£40k special Brutale 1000 RR from MV Agusta celebrates firm’s 35 MotoGP wins at Dutch circuit
Of course, every MV Agusta is special. The cheapest bike the Varese firm makes is the gorgeous F3 R 800 supersports bike, which will set you back £16,900 at the time of posting. Expensive, even for a posh 800cc triple sportsbike – but you’d be able to get two of those for the price of this limited edition MV Agusta Brutale Assen edition.
Why Assen? Well, it’s very much ancient history now, but MV Agusta still has an incredible history of wins in motorcycle Grand Prix racing, during the pre-MotoGP era. The firm’s exotic four-stroke multi-cylinder racebikes snatched no less than 37 constructor’s titles, and, as an example of its dominance, its riders won the 500cc title 18 times in a row, from 1958 to 1974.
And, within that dominance was another dominance: Agusta won a lot of races at the Dutch GP circuit in Assen, where it’s won 35 GP races over the 74 years of world championship racing at the circuit. The last win was in the 350cc GP race in 1976, under Giacomo Agostini, before the Japanese two-strokes took over, but the firm is celebrating nonetheless.
It’s gone to town as well, starting off with the MV Agusta Brutale 1000 RR as a base. There’s little basic about it though: it’s the firm’s highest-spec hyper-naked, with a 208bhp inline-four engine, steel tube trellis frame with single-sided swingarm, electronic semi-active Öhlins suspension all round, and Brembo Stylema brakes.
It looks immense, with a brutal (yes!) hunched shape, short wheelbase, aggressive lines – like an American XL Bully dog in exotic motorcycle form.
Agusta’s taken that basic format, and added more style, more tech, and less mass. The biggest mod is the wheels, with a set of amazing Slovenian Rotobox carbon fibre rims replacing the forged aluminium Marchesinis on the stock RR.
The Rotobox rims, finished with a cool blue weave in the carbon fabric, save a massive amount of mass – nearly 3kg over the already lean forged rims – and will transform the handling of any bike.
The carbon rims match the carbon fibre bodywork around the exhaust, belly pan, headlight and side panels, and it’s rounded off with a special blue/silver paint job and hand-finished Alcantara seat.
In the box, you get a plush titanium Arrow race silencer, with a remapped race ECU to match, as well as a carbon pillion seat cover, CNC fuel cap and milled brake and clutch levers. The claimed dry weight in road trim is 183kg, with the race kit dropping that to 180kg – nice numbers to go with the claimed 212bhp once the Arrow pipe is fitted.
As we said at the start though, you pay for all this. Just 300 of the Assen edition Brutale RRs will be made by hand at the Varese factory, and while the price hasn’t been confirmed as we post, it’s sure to be hefty.
The basic Brutale 1000 RR has a list price of £32,000 – so you can easily add on four grand for the wheels alone (RRP for a set of single-sided rear Rotobox rims is currently around £4500), plus the posh paint and the Arrow pipe. Is it special enough to justify that price? We’ll leave that up to you…