The All-New Italian.
Actually, that's a lie for a start. Aprilia go back quite a long way. Only recently have their efforts been recognised as they started to make and sell a reasonable range of bikes and scooters. The Aprilia HQ in Noale (north east Veneto, Italy) is only about 12 miles from Venice. For those that haven't been Italy is a beautiful place and the Venice area is no exception. With all this natural lovliness for the eye to feast on (and of course the Italian temprement) it's no wonder the Italians can produce great designs.
Aprilia was orginally a bicycle repair shop that branched out into making bicycles and mopeds. Ivano Beggio (the son of the bicycle repair man (306b?) and current owner of Aprilia) joined his father to work in the shop and built his first motorcycle when he was 16. His second came at 18, he took over the business at 20 (by this time the Aprilia name has been adopted, from the Lancia car of the '50s), and when he was 21 (1965) the racing started. A small workshop was opened to make race bikes and the whole shebang went racing. Taking the championship in off-road racing in their second year the company boomed. It lost the bicycle section and a few others that had started up along the way (aprilia furniture and eyewear anyone?), and towards the late eighties took up road racing and scooter production. With a string of championships in 125s and 250s Aprilia made a name for themselves and those that rode them. Perhaps the most famous at the moment is Valentino Rossi who rode both Aprilia's 125 and 250 GP bikes to win both championships.
These days Aprilia make a wide range of PTWs. Most notably (notoriously?) are the two-strokes - 50cc, 125cc and the 250cc RS-es are road going versions of the GP bikes. At the other end of the scale is the Mille - a v-twin monster to rival Ducati's 996. The Mille shares its engine with a few bikes in Aprilia's lineup, but if it ain't broke... There are bikes between these extremes of engine capacity but I won't list them here - check Aprilia's website (www.aprilia.com) for yourself.
After owning an Aprilia, I was left with an impression of a company that cares about its end product. I was sorry to see that bike go. The finish was excellent and only the odd thing or two went wrong. When they did the dealers were only to happy to sort the problems under the excellent three year warranty. Aprilia seem to have a lot going for them - especially as the big question over reliability seems to have been answered most favourably.
