+ Click to Enlarge THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL:The Benelli Novecento will be available in this very loud orange.

September 12, 2002
By Dave Abrahams

Benelli's new Tornado Novecento (the name means "nine hundred" in Italian) will be officially unveiled at the Intermot bike show in Munich next week – here's a preview of what visitors to the show will see.

Benelli, of course, won everlasting fame - or is that notoriety? – in the 1970s as the producers of the world's first mass-production six-cylinder street bike as well as an almost unbearably cute four-cylinder 250 that was as slow as it was stylish.

Not many were sold and today they are collector's items.

The new bike is not intended to replace the existing, completely hand-built, Tornado LE (Limited Edition – what else?) but as a more affordable companion model.

It will do without some of the really extravagant features of the LE but retains the magnificent 898cc three-cylinder motor without any detuning, giving a claimed 105kW at 11500rpm and 100Nm of torque at 8500.

The only significant change to the motor is the adoption of a conventional wet clutch in pace of the LE's race-style dry clutch. Oil-bath clutches are heavier but they are more user-friendly (read less grabby!), quieter, often more durable and certainly a lot cheaper.

The bike's most radical feature is also unchanged: the radiator is tucked away under the saddle and two electric fans in ray gun-like ducts under the tail-section force cooling air is through it.

The bike looks really strange from behind but the architecture of the cooling system has made possible a really slim fairing and a considerable reduction in frontal area.

Chassis and running gear

The adjustable headstock on the frame has been deleted, although the chassis still features mixed construction, with the main frame fabricated from tubular steel and the revised rear sub-frame in cast, hollow-section light alloy. The rear seat and tail-piece have been slightly reshaped to make the pillion accommodation more comfortable and are now 10mm lower than on the earlier bike.

This has lowered the centre of gravity but, at 800mm, the saddle is still high by modern sports bike standards.

The race-tuned Ohlins suspension at both ends of the LE gives way to fully adjustable Marzocchi inverted forks and an Extreme Tech tuneable monoshock at the back. This is undoubtedly the source of the major part of the cost savings over the LE since a pair of 41mm Ohlins TiN-coated upside-downies costs about the same as a 750cc sports bike.

The Brembo brakes remain, though, which makes sense. They are world-class equipment and the top-of the range Nissin brakes which are the only comparable alternative are more expensive. The ultra-lightweight Marchesini wheels, however, have been replaced by similar-looking hoops made by Benelli itself.

The all-carbon fibre bodywork has been replaced with conventional plastic panels - a little heaver but vastly more cost-effective and easier to maintain. The shape is very little different, retaining the trademark slim silhouette of the Tornado LE, and Benelli says the bike will be available in three colours, one of which is the very loud orange you see above.

Nobody's saying what the other two are, although an educated guess would be either red or yellow.

The Novecento weighs 198kg, significantly up on the 185kg dry weight of the fancier version; most of that is in the wheels, body panels and radiator shrouding.

Benny Eisenberg of South African Benelli distributors Motovelo told IOL that he has been promised a shipment of Tornado Novecentos by the end of the year and that they will retail at about R190 000, which is at least comparable to other exotics on the local market.

If you really insist on all the bells and whistles, however, there is exactly one more unsold LE allocated to South Africa – at an eye-watering R420 000.

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SLINKY CHASSIS: Benelli's compact 898cc triple ... with its clothes off.