It’s pretty hard to hide anything in the Information Age, including secretive plans for new vehicles. As it turns out, we’ve now seen photos which indicate a new Moto Guzzi sport tourer is en route, probably for release in coming weeks.
The photos come from Moto.it, an Italian publication that usually has its ear to the ground on this sort of thing. Indeed, after running an initial spy shot, Moto.it acquired a second set of spy snaps, which you can see here.
What do the photos show? What we seem to see is, a retro-styled sport tourer, with flowing one-piece bodywork, similar to something from an ’80s Yamaha Seca or similar. That could be hot, or not, depending on your perspective on the Decade Of Big Hair, and its bike stylings.
The engine itself seems to be a mutation of the V85 powerplant, which originally appeared in the V85TT adventure bike. That machine, too, was an homage to the ’80s, a knock-off of desert bike styling from the days of rally raid behemoths. All it’s missing is a big cigarette advert plastered to the side of the fairing!
The air/oil-cooled engine went on to power the latest-generation V7 retros as well. In those machines, it makes 65 horsepower at 6,800 rpm, and almost 54 pound-feet of torque at 5,000 rpm.
Presumably, Moto Guzzi would hot-rod the engine for a sport-tourer application. No doubt we’ll see similar tricks to what BMW used to do with its oilheads: Boost compression, add a bit of cylinder capacity, swap in some hotter cams, and suddenly you’ve got a transformed machine.
This appears to be a 100th-anniversary machine (remember, Moto Guzzi turns 100 this year!). With that in mind, expect to see it launched on or before this fall’s show circuit.
Those pictures look like an all new platform to me. Single sided swingarm on the left side and even looks to be a liquid cooled engine.