 2013 MV Agusta Brutale Corsa, the company from Varese, Italy has updated its 156 hp (116.5 kW) 1,078cc four-cylinder naked bike, and added a host of add-ons…along with a higher price tag.
Adopting a liquid-cooled 1170cc boxer engine for its next generation adventure-touring bike, BMW Motorrad is hoping to continue the magic with the 2013 BMW R1200GS, and has finally release North American pricing on the newest GS: $15,800 base.
Of course, BMW Motorrad’s package pricing game is well at hand here, and several trim levels and feature packages are available on the new R1200GS. We break them down for you after the jump, but as you can expect, you have to pay a princely sum to get a machine from zie Germans with all the bells and whistles.
After a tumultuous bankruptcy, Moto Morini is alive an kicking in 2013, albeit with a very familiar model lineup. Touching some new paint to its models, and adding some “human components” accessory pieces, Moto Morini has created three special offerings so far for the new year.
Calling its new pieces the 2013 Moto Morini Scrambler 1200 Military Green, 2013 Moto Morini Scrambler 1200 White Queen, and 2013 Moto Morini Granpasso 1200 Travel Yellow, Moto Morini is obviously trying to move some bikes and clear out its inventory with some factory specials.
While you will either love or hate what Moto Morini has going on with the aesthetics of its Scrambler and Granpasso bikes, the bevy of free gear (both for the bike and the rider), along with the new lower price points (€12,500 for the Granpasso and €10,900 for the Scramblers), are two points that are certainly going to be attractive to would-be owners.
Will the fresh paint and low prices help get Moto Morini back in black? Only time will tell. However, leave a note in the comments if you think the Italian brand should bring its wares across the pond.
Continuing to blur the lines between established motorcycle segments, Honda has teased out another pair of unique motorcycles, which will formally go-down as 2014 model year machines. Available in Spring 2013. The 2014 Honda CTX700 & 2014 Honda CTX700N use the same 670cc parallel-twin engine found in the NC700 series, which was an engine designed to be a sensible and practical urban power plant for city bikers.
Building something that looks the cross between a street-standard and a cruiser, Honda is offering ABS brakes and an automatic dual-clutch transmission (DCT) as an available $1,000 option. The hope is clearly that the Honda CTX700N & Honda CTX700 will be an approachable and affordable motorcycle for new motorcyclists, and with prices at $6,999 & $7,799 respectively ($7,999 & $8,799 with DCT and ABS), Honda seems to have achieved that goal.
Numbers are tough, and depending on where you leave a digit off, they can mean very different things. Such is the case with the price we reported on the Ducati 1199 Panigale RS13.
Available only to professional race teams for €134,900, and not €34,900 (Seriously, you people need to stop calling Ducati Corse thinking you can buy one — that’s just cray), the RS13 is the building block bike that you’ll see racing in superbike classes around the world, but most notably in WSBK with Carlos Checa onboard.
So again the take-home message here is you can’t buy the RS13, you probably can’t afford it, and don’t trust everything you read on the internet. Mea culpa.
The production racer version of Honda’s RC213V is another step closer to reality. At Sepang, HRC Vice President Shuhei Nakamoto spoke to reporters and the MotoGP.com website about the new bike, and the progress being made on the machine, which will take the place of the CRT machines from 2014 onwards. The bike is delayed, Nakamoto said, but it will be ready in time for the tests at Valencia, after the final race of the season in November.
Nakamoto gave a brief rundown of the specifications of the production RC213V – a bike which, given the amount of publicity it is going to be generating over the next few months, badly needs a new name – though the list contained few surprises.
The bike will have conventional valve springs, as opposed to pneumatic valves on the factory machine. It will not have the seamless gearbox used by the prototypes – again, not a surprise, as maintenance on the gearbox is still an HRC-only affair. This was not a matter of cost, Nakamoto said, claiming the seamless gearbox now costs almost the same as a standard unit.
We already told you that Aprilia USA was getting very aggressive with its pricing on the leftover 2012 stock, and now that the Italian brand has released its 2013 price list, we can see that the trend continues on. Adding ABS to its RSV4 sport bikes for 2013, Aprilia has drastically undercut its main rival Ducati on pricing with the 2013 Aprilia RSV4 Factory APRC ABS (previously known as the Aprilia RSV4 Factory APRC ABS SBK), which is $3,000 cheaper than the similarly spec’d Ducati 1199 Panigale S.
Additionally the 2013 Aprilia RSV4 R ABS gets an aggressive MSRP of $14,999, which puts it also $3,000 under the base-model $17,995 Ducati 1199 Panigale, and into a price category that was previously only open to the Japanese OEMs (though recently joined by BMW). At only $500 more than say a 2013 Yamaha YZF-R1, Aprilia is going to make some price-sensitive sport bike buyers think twice about their purchases. We like it.
Aprilia is getting serious with its sport bike offerings here in the United States, as we just got an email from Aprilia USA announcing massive price reductions on its 2012 model year Aprilia Tuono V4 R, Aprilia RSV4 R APRC, and Aprilia RSV4 Factory APRC, to the tune of $2,000, $3,000, and $4,000 respectively. That’s right, you can get a Tuono V4 R for $12,999, an RSV4 R APRC for $13,999, and an RSV4 Factory APRC for $18,999 MSRP. Boom goes the dynamite.
Correction: The article originally stated that the price for the RS13 was €34,900, when it is in fact €134,900. And for the love of god, don’t call Ducati Corse trying to buy one. They won’t sell a Rs13 to you.
Unless your name rhymes with Tarlos Techa, the chances of you owning a Ducati 1199 Panigale RS13 are non-existent. The professional racer-only version of the Ducati 1199 Panigale R, the Panigale RS13 is stripped of all the lights, mirrors, reflectors, and other assorted running gear that you would need to pass an inspection from the DOT, and becomes a motorcycle solely dedicated to the art of going fast.
Before any comparisons are made, it is important to note that the Ducati 1199 Panigale RS13 is not exactly what ends up on the starting grid on any given Sunday, but instead is the starting point for each racing team’s development program, which sees the end result often being a 200+ hp monster on two wheels.
Getting one isn’t cheap though, as the price tag is pegged at a cool €134,900 ($180,500). A hefty price increase over the street-going Panigale R, though with all the added suspension, brakes, wheels, etc that come with the RS13 race bike, the price seems somewhat reasonable — if you can say such a thing about a nearly $180,500 motorcycle.