Piaggio Vehicles, the grand daddy of the motoring world. The company that owns brands like Vespa, Aprilia, Moto Guzzi and multiple others is all set to take a serious step into the superbike segment in India. Currently only the Vespa brand sees local production, Aprilia and Moto Guzzi products are CBU imports. According to Piaggio India Chief Executive Officer Stefano Pelle the company is already at work testing and homoglating the products for India, basically a CKD operation. He goes on to add that the first results could be seen in the next few months depending on how long the different procedures take. Combine this with the news about the Moto Guzzi V7 range and the Aprilia Shiver 750 coming to India and we can piece the picture together easily.
It is about time that Piaggio took care of the Aprilia and Moto Guzzi brand in India. With all the motorcycles coming in as CBU’s, the after sales support was a tedious affair. Then of course was the lack of any PR activity to promote these brands. Local dealers had it upon themselves to do this. Coming back to the motorcycles, the Aprilia Shiver 750 seems to be a good starting point for the brand. The 750 cc 90° V-twin engine produces 95 HP at 9000 RPM and 81 Nm of torque at 7000 RPM, which translates into plenty of fun. Add to this, ride by wire, 3 riding modes and ABS, the Shiver 750 looks like a very good buy if priced right. Another motorcycle from the Aprilia stables that we could see is the Aprilia Dorsoduro 750. Based on the same engine with slightly different power figures; 92 HP at 8750 RPM and 82 Nm of Torque at an incredibly low 4500 RPM! It again has all the electronic wizardry the Shiver 750 comes with. Lets hope we see this move from Piaggio become a reality soon. We personally would love to see the Aprilia Dorsoduro 750 here, we earlier had tested out the Aprilia Dorsoduro 1200 and were absolutely smitten by it.
